Sunshine flatpak not working -- suggestions for remote desktop?

Hello, I was looking for a solution to remotely access my Bluefin system. Normally I use Parsec on my windows/mac systems, but you cannot be a host for Parsec on Linux. So in the past I’ve used Sunshine on other distros with great success.

However, installing Sunshine via flatpak doesn´t seem to work properly. I keep getting the same message:

Attention! Sunshine detected these errors during startup. We STRONGLY RECOMMEND fixing them before streaming.

  • Fatal: You must run [sudo setcap cap_sys_admin+p $(readlink -f $(which sunshine))] for KMS display capture to work!
  • Fatal: Unable to find display or encoder during startup.
  • Fatal: Please check that a display is connected and powered on.

I think these errors are there because of the isolated nature of the flatpak, and that maybe I should give it some specific permissions? I’m not really sure. I don´t want to just jump and run terminal commands that I don´t understand.

Has anyone else experienced the same issue? Any suggestions on how to tackle this? If Sunshine is a no-go at this moment, what do you suggest for remote desktop? I like Sunshine and Parsec because of their low latency.

Did you do the post-install setup? Install Sunshine on Linux | Flathub has the instructions.

Hi Jorge, yes I did. I ran both commands as instructed, and the issue persists.

The second command (sudo -i PULSE_SERVER…) gives me this terminal error, but I’m not sure on how to fix this:

F: Can’t find a11y bus: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ExecFailed: Failed to execute program org.a11y.Bus: Permission denied
bwrap: Can’t find source path /run/user/1000/pulse/native: Permission denied

Are you using some non-English language as default system language? If yes, there is issue reported at Github: Startup call for Linux+Flatpak (sudo -i PULSE_SERVER…) is incorrect.

If not, I suggest to open a new issue at Sunsine Github. Flatpaks should not be working anything different on Blufin vs. other Linux distributions. It case of flatpaks it is the best to search help upstream… search for upstream bug tracker, search for upstream forum etc. I doubt you will get something really useful here on this Blufin specific forum.

thanks to both of you guys.

I digged out an old laptop to see why Sunshine was working on my old Pop OS! install. And then it hit me – that was running on X, not wayland.

So I tested it and presto, now it works perfectly as long as I run Bluefin on X. I know it’s not ideal, but a solution is a solution…!

I’m not sure what’s the deal with Wayland, but I’ll open an issue at Sunshine Github. Leaving this solution here in case someone else runs into this :slight_smile:

Strange! On my Bazzite Gnome installation with wayland, Sunshine works like a charm.

You install it there using a ujust command, no? Maybe that’s the difference. Either way the ujust command to install sunshine doesn’t exist in bluefin so I cannot test it :frowning:

On my bluefin-laptop I have installed Moonlight which I use for connecting the Sunshine server.

I just installed Sunshine on my bluefin-laptop from the Flatpak store, just to have a look if it’s working. And it works.

mmm then not sure why… I tried installing sunshine on both my desktop and my laptop, both running bluefin, and I keep getting the same issue. Again, running it on X11 makes it ok but it’s been very weird. Are you running bluefin stable or latest?

I’m running bluefin:stable

Me too. Super weird.

There’s already an issue that described exactly what was happening to me on the sunshine github: Unable to run Sunshine Flatpak on Fedora atomic desktops with Wayland (Kinoite 40, Silverblue 40, Aurora, Bluefin) · Issue #2948 · LizardByte/Sunshine · GitHub

Sadly closed without answer… but the fact that it works for some people and not for others makes me think it’s just the flatpak acting up. I’ll wait for the Sunshine team to update it, and use the X11 session for now.

1 Like

I recommend RustDesk, it works well on Wayland on Bluefin 41 (GNOME 47) (I also tested on current Silverblue 41), and it can remember the token after reboot most of times(Wayland still casues uncertainty), but RustDesk didn’t support Wayland login screen, so you have some options:

  1. Use sddm and disable its Wayland functionality by this config from ArchWiki, 2.11 Rootless
  2. Use lightdm, itself is currently using x11
  3. Auto login

But all of them needs layering(unless you’re creating your own images), flatpak is a bad idea for remote desktop software, though it works, but not for unattended access.

For easier updates, you can consider my repo, but it is unofficial.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 24 hours after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.