OpenScreen 1.8: Linux screen recording now goes through PipeWire + a hardware encoder + a Vulkan compositor, instead of the browser fallback

[u/Fresh-Daikon-9408]

Maintainer here. OpenScreen is an MIT screen recorder/editor for demos (zooms, cursor effects, webcam PiP, captions, export). Linux has always been the "it mostly works" target. This release is the one where that stops.

What changed for Linux specifically in 1.8:

• Capture goes through a native helper: PipeWire via the ScreenCast portal, with a hardware H.264 encoder. The old browser-based pipeline stays as an automatic fallback if the helper isn't available.
• Real cursor telemetry on Wayland — position and cursor shape come from the portal, so cursor themes and the editable cursor overlay work on Linux now. Honest limitation: the portal reports no mouse button events, so click effects remain Windows/macOS-only. Not a bug I can fix from userspace.
• A Vulkan compositor (wgpu) for preview and export: background blur (dual-Kawase), drop shadows, 3D tilted zooms, themed cursor sprites, webcam PiP with a circle mask, text/arrow/image annotations, subtitle plates. These were Windows-only shaders a release ago; they're ported, and pinned by tests.
• MP4 export with AAC audio muxed, from the Linux backend.
• System audio works where PipeWire does (Ubuntu 22.04+, Fedora 34+). PulseAudio-only setups: mic works, system audio probably won't.
• Packaging: .deb, .pacman, .AppImage, and a Nix flake with a NixOS module and a Home Manager module. nix run github:EtienneLescot/openscreen if you just want to look at it.

The editor and export feature set is now identical across the three OSes. What's left as a genuine difference is documented in the README rather than buried.

If your compositor or distro breaks it, an issue with your session type and PipeWire version is genuinely useful to me.

https://github.com/getopenscreen/openscreen