this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 133 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (13 children)

What alternative would you suggest if I just want to talk to my mates while gaming? I gave up on setting up TeamSpeak after like an hour and many crashes and errors. I was a TeamSpeak fan for many years when using windows, but on Linux I highly dislike it.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Element has been working for me and my friends. At the moment, it just embeds Jitsi within the client to do group calls (which works fine. Jisti isn't bad by any means), but native group calls are being worked on and are currently in beta!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Calls should come any month now. element-x just works on voice messages. The app is already able to make calls, you may try it b starting a call here and opening the link with the app. Just the ui and the things surrounding it are missing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wish they would work on proper voice channels like discord has. The whole 'meeting room' zoom call style thing is obnoxious to use, and the screen sharing has so much lag.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are "Video Rooms". They're in beta too.
Also, screen sharing is done via the same platform agnostic web APIs every other Electron-based app uses, though.
I got rid of screen capture induced lag by switching to Wayland.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can use Mumble instead of teamspeak.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

If you just want to talk, mumble would be a very lightweight alternative.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

i just got matrix up and running. its a federated ommunications specification. id invite you to mine but im still ironing things out. check out https://www.matrix.org

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mumble (is comoletely free software and has a better quality even than teamspeak)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Idk about them, but it's a centralized, locked-down service that absorbs and holds information and data hostage like tomorrow.

As someone who's trying to completely avoid Discord, it's quite frustrating how many communities and projects will put important information in their Discords, and nowhere else. You have to have an account to see it, and it also isn't searchable in a search engine. It is actually quite terrible for pretty much everyone.

Element/Matrix lets you peek into public chats and servers/spaces without an account, so it can definitely be done. They won't do it though, because they gotta make you feel dat FOMO lol.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I mean cool, but good luck convincing the vast majority of users leaving Discord for Matrix.

This development is beneficial for the Linux gaming ecosystem, proprietary be damned.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

I can acknowledge all that and still say fuck discord. I never mentioned herding everyone over, I just explained why I think it's a parasite and why I have a strong disliking towards it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (7 children)

All you have to do is bridge the two together and have the Matrix one shown more prominently.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Don't need the majority. The majority is not even interested in these communities. The ones that are, are likely proponents of FOSS themselves and should (in theory) switch over.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Matrix is a better platform for realtime communication, but it has the same issue with needing an account and being difficult to search. Any discussions that take place on Discord or Matrix will be fleeting, as it prioritizes only the most recent discussion in the chat. Thus making long form discussions about particular topics impossible.

All technical discussions should be archived on a searchable forum. If you are using a source forge like GitHub and GitLab, then public discussions should take place there. There's no better place for discussions and questions about code than in the same place where the code is hosted itself. Platform integrations make it very easy to associate discussions to commits and merge requests.

While not ideal, even hosted forum platforms like Lemmy and Reddit are still better than using a chat client. If only to serve as a platform for broader public discussions and questions. People are more likely to already have a Lemmy or Reddit account than they are to have a GitHub or GitLab account.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I do agree Discord shouldn't be used as a Gitlab issue tracker, yet development teams still insists on continuing this practice.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Old electron version (meaning no screensharing on wayland), really buggy linux application, no encryption, poorly enforced rules and policies, micro transactions... Honestly, the linux version of discord is so terrible that I've been running it from a web browser for the last month or so, it's genuinely much better lol

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (5 children)

This news is notable because a mainstream proprietary software publisher has chosen to officially distribute using Flathub. I couldn't care less about Discord, but it says a lot about Flathub's mindshare. Proprietary publishers tend to pick AppImage, but this is the first publisher I know of that has chosen Flathub instead. It will be interesting to see if this becomes a trend.

That being said, Cassidy obviously had a very active hand in convincing Discord to adopt the Flatpak package.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is also bitwig with an official flatpak

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So it does! I didn't know that. Admittedly, I don't actually use that much proprietary software on Linux-based systems, so my knowledge is limited. It'd be interesting if Lightworks or DaVinci Resolve were one day distributed with Flatpak, although Blackmagic Design believes Flatpak can't handle DaVinci Resolve's needs.

But hey, a community-built Flatpak for Resolve exists already.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Plex desktop is also only on flathub.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 year ago (3 children)

screenshare with audio when

[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (2 children)

When they decide to use Electron that's not 5 major versions out of date, but that's not happening

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I will never not hate Javascript. I hate all web dev nonsense. What a huge mess that all is.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

Javascript itself is not the issue. You can have horrible code written in any language, and this is exactly what this is. The management behind Discord are sinking the company

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They're already using an Electron version that supports audio sharing iirc, they just default to their custom implementation which doesn't work on Linux

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You could route your desktop audio into your mic, with the big downside thst the other party wont be able to control the volume independently.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I found discord-screenaudio to be a better solution.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

They haven’t updated their website yet. It still says to download the deb package or tar.gz package. No mention of the flatpak.

Hopefully they update it at some point.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you must use discord for some reason use the web version in librewolf

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

just so people are aware:

third party clients are against Discord's ToS. with that out of the way, looks really cool and I'll give it a try!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Meeh, Void has it in the packages, but I don't use it, too confusing for a messaging app if you ask me.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you haven't been forced into it by your friends/communities, then definitely avoid it if you can

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Yeah, it was for a game, but I just said f it, too confusing for me.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Meanwhile neither Element nor Schildichat or Fluffychat are official.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Nice!

Now I’ve just got to work out why mine has suddenly started crashing on startup with GPU errors.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

FYI There are also open source discord clients available:

  • Discordo is a nice CLI to use Discord
  • ArmCord: Full Open Source Discord client with themes, etc.
  • gtkcord4 & gtkcord 3: Both are simple GTK Clients for Discord

Third party clients are against Discord’s terms of service, so use at your own risk.

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