With Deskreen, You Can Mirror or Stream Your Linux Computer Screen to Any Device

Deskreen helps you mirror your Linux computer screen to any device of your choice.
Warp Terminal

It is a cool ability to be able to mirror your computer screen on to your smartphone. While that's not the best experience, you can choose to do that to keep an eye on a few things. If you have a multi-monitor setup, you realize the advantages of having multiple screens.

And, yes, you can do that on a Linux computer with the help of an open-source tool, i.e, Deskreen.

With Deskreen, you can turn any device into your secondary screen. It makes screen sharing just as easier as it is on Windows.

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The project is no longer being actively maintained by the developer when publishing this. However, I tested it on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and it worked for me.

Using Deskreen to Mirror Screen Content on Ubuntu

Deskreen is a cross-platform tool popularly used to turn devices into a second computer screen. The application mirrors the screen to an interface accessible via a web browser; hence, it can be viewed by any device with a browser.

All you have to is make sure, your devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

It uses WebRTC API for communications via the browser, which enables it to stream the screen.

The initial interface shows a QR code and a web address that the client devices, such as a smartphone, could connect to. The interface looks like this:

The initial interface of deskreen app with a QR code and a web address
The initial interface of Deskreen

Upon scanning the QR code through your phone, a dialog box appears asking whether to accept the connection, along with the device's IP and operating system.

Device connect confirmation
Device connect confirmation

Next, you get to select if you want to mirror the entire screen or a particular window. Select the one you need and hit Confirm.

Selection of screen or window to share
Selection of screen or window to share

Depending upon the choice, you can choose to mirror the available screens β€” more than one screen is shown if you have multiple displays or a virtual screen adapter is connected β€” or an application window that's in the same virtual desktop as deskreen.

choices for streaming an application window
For streaming an application window

Here's how it looks when you want to share your entire screen:

choices for streaming an entire screen
For streaming an entire screen

Once the choice is confirmed, the window or screen is streamed to the browser window. The client interface provides some basic controls over the streaming, like choosing the quality, flipping the contents, using the default video player for the stream, etc.

The entire view of the web interface
The entire view of the web interface (stream)

That's how simple it is to get Deskreen working.

Download and Install Deskreen

To get started, you can download the .deb file from the official site or its GitHub page. Alternatively, one could make use of the AppImage file as well.

You can follow one of the available ways to install deb files. For an AppImage, you can make the file executable and run it as a program:

Allow execution of AppImage

Deskreen is a handy tool to share your screen with a desired device instantly. It makes the job easier and quicker when compared to conventional methods of configuring VNC or RDP.

Please let us know your thoughts about screen mirroring, and what is your favorite tool/method to do it?

About the author
Ankush Das

Ankush Das

A passionate technophile who also happens to be a Computer Science graduate. You will usually see cats dancing to the beautiful tunes sung by him.

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