Sunshine VS Killed by Google

> Would the Swift UI also work on an iPad?

Yes, but probably not for the first version.

> Do you have any comparisons with other tools (eg steam streaming, moonlight)

Steam streaming just doesn't really work on linux. Moonlight is somewhat similar in terms of direction, and has an established client base. I know of at least two projects to build servers for the Moonlight protocol[1][2].

The Moonlight protocol is a bit weird, because it's an open-source reverse engineering of a dead NVIDIA project, GeForce now. There are fundamental limitations to the protocol, for example that the cursor must be rendered in-stream or simulated. Using my tool, the cursor is rendered locally, and custom cursor images can actually be pushed to the client, for a seamless experience. This sounds like a minor detail but it matters a lot for subjective latency. I'm also working on employing tricks like hierarchical coding using FEC in the protocol, because I hate VBR encoding for games (it makes text blurry and breaks immersion). Those tricks aren't really possible in Moonlight.

All of the Linux solutions I know about have significantly higher latency compared to Magic Mirror, although I don't have numbers for exactly how much higher. (I have a benchmark to test the latency of my tool, but the others don't.) I'd encourage you to try them out and get a feel for the difference.

Finally, I think Magic Mirror is the easiest to install and get going on the server. It has almost zero runtime library or service dependencies (there's a pesky dynamic link against libxkbcommon which I haven't managed to remove), so you don't need to mess with pipewire or docker or anything - it's completely self-contained.

All that said, the existing tools have the advantage of a larger user and contributor base, whereas Magic Mirror is just me on a mission so far :) So they're likely to be much more stable and usable.

[1]: https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine

RDP as a regular or quick solution is actually really decent in this respect.

(1) https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine

Moonlight + Sunshine for a self hosted solution, works with every OS

server: https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine/

client: https://github.com/moonlight-stream

You could use sunshine (https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine) + moonlight (https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt). To be honest, at least for me, it works better than most of the RDP/VNC stuff.

EDIT: Just checked again, original was released early 2020, current maintained project started 2022.

On your pc, install Sunshine. It's an open source moonlight server. There's a good walk through on the sunshine github page. Connect your handheld to the wifi running the server & open moonlight. Should work.

I discovered the moonlight client and sunshine server a few months ago. These are open source solutions to provide remote gaming/desktop capabilities with built in input and audio passthrough. I tried NoMachine, but I wasn't able to get audio to work. This looks like a known issue on arch. On sunshine, I didn't have to do any extra tweaking! This allowed me to game on my desktop pc without having to sit at my desk. This was especially helpful while watching my 2nd son. I was really impressed by the performance, I could stream my host's display at high resolutions and frame rates with low latency despite my desktop being in the basement using WiFi. I was getting some instability with WiFi, so I wanted to try connecting my desktop to the router via Ethernet. I decided to go with a headless solution because that gives me more flexibility on the placement of the desktop; I ended up moving my desktop upstairs closer to my router. I figured out a way to stream my hosts display headless by using Nvidia TwinView to create the virtual display. This means I don't need to buy any HDMI/DP dummy plugs. I wrote a Linux Guide for sunshine on how to set this up. If you have any feedback on this guide, let me know! I haven't tried this, but wolf is an interesting docker alternative to sunshine.

I was already starting to feel a little cornered in the whole Google ecosystem and a bit limited with stuff like backups, vendor lock in, etc. (and you always have the obvious hanging over your head) and ultimately, I think I just find the mental model of a SQL database more intuitive compared to a NoSQL database. So I thought to myself; "the longer I leave it, the harder it'll be to make the switch".

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Their reputation is deserved. Google domains was killed only last year!

And this isn't even the first time I've been burned by Google's decisions. If you're familiar at all with the Google Graveyard, you'll know that Google has a long history of killing off products and services that people have come to rely on. This has happened to me a number of times, in both a personal and professional capacity, and frankly it's getting old.

Just because Google has a couple of decent services that you're willing to pay for doesn't detract from the fact that most of their products have a worse life expectancy than a victorian child in the 1800s. https://killedbygoogle.com

They ruined every single opportunity to be more than an advertising company since Orkut. With scrapped attempts, starts and lack of intention for most of the 2010s to even during the early half of the Pixel Era, they seemingly haven't learnt to stick to something and iterate on it well.

And the fact that over 50% of their revenues come from search and by extension, advertising.

The fact' that til this day, they still haven't evolved from the "throwing shit at the wall then at the fan" strat which explains how they have fumbled so much so quickly.

Yeah. The Google Graveyard really shows how far this can go.

https://killedbygoogle.com

The punchline is that in addition to hundreds of failed hobby projects, their stock is doing great. Monopoly power is a helluva drug.

To me Gemini is just sort of generic and uninteresting. There has to be hundreds or thousands of products and companies based on the name "Gemini" - "Bard" was at least interesting, different and distinct.

I've no idea about the quality of the product itself, I have never had a reason to use it. It's long past cliché now but I wouldn't get too attached to a Google product that is definitely costing a lot of money but which has no clear pathway to turning a profit. I think they will keep it ticking over until the hype train moves on from Chatbots/LLMs, and then it'll join the Google Graveyard @ https://killedbygoogle.com

We're not talking about reliability, we're talking about Google's penchant for killing established products that people use. https://killedbygoogle.com