KDE XWayland Video Bridge Aims To Improve Linux Desktop Screen Sharing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: KDE XWayland Video Bridge Aims To Improve Linux Desktop Screen Sharing

KDE developers David Edmundson and Alex Poi have begun working on XWaylandVideoBridge as a new project to help improve Linux desktop screen sharing for X11-based applications that may try to share the contents of Wayland screens, such as could be the case for some software like Discord, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and others...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-XWaylandVideoBridge

[Danny3]

I think they should make an option for the non-interactive uses cases too, like for VNC servers, let's say X11VNC where it's clear that you are not at the computer that you are trying to see the screen and control.

[bple2137]

That's super cool, but it feels like it should happen like 5 years ago, because now it's not problem with most apps anymore (I'm aware some of them don't enable it by default, others are simply very old versions of Electron that don't support WebRTC over PipeWire). I'd like to see more push towards native support, especially that it's pretty darn close to be well supported in general. Solutions like that one can also encourage 3rd party developers to keep ignoring the platform even more. Yeah yeah, I get the rationale, but at this point it feels like it shouldn't be necessary.

[Arthus]

Danny3 No, when you want to remotely control a PC, you should use a native method. For wlroots based compositors that would be wayvnc

https://github.com/any1/wayvnc

Gnome, KDE etc might not have such a tool yet (maybe waypipe might work, but I don't know) but instead of creating compatibility tools I would much prefer native remote desktop implemenations.

As the devs of the compositors cant change the client applications as much, the need for some layer like XWaylandVideoBridge is obviously much larger.

[JacekJagosz]

Danny3 No, when you want to remotely control a PC, you should use a native method.

That is the problem. There isn't one. Because a native Wayland VNC server needs to be compositor specific even thought there is wayvnc it only works on Sway.
KDE has a desktop sharing server, KRFB, but it has been broken for a really long time for not just me: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=451086
I hope at one point we will get a desktop-agnostic screensharing solution, or at least KDE and Gnome will get their own app working enough.

[ripper81]

Great news and thumbs up to the developers. However i dont understand why this is needed. As far as i am concerned there is no excuse for apps like Discord,MS Teams or Zoom for not delivering proper pipewire support nowadays.

Wayland is becomming the default on more and more distributions, it is now even enabled on Ubuntu LTS as long as opensource gpu drivers are used.

Theese are commercial services that allow for paid subscribtions. If i pay for a service on a supported OS basic features like screensharing should work no matter if i use X.Org or Wayland.

[JacekJagosz]

And as for KDE XWayland Video Bridge it is great they are working on it. So far I worked around it by using Teams and Discord in Firefox, which mostly worked but both apps have their limitations in the web version. The best solutions would be for all those electron apps to update their base and enable Wayland, but cool they are working on a workaround, which will be especially useful for newer users.

[Leinad]

Teams has no desktop application for Linux. It had in past, but that was discontinued four months ago and replaced by PWA (Chrome web application)

[oiaohm]

Theese are commercial services that allow for paid subscribtions. If i pay for a service on a supported OS basic features like screensharing should work no matter if i use X.Org or Wayland.

Even under MS windows screen sharing by default does not absolutely work no matter what.

https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/screenshot-uac-prompt-windows-10/

Yes it easy to forgot "User Access Control (UAC) prompt" under MS windows is not by default screen-shareable by normal applications with a normal Windows configuration.

One of the defects of baremetal x.org X11 is that screen sharing works no matter what in default configuration.

It a issue that is simple to miss. When you pay for a service do you want to by mistake post critical personal details. xdg-desktop-portal were you as user selects what windows appear really reduces your risk of oops I posted something I was not wanting to.

I am not saying XWayland Video Bridge does not need to exist because it absolutely need to. But we do need to be aware that people using Teams/Discord and so on have quite a bit posted on-line items they did not want to because a window or pop-up appeared when they were not expect it to. This is area where X.org baremetal need to work out how it going to address if it not going to be around long term. Also this does bring the question about per application Xwayland servers in future.

ripper81 think private information on you screen do you want that to be captured and sent on to the internet just because you miss click on a application screensharing button. There are valid reason why you will want the xdg-desktop-portal interface with authentication todo screensharing mostly to reduce cases of human opps.

[TuesdayPogo]

Great news and thumbs up to the developers. However i dont understand why this is needed. As far as i am concerned there is no excuse for apps like Discord,MS Teams or Zoom for not delivering proper pipewire support nowadays.

Wayland is becomming the default on more and more distributions, it is now even enabled on Ubuntu LTS as long as opensource gpu drivers are used.

Theese are commercial services that allow for paid subscribtions. If i pay for a service on a supported OS basic features like screensharing should work no matter if i use X.Org or Wayland.

It should, and there is no excuse. However, the reality is that it still hasn't happened, and at some point someone has to do something. While this is late and still very limited, it is something, and it is better late than never.

It kinda reminds me of Proton where very few cared about getting their games working on Linux, until Valve, Collabora, Codeweavers and others did the heavy work in creating Proton and improving Wine. Now, everyone be like "Oh yeah, and it's releasing Deck Verified," as if they care about Linux compatibility more than as another checklist for marketing purposes.

It is what it is, someone that isn't the commercial devs had to do something, and thank god that at least there's work finally being done.