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Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

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Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Teams every day (for work, the company basically runs on it) for chat and meetings, and I'm one of those strange people who never really have much problem with it. I can think of one occasion in perhaps the last six months when it crashed and I had to kill and restart it. Otherwise it just sits there on my laptop and does its thing. Same with Outlook etc. So, what am I doing wrong? How do I get the authentic Te…

You are not alone. I also personally find Teams more than ok even if I wish it was more snappy. Meetings work great. Compatible equipment in room makes everything feel seem less. Collaborative editing and file sharing are both awesome. Every time it’s brought up on HN I get the feeling that people here use collaborative tools in a very different way I do. They mostly want something to chat via text which I and most o…

> Teams is not primarily a text chat software. It’s not built for this purpose as that’s not how most office workers collaborate. That’s quite obvious.

The problem is that it’s a perfectly fine video meeting application (although what sociopath decided entering a meeting unmuted was a proper default), but many orgs try to push it as their chat application too. The UX for that is awful. And for some of us that is the primary way we communicate. I started working from home in 2008, collaborating on code over Freenode long before that. Most eng teams I’ve been on these past 20 years coordinate on chat. It’s hard when the business people think Teams is fine and then the rest of us have to use busted software.

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#172

The official client is absolutely terrible. But, I've found a much better solution: I tell all my customers Microsoft Teams doesn't work for us and they'll have to pick something else. Kudos for at least trying to address this, MS should hang their head in shame, this is not the hardest problem to solve these days. If we could do it in 1995 they should be able to do it 30 years later.

>> MS should hang their head in shame I hear this a lot but really, Teams works fine as far as I can tell. Click on meeting, check your hair on camera first, join meeting. It works fine 19 times out of 20 at least.

> It works fine 19 times out of 20 at least.

But for something you use 3-5x a day, that is a noticeable problem every few days. Why it has such an awful reputation.

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#173

The official client is absolutely terrible. But, I've found a much better solution: I tell all my customers Microsoft Teams doesn't work for us and they'll have to pick something else. Kudos for at least trying to address this, MS should hang their head in shame, this is not the hardest problem to solve these days. If we could do it in 1995 they should be able to do it 30 years later.

The web-based one works perfectly on Linux. If anything it's better than the native Windows app. Office 365 actually works better in Firefox in Linux than any other browser in Windows. It's like they've kind of given up on the whole OS thing, and have just decided to go with Linux.

I worked in an all Linux dev shop. Our Lead refused to install Electron apps and ran them in Chrome tabs instead. It just worked. I dont remember how we ran Teams back then though.

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#174
post #160

Why would I want to use Teams on Linux? One reason to use Linux is to avoid such bloatware with unbearably poor UX. Rumor has it that a usability consultant died from a heart attack when he saw the first alpha build, but I may misremember the story (or confuse it with the deadly joke by Monty Python). I'm totally fine with text-based chat, and it had better be implementing an open standard (e.g. USENET news or Jabber…

> Why would I want to use Teams on Linux? One reason to use Linux is to avoid such bloatware with unbearably poor UX.

That might be YOUR reason, but I'm sure there are plenty to use linux besides to avoid bloatware.

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#175
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True! I've been doing this for years on Linux. I use a dedicated Chromium instance in app mode: /usr/bin/chromium --ozone-platform=wayland --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform,WaylandWindowDecorations,WebRTCPipeWireCapturer --user-data-dir=/home/myuser/.config/chromium-ilri --app=https://teams.microsoft.com Works incredibly well (put this in a `.desktop` file with `Exec=` and you can launch it via your desktop's launch…

The only thing that does not work for me with Teams as chromium 'app' is the screen sharing (on Wayland). Does your --enable-features fix this?

Which compositor/environment? Starting the correct xdg portal helped me when I ran Sway.

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#176

The official client is absolutely terrible. But, I've found a much better solution: I tell all my customers Microsoft Teams doesn't work for us and they'll have to pick something else. Kudos for at least trying to address this, MS should hang their head in shame, this is not the hardest problem to solve these days. If we could do it in 1995 they should be able to do it 30 years later.

I don't know. I use the Linux and Windows clients, and to me they feel the same. They're not great, but I wouldn't say one is worse.

In fact, I'd say all of the modern chat apps are pretty much equally terrible. They're all proprietary, bloated, web apps with terrible clients that people only use because they have to for work. Chat apps peaked in the early 2000s when the protocols were more open and you could use 3rd party apps like Trillian and Pidgin instead of the official clients.

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#177
post #3

Alternative solution: Flee any company that uses Microsoft Teams.

I've never used teams, what's bad about it? my newco is moving from webex to teams for video but keeping slack. I'm a bit worried keeping slack is a short term thing.

The only complaints I have is that is slightly sluggish.

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#178
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get what that team is up to, even ICQ would be so much better.

It's meant to be Just Good Enough to keep C-Suites from picking Zoom and Slack.

Yeah, but like is no one proud on that team to actually deliver something useful?

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#179
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True! I've been doing this for years on Linux. I use a dedicated Chromium instance in app mode: /usr/bin/chromium --ozone-platform=wayland --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform,WaylandWindowDecorations,WebRTCPipeWireCapturer --user-data-dir=/home/myuser/.config/chromium-ilri --app=https://teams.microsoft.com Works incredibly well (put this in a `.desktop` file with `Exec=` and you can launch it via your desktop's launch…

The only thing that does not work for me with Teams as chromium 'app' is the screen sharing (on Wayland). Does your --enable-features fix this?

You need xdg-desktop-portal . Its probably automatic in some environments but with sway I have to set it up manually. Its one of those annoying things I forget about whenever I set up a new machine.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Desktop_Portal

Re: Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux

#180
post #84

Please don't, now I can no longer say that I cannot use teams. If you want to use it so bad, go back to Windows...

Man I hate Teams with a passion but if someone on my team said this I'd know they were full of it. I use Linux and the PWA is functional enough.
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