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Discord Overlay for Linux adds PulseAudio / PipeWire integration

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Last updated: 9 Apr 2024 at 11:34 am UTC

Discover Overlay, an open source Discord Overlay for Linux has a new release available with v0.7.3 adding in some useful new features.

What does it do? It enables you to have a HUD on your screen to show who is currently talking in a voice channel, or to show text and images from a selected channel with plenty of customizations. Made due to shortcomings in the official Discord Linux version.

Recently two new releases were put up with v0.7.2:

  • Added option to fade out voice chat while inactive.
  • Fixed reload of all user avatars when changing transparency.
  • Fixed crash where there is no X11 window under Gtk Window.

Plus v0.7.3:

  • Added pipewire/pulse integration:
    • If you mute mic, Discord will show you as muted.
    • If you mute output, Discord will show you as deafened.
  • Added controls to Configuration window:
    • Up/Down/Left/Right to move element.
    • Space to select element.
    • Escape to unselect element.
    • While an element is selected Up/Down/Left/Right to change value.
  • Moved Voice advanced options to another tab.
  • New French translations from @Bqleine.

See more on the GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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14 comments Subscribe

dziadulewicz 8 Apr 2024
Discord users will start to see ads soon in this app. If not already.

Too bad a closed source proprietary app like this took the spot back in the day. Now it's all this and more to come.
Ehvis 8 Apr 2024
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Discord users will start to see ads soon in this app. If not already.

Too bad a closed source proprietary app like this took the spot back in the day. Now it's all this and more to come.

Worrying. Good thing I have it running isolated from the rest. Adding some host based ad blocking should not be too difficult.
Kithop 8 Apr 2024
Still wish there was a viable, self-hostable, FLOSS alternative that covered enough of Discord's feature set to convince people to switch.

Mumble has great audio, but a very dated UX and nowhere near the rich text chat support, nor game streaming.

Element / Matrix seems promising, but they're wholly uninterested in being that competitor, considering how long people have been asking for simple drop in/out persistent voice channels (literally 4+ years I think, last I checked, which was admittedly a year+ ago at this point) where you can see who's already in or not at a glance, and the company behind it focuses on chasing contracts with police forces instead .

IRC of course strips it all back to text chat.

Everyone else seems to be chasing Slack and business use cases primarily.

Yeah, I can spin up my Owncast instance, hook OBS up to it, give my friends a link and then try to juggle both the VoIP call and the persistent rich text chat with other apps. While I'm fine going that route, there's intense friction getting the average Windows gamer to participate and leave the Discord bubble.
iod 8 Apr 2024
Still wish there was a viable, self-hostable, FLOSS alternative that covered enough of Discord's feature set to convince people to switch.
Have you tried Revolt chat? I believe they focus on Discord features
Kithop 8 Apr 2024
Still wish there was a viable, self-hostable, FLOSS alternative that covered enough of Discord's feature set to convince people to switch.
Have you tried Revolt chat? I believe they focus on Discord features

I wasn't aware they had a self-host option, even if it's a bit buried off their main page. (https://github.com/revoltchat/self-hosted )

Definitely interesting and I'll be happy to look closer, but am I just dumb and not able to find a basic 'features' page? Like, I can tell from their front page it has text chat, and mayyyybe voice is implied?
Kithop 8 Apr 2024
Oh, nevermind - they're actually actively antagonistic towards self-hosting, even if 'technically' supported.

I *could* set up my own private instance for friends, but without a federation protocol this feels kind of half-baked, unfortunately. FLOSS alternatives are great, but I don't trust anyone that wants to lump all users onto some big centralized cloud infrastructure. We have enough problems with that in the Fediverse with big instances like mastodon.social.
shimmy 8 Apr 2024
The overlay is great, expect one issue that stops me from using it: it doesn't work with VRR enabled in full screen games.
So yeah, once this is on, the experience is quite horrific.
iod 8 Apr 2024
Oh, nevermind - they're actually actively antagonistic towards self-hosting, even if 'technically' supported.

I *could* set up my own private instance for friends, but without a federation protocol this feels kind of half-baked, unfortunately. FLOSS alternatives are great, but I don't trust anyone that wants to lump all users onto some big centralized cloud infrastructure. We have enough problems with that in the Fediverse with big instances like mastodon.social.

Yeah agreed that it's still a bit underbaked and could use a lot more users to stress test it like Discord to iron out bugs and everything.

There was some discussion a while back regarding federation, i believe they're not totally against it, just that they're focusing on other features first. My hope is it will happen in the future.
nenoro 8 Apr 2024
I'm waiting for OBS to be compatible with pipewire then i can get rid of pulseaudio
whizse 8 Apr 2024
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Boooo. They're addressing Linux issues.
Can't be that much of a surprise? I mean it is a Discord overlay specifically for Linux?
Kithop 8 Apr 2024
I'm waiting for OBS to be compatible with pipewire then i can get rid of pulseaudio

It... Already is? Or at least, you may need the Pipewire Pulseaudio compatible module and maybe the appropriate xdg-portal package(s) but OBS works great with Pipewire now.
logge 8 Apr 2024
Yo, then it also stops working on Firefox on a desktop as it did on my phone? I mean, just to run as a higher-privileged elf than on a sandboxed Webbrowser.


Last edited by logge on 8 Apr 2024 at 7:40 pm UTC
TheRiddick 9 Apr 2024
Still need a hookup for setting globally activatable shortcuts so say you can use PushToTalk WHILE playing a fullscreen game and not requiring minimizing and moving focus to Discord.

On top of this they need to bake in a proper fix for app/game fullscreen/window sharing WITH audio. There are workarounds but nothing is better then baked in functionality for WAYLAND.

I do know that Global shortcuts may not be fully supported under Wayland, I dunno its progress.
JordanPlayz158 25 Apr 2024
Still wish there was a viable, self-hostable, FLOSS alternative that covered enough of Discord's feature set to convince people to switch.

Mumble has great audio, but a very dated UX and nowhere near the rich text chat support, nor game streaming.

Element / Matrix seems promising, but they're wholly uninterested in being that competitor, considering how long people have been asking for simple drop in/out persistent voice channels (literally 4+ years I think, last I checked, which was admittedly a year+ ago at this point) where you can see who's already in or not at a glance, and the company behind it focuses on chasing contracts with police forces instead .

IRC of course strips it all back to text chat.

Everyone else seems to be chasing Slack and business use cases primarily.

Yeah, I can spin up my Owncast instance, hook OBS up to it, give my friends a link and then try to juggle both the VoIP call and the persistent rich text chat with other apps. While I'm fine going that route, there's intense friction getting the average Windows gamer to participate and leave the Discord bubble.
Yeah I love Mumble when I found out about it, still stuck on discord though. Would probably (in an ideal world) use Matrix + Mumble but there is Spacebar which might be what you want when it releases.
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