Teams for Linux desktop sharing

Question

Teams for Linux still today (Sep 2020) lack the feature to give or request control for app sharing. The alternative solution is to fall back to pidgin/sipe when in need to collaborate in shared apps. But Skype for Business is target for removal in the IT landscape soon, thus Teams will be a crippled solutions for the 20% of users working solely in Linux. Is there any daily build channel that already push sharing feature, so that it can be tried out? Or is there perhaps at least a roadmap hinting these features might come around soon?

/FJ

Answer 1

A work-around for screen and application sharing (at least for me) is to use the browser version of Teams (https://teams.microsoft.com/) with Google Chrome browser (version 87.0.4280.141 .)

I'm running Kubuntu-18.04.5 LTS, with a KDE desktop environment, on a Dell laptop with external monitors attached - but using the laptop's camera, mic and speakers. An earlier release of Teams for Linux (from many months ago) allowed screen sharing, but the current version that I'm running (1.3.00.30857, amd64) just brings up an empty selection area at the bottom of the Teams screen - where the sharing choices used to appear.)

If I instead use Teams in the web browser, I can select desktops or application windows to share, and it seems to work just fine (although I haven't tried letting others control my desktop.)

It is sad that the actual "Teams for Linux" application doesn't fully function, while the browser-based version does, but one of the advantages of that is any security issues are more likely to be fixed quickly in a browser than an apparently unloved Linux application.

Answer 2

Latest update on the Teams version was around July.
It is a pity to see the poor work on the Teams version for Linux, especially when I see my colleges wearing T-Shirts saying Open Source with Microsoft logo on the sleeve.
Why don't you open a donation page if this can speed the things up, I'm sure there will be a lot of donations just to get something so Vital working...

Answer 3

Hi @Fredrik Jonsson

Sorry, there are no detailed information about when they will solve these known issues at present.

As far as I know, These are the current known issues on the client

*No red square around the shared content
*No screen share from chat
*No request / take control
*No single window application sharing

As a workaround for request control, you can try to refer to this link's instructions to see if it fits for you:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/8761/request-control-during-screen-share-ubuntu-180404.html

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Answer 4

Such an important feature and no update since months… it is a pity.
I manage to share any window under Linux (Ubuntu 20.10) by avoiding the app and connecting to Teams via Chromium.

Answer 5

FYI for fellow hackers we can get around this by creating a 2nd virtual webcam that shows our desktop: https://superuser.com/questions/411897/using-desktop-as-fake-webcam-on-linux