Not everyone has the desk space– never mind the finances – to afford the luxury of a dual-monitor setup. Adding a second display can, however, rev

How to Use a Tablet or Phone as a Second Monitor in Linux

submited by
Style Pass
2021-06-19 22:00:03

Not everyone has the desk space– never mind the finances – to afford the luxury of a dual-monitor setup. Adding a second display can, however, revolutionize the way you use your PC.

Deskreen is a free Linux application that provides a clever workaround to this problem, one that makes it possible for you to view multiple windows at once across additional displays without spending anything. Simply put, it enables you to convert other devices, including phones, tablets, laptops, and even smart TVs, into wireless, secondary displays for your computing tasks.

Deskreen transmits your display – both X and Wayland windowing systems are supported – to your mobile devices over your local (wired or wireless) network using the WebRTC protocol. Most of the heavy lifting is done by your PC, so even older phones and tablets should work with it. The key requirement for your mobile is that it has a web browser that supports WebRTC – on Android, that means running Chrome 28 or later, or Firefox 22 or later. If you’re hoping to use an old iPhone or iPad, it’ll need to run iOS 11 or later.

Before we can use Deskreen, we need to download and configure a BASH script that will configure a virtual display. Please note that this script is compatible with the X Window system only. Newer Ubuntu releases ship with Wayland set as default. To change this click on the cog / Settings icon and select “Ubuntu”.

Leave a Comment