2d ago

My experience with Discord on Linux

209 comments

I fucking hate discord.
No wait.
I fucking hate the people who use discord.

I use Vesktop, it has a flatpak release and flatpak auto-updates it for me. Also it includes Vencord, so I can add as many plugins and custom themes I want.

Idk about you, but for me Manjaro just auto manages that via AUR. dont even have to do anything.
- Huh, why does it use the AUR for discord? In Arch it's just part of the Extra repo.
  
  That repo always seems to lag quite a bit behind official releases. Multiple times on arch I’ve edited config files to have it lie about its version number to get it to keep working.
- Samesies, but on EndeavourOS

https://flathub.org/apps/com.discordapp.Discord
Packaging desktop apps via deb (or other system package managers) is obsolete and should be frowned upon.
cue the angry comments from cranky old people
- @gamer @DesertDwellingWeirdo
  discord
  desktop apps
  /0
  Also, packaging electron to flatpak sounds most stupid idea ever...
  
  Sandboxing proprietary apps and containerising their outdated dependencies is a good thing.

All that work, and it's a web wrapper.
- When l was on it I saw no point in running it outside a browser tab

"SKIP_HOST_UPDATE": true

Why do you need to update so much, Discord? What the hell are you doing? Suspicious. Very suspicious.
- Does the same on windows. Either they're constantly changing some really deep stuff that we don't see or notice, or it's not actually updating just "checking" for updates or loading but it's just slow AF.
  
  Nah, this isn't the launcher doing checks and applying patches, I mean like I gotta download a new .deb (basically .exe) file with an incremental difference in the version number and unpack it over the old install.
  Ridiculously frequently. Like, once a week at the very least.

i just use this bad boy
- Btw
- Was going to say. I've been lucky. My only experience with Discord has been sudo pacman -S discord. I barely use it, but I have some friends I keep in touch with on it.
- Yay!
- Hell yeah

Why? The browser client is ok.
- Not if you need system wide PTT

I don't get it - on Mint I click the Discord icon and just use Discord, same as on Windows.
- That's mint tho. I've used it off and on for more than a decade myself and I'm still scared of other distros.
  It really is baby's first distro. Easy mode for someone coming from windows. And I love it for that. I really do. But im not a programmer. I would be lost as a mfer with some distros.
  
  I am a programmer and I love Mint, because I can just use it instead of having one more thing in my life that I have to fuss with.

If you really need to use discord, use the flatpak version or better yet, use Vesktop.
- This. Use Vesktop. Expand the features of Discord while outright blocking the shit.
- Or better yet, host your own TeamSpeak server.
  Speaking of which, are there any decent FOSS alternatives? Discord got banned in my homecountry and forcing it through VPN or proxy is a total pain in the ass. Forced my friends to move to TS as that's what we used back in the day... like a decade ago, but maybe there's something modern and more open nowadays?
  
  Teamspeak doesn't even have a fraction of Discord's features. It's a bad alternative.
  
  from what i know either Matrix or Revolt
  Revolt is more closer to discord but Matrix is better cause it has ee2e, you can host your own server and my favorite feature Clients
  
  There was a post recently on c/privacy for a self hostable (relaying) peer-to-peer web based option! Its effectively release 1.0 and has some bugs (some serious security ones at the moment), but I think it has lots of promise!!
  I'll go grab the link for the post I saw...
  
  Peersuite
  
  Are you looking for something like mumble?
  
  teamspeak 6 (beta) is pretty nice.

Just use a flatpak sheesh

Ever since the update where screen sharing works FINALLY natively in plasma I just used the flatpak discord
- I have to use Discord Canary for that but yeah. Flatpak all the way.
  
  Well that's just their beta branch of discord, the main branch now has the screen share fix, been using it for a few months now

I just use the web version of discord :)
cause i have more control on the web version and i dislike electron
i cannot leave discord at this time

I've been using the browser client.
- Same cause i dont like electron
- The browser can't do push to talk though, right?
  
  It can but it's useless
  It only works if the browser tab is focused.
  Not very useful as a PTT key.

I see some recommendations for Vesktop in this thread.
For some reason, launching Vesktop's Flatpak version presents a blank window. It worked perfectly fine a few weeks ago. Going back several versions doesn't fix the problem.
Does anyone else have this issue? What doesn't help is that the repo doesn't have an issue tracker:
https://github.com/Vencord/Vesktop
Edit: Appimage version works just fine
- Ran into that as well. Just use "repair vesktop" option from the right click menu on the icon when it's running. That fixes it. You'll stay logged in etc.
- I think it's an x11/Wayland incompatability issue.
- I've had this issue too. I'm at work rn so I can't provide an exact process. But on KDE I right click on Vesktop on the task bar and there is a "fix Vesktop" option that resolved it for me.

~/.config/discord/settings.json
"SKIP_HOST_UPDATE": true,
- Wait seriously? Does this stop it from forcing me to update it when an update is available but it's not in my package manager yet?
  
  Yes. I can confirm, it works even on Gentoo. But I stick to the Flatpak version, anyway, because there I was able to tell it to use Xwayland instead of wayland directly (through Flatseal).
  It seems the wayland support isn't great yet and it tries to grab keys combination that are reserved for my window manager (Gnome). In the flatpak sandbox I don't have any issues.
  Only game running game detection will not work in the sandbox.
  Or is there even a setting to tell it, using the X11 backend so that the keybind issues for the native version go away?
- Ooohh a useful response.

In all honesty I just use the browser now as that's been the best experience with Discord for me.
- Third party apps are way better than the native client
- Yup this. Tho if matrix gets desktop streaming I'm gone.
  
  Element already has desktop streaming as an experimental feature. Worked fine last i tested it. Currently planning how to trick my social circle into using it.
  I also want to go check out the new TeamSpeak, it's supposed to be a decent Discord alternative - Even though Discord originally replaced it.
  
  get fluffychat :)
- When you use the Discord app, you use a browser - Chromium specifically: Discord is an electro app.
  In other word, if you already run a browser that burns hundreds of megabytes of RAM, disk, and requires tons of CPU do display simplistic things, as browsers do, you might as well use it to access Discord instead of running a second insanely wasteful browser disguised as a native app.
- When I do, audio slowly shifts to one ear only, perhaps over 20m. Then I have to leave the channel and come back to reset it. This does not happen anywhere else, and also doesn’t happen on the desktop app, so I have to use that.
- Vesktop
- Oh shit I forgot that was an option lmao. Deleting the app once I get home lol
- Discord has become really annoying to use with all the ads. I confine it to my browser because I don’t trust it.
  With that said, I used to run Flatpak version and it never had this issue.
- Recently, while it was "out of date" and refusing to run but not yet updated in the Arch repo, I started wondering why I don't just use the website. I now use the website.
- Same! Never have to worry about updates anymore its great!

I started using Discord in 2015 and around 2019 uninstalled it in favor of using it exclusively through a web browser (blocking as much of it's nonsense as possible). Discord takes too many resources hostage if anyone in your server is streaming something, even if you're not watching it. I don't have that issue when using Element (Matrix), Jitsi or any of Steam's broadcasting tools. The only reason I haven't deleted my Discord account yet is because some people I hold dear are incapable of trying something better nowadays (even when they already have it installed as is the case of Steam).
- Steam is not better than discord lmao

My experience with Discord, period:
- That's why I use third party apps
- Thank God im not the only one. I feel like I'm going crazy when all my friends do nothing but worship discord.
  
  Not at all. I loathe discord with a passion. I can't understand how such a unintuitive piece of software gained such mainstream acceptance.
  
  I fail to see Discord as anything other than IRC with too many emojis and primary colors for the short of attention span, implemented as a humongous pile of Web 2.0 nonsense, with Big Data surveillance built in.
  Privacy and resource comsumption issues notwithstanding, the few times I've had to use it to connect with people in certain communities that could basically only be found on Discord, it was unbearable to this gen-Xer: it's just as fast and as shallow as IRC, but somehow I feel the extra symbolic and color overload would have triggered a seizure if I was epileptic. It's maddering.
  Oh well, maybe I'm old.

Use the Flatpak or better yet stop using Discord.
- It is so annoying when communities really want to have a discord. Particularly when they are somewhat technical and so any solutions that they might have are not search able.
  
  communities really want to have a discord
  And
  they are somewhat technical
  Something seems fishy.
- The flatpak has (had?) Issues of not being able to stream application or desktop audio. The system package can and is way more up to date.
  Flatpak is not the solution to everything lol
  
  Using the flatpak version on Fedora. That issue seems to be recently solved not sure when exactly just tried it the other day and it worked!
  
  That's a wayland specific issue and I believe the Flatpack version was right behind the version that finally fixed that about 3 months ago. It should have the good version finally but I won't bother to check.
  
  I believe the audio streaming issue on flatpak is resolved as of a month or two ago. But I’m typically with you, system packages for the most up to date experience in most cases.
  
  I never said it was. The Discord Flatpak always worked for me. Not saying it didn't for you, it just hasn't been my experience.
- Flatpaks are a really bad idea.
  
  Because?

Discord is trash software. Always has been.
- Are there better alternatives you don't have to self host?
  
  Here is the only overview you'll ever need
  
  Revolt. It just needs a larger userbase.
  
  Frankly, no, they all come with some caveat.
  
  XMPP

I mean there is always the flatpak version
- I actually use the Vesktop Flatpak. It's got working screen sharing with audio on Wayland (not sure if the official client has implemented that yet) and it has Vencord preinstalled for plugins and themes.
- I must be getting old.
- Yep. I didn't realize the flatpak version worked better. I never get those manual update prompts anymore and Software Center automatically updates Discord when there are updates.
- Came here to say this. I was dealing with constant required .deb downloads and switched to flatpak. All the noise stopped.

Vesktop is nice.

My experience with discord on Linux : programs.nixcord.discord.enable = true
(I use vesktop, actually, but most people don’t know what that is)

discord.com/app

Flatpak

https://github.com/Vencord/Vesktop

So. Very important for everyone here. You can bypasss the forced discord update.
To disable the update check, add the line "SKIP_HOST_UPDATE": true to ~/.config/discord/settings.json
I'm running with native electron (sure, electron) but it works great tbh

check out vencord (or vesktop) just in time for discord to completely enshittify. while you're looking, consider something like revolt chat instead?
- Revolt is still extremely beta, at least last I checked it out?
  Vesktop (on flatpak I believe) is just a discord wrapper with plugin support, actually a really great experience!!
  Still, here's hoping literally any FOSS discord clone gets fully off the ground sometime soon. The enshitification is so fucking real.
- Oh that looks nice! I was using Dissent which is very light on resources but I kept running on a couple issues. I'll try that.
  
  Another one I can recommend is equibop (web version wrap of Discord) and equicord (discord client modification with vencord)
- Since the latest big discord update I had issues with Vesktop, other people could only watch my streams if they were in it when I started streaming and even then it usually would break after a few minutes. But I might try it again in the next few days to see if it got fixed
  Edit: I quickly checked the GitHub repo and the latest release was 2 months ago so probably not :(

Yeah this is annoying.
"It's your lucky day!"
- I'll figure it out
  
  I can't stand that I can't close discord until I have touched that stupid dropdown, to the point I have uninstalled discord and just use a matrix bridge or the browser version.
  I'm on endeavouros so the deb file is pointless

yay discord
Yes.
Even screen share is fixed in wayland now! I believe that the flatpak version was on the cusp of supporting it too so it might already. I kinda stopped caring about it when everything worked, which is certainly a good sign.

idk i just use the website
for some reason it crashes on Firefox when i enable audio, but my mic doesn't work anyway so you know it's not a big deal
edit: fix typos
- Vesktop

Everyone here is shouting flatpak, but I'm gonna shout flatpak of Vesktop!
- https://github.com/Vencord/Vesktop
  I like that I can make the light theme not ass
  
  I liked this one over Vesktop (if you use Desktop discord) https://github.com/Equicord/Equicord

On my aging laptop, the Discord app consumed RAM like Goku at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Moving back to a browser tab eliminated the overhead from Electron and was dramatically more performant as a result. This completely side-steps any upgrade and/or snap issues.

There is a ppa though. I trust the guy behind it, he has good history

It behaves the same way on Windows, but is a little better at cleaning up after itself when it updates. It’s poorly architected.
- The Windows version definitely does not open your default browser to download a new installation package which you then need to install yourself.

I wrote a small bash script to curl the latest .deb, install it, and delete it because i was having this problem too. shame it can't just auto-update or let me use the old version
- As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, check out this setting in Discord config for allowing you to use the old version: ArchWiki - Discord#2.2
  
  wait really? thank you!

me: so ppa?
discord: no ppa only deb

I highly suggest using LegCord!

Browser. website. basically the same experience without weird and/or shit integration into anything, share resources with the browser that's open anyway, works fine, and allow easy customization because it's a webpage anyway and you get to mess with the CSS/HTML/JS if you want to.

Mine updates with all my other stuff. Not sure why you'd need to download it every time. I installed it with pacman.

Flatpak 🤷

It's not just me!

Discord sure does feel like a 0.0.x version

I don't use a Debian based distro like Ubuntu anymore (arch BTW), but could you not just add their repo and do an apt update && apt upgrade?
Honestly, I really dislike apt and how you have to add random repos which is why I don't use it anymore. I moved away even before snaps.
Ps, I love the AUR.
- They don't have a repo as far as I know. Hence the manual .deb install.
  
  this, they can't be bothered with a repo
- yay discord ftw

I just use the flatpak on arch, can't be bothered to have a link to a deb or do a system update when discord wants a update.

I've been running ArmCord for a while. It also blocks Discords tracking.

Oh come on. This is every experience with linux.
- I've been pretty deep in linux for years and never seen this.

In endeavour all I need to do is close it, run yay to update, open. "Lucky Day" gone
- Still annoying as fuck

I have been using goofcord, its functional. I am moving to matrix after the enshittification of discord though.

209 comments