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How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

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Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#191

Post by listic »

binwiederhier wrote: post #190
not2b wrote: post #177

Zoom has better Linux support than almost any proprietary desktop application of similar complexity. For pretty much anything else only a web client is provided. My non-technical wife has no trouble using the Ubuntu version, flipping between using the laptop sound and earbuds. True, she doesn't need desktop sharing and there are issues with that. The fact that there's any support at all for desktop Linux (beyond "it…

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Zoom on Ubuntu works perfectly. It supports switching audio and video sources, annotating, screen sharing with previews of screens, window sharing, even break out rooms and the chat. Some things feel a bit unpolished but it pretty much just works. The only thing I ever had trouble with are custom backgrounds, and they are a little silly anyway.

What's wrong with custom backgrounds? I tried them and they worked amazingly well for me.

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#192

Post by binwiederhier »

listic wrote: post #191
binwiederhier wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Zoom on Ubuntu works perfectly. It supports switching audio and video sources, annotating, screen sharing with previews of screens, window sharing, even break out rooms and the chat. Some things feel a bit unpolished but it pretty much just works. The only thing I ever had trouble with are custom backgrounds, and they are a little silly anyway.

What's wrong with custom backgrounds? I tried them and they worked amazingly well for me.

It sort of works, but the background cuts in my face and arms and all that all the time. It may just be my actual background isn't optimized. Overall I'm happy with zoom.

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#193

Post by rozab »

I have had 0 issues using zoom on Linux with X.

I am disappointed with the constant hostility by Wayland proponents to projects which have problems with screencasting (i.e. literally everyone). Even prominent OSS projects like OBS only implemented it recently.

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#194

Post by hughesjj »

Filligree wrote: post #55
bitwize wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X11 is moribund. Part of why is because literally everyone who was working on it in a major way, possibly excepting Keith Packard, eventually considered it a dead end and jumped ship to Wayland.

Regardless, if I want to do something as simple as running a Minecraft client, I need to run X11 or else live with about 20 FPS. If the old thing is broken, and the new thing isn't ready yet, then what are we supposed to do? Use Windows I suppose.

Back to the TTY like Lord Stallman intended

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#195

Post by avrionov »

cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #188

The mass adoption of Zoom in areas where it really shouldn't have been used and the lack of support to users has been shocking to me. It really felt like this just happened to be the company that took off because of the pandemic but a scrappy startup could have done this 1000x better.

Genuinely curious: which are these areas where Zoom shouldn't be used?

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#196

Post by shrimp_emoji »

phkahler wrote: post #170
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

moribund, stable, I don't care what you call it; X11 actually works consistently, which remains more than Wayland can say

YMMV but I've found both to work fine, with Wayland providing the advertised tear-free video experience that X never could. Granted, when I tried OBS about a year ago I had to resort to an X-session, and that worked as expected. Not that OBS works properly on Wayland, my own use for X - I think - is done.

The solution for tearing is adaptive sync monitors.

Wayland's justification should be a (theoretically) better platform and codebase.

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#197

Post by int_19h »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #33

I think a better title would be: How Desktop GNU+Linux sucks for desktop developers: Zoom edition Windows will happily run GUI apps written 20 years ago. GDI is still supported. MFC Apps still run. Likely VB6 apps still run. Desktop GNU+Linux switches graphics engines, breaks backwards compatibility, ships something with performance and driver issues, and complains that user software doesn't work. Frankly this post t…

> VB6 apps still run.

Not only that, but Windows 11 ships with msvbvm50.dll and msvbvm60.dll in \WINDOWS\SysWOW64

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#198

Post by int_19h »

ModernMech wrote: post #108
matheusmoreira wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows will happily run GUI apps written 20 years ago. Don't think this is true anymore. Old software on Windows just isn't guaranteed to work anymore. Last time I tried to play an old game on newer Windows versions, it didn't even start up despite automatic and manual installation of a ton of dependencies. I suppose the Raymond Chen stories about heroic bug fixing in third party code is a thing of the past.

I can't find it now, but I remember there was a video of someone upgrading windows from like Windows 3 all the way to the latest Windows... maybe it was 7? I forget how long ago this was. But each time they upgraded Windows, they showed that the programs installed in the original OS still worked. I think they did it with Doom installed in 3, and showed that it still worked after 20 years of upgrades. That's some impr…

There's many such videos on YouTube these days, but I believe the most famous one is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WP7AkJo3OE

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#199

Post by vetinari »

suby wrote: post #4

I still cannot run a Wayland session on my machine w/ an nvidia 3080 with the latest drivers. It either fails to boot (KDE) or runs at about 15 FPS (Gnome). It seems a little unreasonable to be this mad at a company for not supporting an environment that doesn't work for the vast majority of hardware out there. Especially given that you can just use Zoom within Firefox.

> nvidia 3080... vast majority of hardware out there

Uhm, no. Nvidia GPUs are not the vast majority. Unless you are gamer and talking about other gamers, then it might be right, but otherwise, Intel is the wast majority and Intel has had Wayland working fine since forever now.

Intel is not alone in this, either. My AMD Vega64 was running Wayland fine since I bought it in 2017. So if your Nvidia has a problem, ask the people you paid your money to, when they want to solve it.

Re: How Not to Support Desktop GNU+Linux, Zoom Edition

#200

Post by smoldesu »

solarkraft wrote: post #166
CameronNemo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like hyperbole. In this case, there were maybe 3 competing screenshot/screen share methods. None of them were billed as standard. Without the core Wayland devs having to get involved, or even any protocol extensions needing to be made, all of the major desktop environments and even wlroots standardized on a single D-Bus API for the functionality. That API is now a few years old. Yeah it took a while to get adop…

To be fair: It's not only screensharing, it's also screenshots and desktop overlays (important for shells and such).

As well as global keyboard shortcuts, compositing effects, efficient framebuffer rendering, xWayland functionality, configuration-agnostic multidisplay support and input polling.

I'll let you decide for yourself if that's hyperbole, but I think I'm comfortable sticking with Xorg for now.

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