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Comment by not2b | Hacker News Reader

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 works in the browser") is pretty amazing, and it's probably better not to crap all over the people who have done 80-90% of the job for the missing 10-20%.

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BlueJeans has a native Linux app that for the last 6 weeks, every time I've started it, has told me that there is an update available and asking if I want to upgrade it. When I go to download it, I find I have the latest Linux version available.

Nothing like telling your users every time they start your app that you don't prioritize their OS.

Haven’t tried Zoom on Linux but there the competitor Microsoft Teams is a total disaster Electron app. Beating that one is a really low bar.

Starting with screen sharing since that’s the main topic here. Doesn’t work at all on wayland so no point to even compare further.

Moving on to UI performance, it must be among the worst applications I’ve ever seen since 1993. Even on a super beefy gaming machine. Basic stuff like scrolling in a chat or just switching between chat tabs measures in several seconds rather than milliseconds, and always comes with some weird flicker or jank. Toggling between two open chats, you know the thing you do 1000 times per day, is equally slow and frustrating. I’d rather take no Linux support at all than this vomit.

Totally true. I really dislike Teams.

With the same account I had about the same bugs in Teams in different, OS with different computers, and even in my phone, and every time in every machine in every OS I had to close the application and open it again to solve it. They funny thing here is that they weren't account related fails, like not having permission to do Z thing, but not having audio, video, or being unable to watch a shared screen.

By the other hand, a simple thing like Google Meets have worked in any OS without any problem to most of the people I know, and the problems were usually related to microphone and webcam permissions.

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.

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