fegger
343c6b45e6
The receiver service never started on the Pi: systemd blocks before exec in acquire_terminal(), waiting for a controlling terminal that the console session or getty on tty1 already owns. Symptoms: the status shows the main PID as "(screencast)" with Tasks:1 and ~40ms CPU, a silent journal, and no mDNS announcement — the binary never ran. Reproduced locally with a transient unit (the desktop's Wayland session owns tty1) and diagnosed by gdb-attaching the stuck process. The service now owns a dedicated free VT (tty7) so acquisition is immediate, with a tolerant ExecStartPre chvt to make the screencast the on-screen console at boot. tty1 keeps the console login; Ctrl+Alt+F1/Ctrl+Alt+F7 switch between them. The previous advice to enable Console Autologin actively caused the hang and is removed from the unit, RUNBOOK, and install script notes. Validated locally: the same properties via systemd-run give a running receiver with all ~15 threads alive that announces itself and is found by --discover; verified unit passes systemd-analyze verify; graceful stop withdraws mDNS.
screen_cast
A native Linux peer-to-peer screencast application.
- Send your desktop or a window to another Linux machine.
- Receive a stream and render it in a window.
- Discover receivers on the LAN via mDNS/Avahi; negotiate sessions with JSON signaling; stream H.264 over RTP/UDP.
Built with C++20, Meson, PipeWire, FFmpeg, and SDL3.
Quick start
Requirements:
- C++20 compiler with
<format>(GCC 13+, Clang 18+) - Meson >= 0.63, Ninja
- FFmpeg development packages (
libavcodec,libavutil,libswscale) - SDL3 development package (
sdl3) - nlohmann JSON (
nlohmann_json) and Avahi client (avahi-client) - For the sender only: PipeWire dev (
libpipewire-0.3) and libportal
Build and run tests:
meson setup build
meson compile -C build
meson test -C build --print-errorlogs
Stream between two machines:
screencast --receive # machine A: announces itself, opens a window
screencast --send # machine B: discovers A, negotiates, streams
See docs/RUNBOOK.md for all modes, flags, and validation procedures.
Receiver on a small ARM board (e.g. Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W)
The receiver does not need the sender's PipeWire/portal capture stack. On the board, run:
sudo ./scripts/install-receiver.sh
screencast --receive
The script installs the dependencies, builds a receiver-only binary
(-Dsender=false), runs the test suite, and installs to /usr/local/bin
(override with SC_RECEIVER_INSTALL_DIR). It needs Raspberry Pi OS Trixie
or newer (GCC 13+ for C++20 <format>), builds SDL3 from source when the
distribution does not package it, and enables avahi-daemon. It also
installs and enables a systemd service so the receiver starts at boot —
systemctl status screencast-receiver to check on it.
Performance note: decoding is software H.264; on very small boards expect smooth playback for modest resolutions and reduced frame rates at high resolutions. Hardware decode is planned for Phase 7. On a headless console the receiver runs fullscreen automatically with aspect-preserving letterboxing.
Architecture
See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for module boundaries and design rules.
Roadmap
Development is split into phases in docs/PHASES.md.
Current phase: Phase 7 — Resilience and polish.
License
MIT — see LICENSE (to be added).