Starting Pipewire Wayland Screen sharing for OBS and Browsers with a Makefile

NapoleonWils0n

NapoleonWils0n

I was chatting to drr on another thread about getting Pipewire Screen Sharing working for Browsers

My first though was modifying the desktop entry to start Pipewire and XDG Desktop portals,
but that would mean every time you started the application it would create another instance of Pipewire and the Desktop Portals

Then i thought maybe you could use rc.d script to start everything,
but that wont work because services are started as root and so wont see the XDG_RUNTIME_DIR which is required for Pipewire and the Desktop Portals

So instead i came up with the idea of using Makefile to start and stop Pipewire and the Desktop Portals
for screen sharing for OBS Studio and web browsers

Here are my notes on setting up Pipewire Wayland Screen Sharing on wlroots

github.com

cerberus/freebsd/pipewire-freebsd.org at master · NapoleonWils0n/cerberus

cerberus code library. Contribute to NapoleonWils0n/cerberus development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com


So i created 2 Makefiles for Wayland,
one for wlroots based compositors like dwl, labwc, mango etc

And another one for KDE Wayland


To start Pipewire and XDG Desktop ports for Screen Sharing you just run:

Code: 
make

To stop Pipewire and XDG Desktop ports for Screen Sharing you just run:

Code: 
make clean


Here is the wlroots Makefile

Makefile: 
#===============================================================================
# FILE: Makefile
# Project: Start Pipewire and xdg desktop portals on wlroots
# for OBS Studio and Browser Screen sharing
#===============================================================================

#===============================================================================
# Required Packages:
# doas pkg install pipewire wireplumber xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
#===============================================================================

#===============================================================================
# Usage:
# Start Pipewire = make
# Stop Pipewire = make clean
#===============================================================================

#===============================================================================
# PHONY
#===============================================================================

.PHONY: all clean pipewire_start


#===============================================================================
# commands
#===============================================================================

# pipewire
PIPEWIRE_NAME      := pipewire
PIPEWIRE_EXEC      := /usr/local/bin/pipewire > /dev/null 2>&1 &

# xdg-desktop-portal
PORTAL_EXEC    := /usr/local/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal -r > /dev/null 2>&1 &

# xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
PORTAL_WLR_NAME    := xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
PORTAL_WLR_EXEC    := /usr/local/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr -r > /dev/null 2>&1 &

# kill pipewire and xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
KILLALL        := killall -9 $(PIPEWIRE_NAME) $(PORTAL_WLR_NAME) 2>/dev/null

#===============================================================================
# default target
#===============================================================================

all: pipewire_start


#===============================================================================
# pipewire start
#===============================================================================

pipewire_start:
    @echo 'Starting Pipewire and XDG Portals'
    @$(PIPEWIRE_EXEC)
    @$(PORTAL_EXEC)
    @$(PORTAL_WLR_EXEC)


#===============================================================================
# clean
#===============================================================================

clean:
    @echo 'Stopping Pipewire and XDG Portals'
    @$(KILLALL)


Here is the KDE Wayland Makefile

Makefile: 
#===============================================================================
# FILE: Makefile
# Project: Start Pipewire and xdg desktop portals on KDE
# for OBS Studio and Browser Screen sharing
#===============================================================================

#===============================================================================
# Required Packages:
# doas pkg install pipewire wireplumber xdg-desktop-portal
# plasma6-xdg-desktop-portal-kde
#===============================================================================

#===============================================================================
# Usage:
# Start Pipewire = make
# Stop Pipewire = make clean
#===============================================================================

#===============================================================================
# PHONY
#===============================================================================

.PHONY: all clean pipewire_start


#===============================================================================
# commands
#===============================================================================

# pipewire
PIPEWIRE_NAME      := pipewire
PIPEWIRE_EXEC      := /usr/local/bin/pipewire > /dev/null 2>&1 &

# xdg-desktop-portal
PORTAL_EXEC    := /usr/local/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal -r > /dev/null 2>&1 &

# plasma6-xdg-desktop-portal-kde
PORTAL_KDE_NAME    := plasma6-xdg-desktop-portal-kde
PORTAL_KDE_EXEC    := /usr/local/libexec/plasma6-xdg-desktop-portal-kde -r > /dev/null 2>&1 &

# kill pipewire and plasma6-xdg-desktop-portal-kde
KILLALL        := killall -9 $(PIPEWIRE_NAME) $(PORTAL_KDE_NAME) 2>/dev/null

#===============================================================================
# default target
#===============================================================================

all: pipewire_start


#===============================================================================
# pipewire start
#===============================================================================

pipewire_start:
    @echo 'Starting Pipewire and XDG Portals'
    @$(PIPEWIRE_EXEC)
    @$(PORTAL_EXEC)
    @$(PORTAL_KDE_EXEC)


#===============================================================================
# clean
#===============================================================================

clean:
    @echo 'Stopping Pipewire and XDG Portals'
    @$(KILLALL)


Here are screen shots of OBS Studio running on dwl using wlroots and Wayland

20261012_18h26m52s_grim.png


20261012_18h27m39s_grim.png
 
  • Thanks
Reactions: drr
I'm not up to speed on wayland, but instead of rc.d can't you use the startup facilities of the DE to launch (and eventually terminate) pipewire and the respective portal?
XFCE at least has it and that's what I use to start pulse.
 
fahrenheit said:
I'm not up to speed on wayland, but instead of rc.d can't you use the startup facilities of the DE to launch (and eventually terminate) pipewire and the respective portal?
Click to expand...

Auto-starting pipewire from KDE plasma does not work for me, where as the Makefile solution works perfectly. Maybe auto-start conflicts with other services such as pulse audio or something to do with the order in which services are started?
 
Good stuff,
glad it works and does the job

You could have added commands to your ~/.zprofile for zsh

But i thought using a Makefile which allows you to stop and start Pipewire on demand was a better solution
 
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