A while ago in November, it seems I missed a post from a user in the GamingOnLinux Discord server, noting that the Discord developers finally hooked up screen and audio sharing for Linux with Wayland.
Not yet released though, it seems it's only currently available in Discord Canary, their public testing environment, but anyone can download it and try it out. On the stable client, it just mentions that "Sounds may not be available when sharing a screen on your device", but when you use the Discord Canary client you'll actually see the tickbox to share audio on Linux now too:
Testing it with a couple community members myself using Discord Canary earlier today and — yep, it works perfectly. They could see my shared window and the audio playing from it. Excellent.
Once it's out in the proper stable Discord client, you and friends will be able to sit and chat with screens (or specific windows) and audio being shared properly on Wayland. Nice. I imagine there's many scenarios where this would be useful, and it's a feature many Linux users have been pestering Discord to sort for a while now with a suggestion on it open for 4 years.
No word on when it will be in the stable release yet though.
You can test it via the experimental Canary client from Flathub using these commands (taken from the GitHub):
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub-beta com.discordapp.DiscordCanary
flatpak override --user --socket=wayland com.discordapp.DiscordCanary
flatpak run com.discordapp.DiscordCanary
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
I wonder if this will be enough to pull me away from the feature set Vesktop has. Like, even if they do this, I merely gain push to talk support in chat (I have already gotten used to setting the vocal capture threshold at specific places) but their app is less optimized and I lose plugin functionality like youtube embed fixes, translation, game activity toggle, OpenInApp, reverse image search, WhoReacted, etc.
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Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: PyrateStill can't believe there's no proper privacy friendly alternative to Discord. Matrix/Element is the closest I found but even that one is not there yet.Every time I tried Matrix, I found it to be pretty horribly designed. Their mod tools were rubbish, and their multi-room system was ridiculously bad that just strung multiple standalone rooms under a special heading and that was seemingly all it really did. Discord at least generally works well at its job.
I've converted my closes 13 or so friends to using Element/Matrix BUT only as a generic 1-to-1 and 1-to-many messaging replacement.
Discord is less about simple messaging and more about a community (or plural). Slack is similar, but instead of a casual vibe, they're going for that professional market. I guess Rocket.Chat is somewhat of a FLO (free/libre/open) replacement for the latter.
It feels as if some (devs) want Element/Matrix to be a Discord replacement and some want it to be a generic messaging app (replacement for Telegram, Signal, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Line, etc).
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This is why I was using Vesktop instead of the official client. Nice to see it get fixed
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rustigsmed a day ago
no nvidia hardware acceleration?
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This is a big deal for me, I can't wait to try it- this is THE reason I maintain a windows installation.
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hardpenguin a day ago
Good thing I stuck with X, I use Discord screen sharing on a regular basis for work.
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Quoting: PyrateStill can't believe there's no proper privacy friendly alternative to Discord. Matrix/Element is the closest I found but even that one is not there yet. You'd think with the amount of devs and nerds out there, there'd be an open source alternative already, especially considering Discord is an absolute privacy nightmare. But instead they all just use Discord. It's the only invasive service I couldn't find a replacement for yet.
Speaking of, I just tried Steam's voice chat service for the first time ever on my Deck to chat with a friend... and it was immediately better than Discord's VC (audio quality, latency, stability). Steam even has a similar rooms structure where you can create text and voice channels akin to a Discord server. Unfortunately it's missing the crucial function of screensharing, this is something me and friends use a lot on Discord, so there's no chance in hell they'd consider switching over with that not implemented. I reckon after Valve is done focusing on Game Recording, that they should revisit and improve their chatting system, it has a lot of potential, especially considering the competition is just one shitty company that literally breaks GDPR by refusing to completely remove your data when you delete your account.
The problem with messaging apps is that they're useless without the user base. I might be willing to switch to a more private alternative, but the general user and really all of my friends couldn't care less and they have no reason to switch when they're happy with what they're using now.
I guess Steam has a unique position that would allow it to compete with Discord if they wanted to. In fact, I reckon the reason why Discord is as popular as it is now is because Steam's tools for messaging have historically been kind of ass and Discord filled the void. It would still be very difficult for Steam but at least doable compared to some open source alternative that's dead on arrival.
Last edited by LungDrago on 3 December 2024 at 11:38 am UTC
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Quoting: LungDragoThe problem with messaging apps is that they're useless without the user base. I might be willing to switch to a more private alternative, but the general user and really all of my friends couldn't care less and they have no reason to switch when they're happy with what they're using now.
I get what you mean, and I agree when it comes to purely messaging apps, it took me the course of a year to sucessfully move the people I care about to use Signal. People are just brainlessly married to their trendy apps and services for some reason. I blame social norms for this, if you don't use WhatsApp then you must be a maniac, to give another example.
But I don't believe this applies to Discord, I think the only reason Discord is in the position its in is literally because it's the only one of its kind, like there's no serious competition from anyone at all. Also, I don't think users are actually happy with Discord now, I can list a lot of drawbacks off the top of my head, it's just what people know and are used to.
Quoting: LungDragoI guess Steam has a unique position that would allow it to compete with Discord if they wanted to. In fact, I reckon the reason why Discord is as popular as it is now is because Steam's tools for messaging have historically been kind of ass and Discord filled the void. It would still be very difficult for Steam but at least doable compared to some open source alternative that's dead on arrival.
I really believe Steam has the potential to become the better "game chat" service, I mean most of the functionality is there already, even the screensharing part I mentioned in my first comment is already a thing with Steam broadcasting, it's just not integrated with the chatting part of Steam. So I think it's actually trivial for Valve to make their chatting service a real alernative to Discord. If that were to happen, then at that point, if my friends would still want to stick to a shitty service that requires monthly subscription to be remotely not inconsistent, while the free alternative is better and is already included in the game store they already use, then I don't know what will convince them otherwise. I might be a doctor but I can't treat brain rot.
Last edited by Pyrate on 3 December 2024 at 12:03 pm UTC
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Quoting: StellaThis is why I was using Vesktop instead of the official client. Nice to see it get fixed
I use a Discord alternative sometimes as well for chatting, but only official discord has PTT so far. PTT is a must-have for me.
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Quoting: wytrabbitI'm afraid I don't really understand, what is PTT? I googled and found only a medical conditionQuoting: StellaThis is why I was using Vesktop instead of the official client. Nice to see it get fixed
I use a Discord alternative sometimes as well for chatting, but only official discord has PTT so far. PTT is a must-have for me.
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