How I Made Transcreen Work on Linux

Table of Contents

The Problem
#

I wanted to run Transcreen (a wireless screen casting app for smartboards) on EndeavourOS but there was no official package for Arch Linux. I tried installing it via

AUR Package - this is 3 years old and won’t launch
Converted .deb with debtap - installed it but same thing it won’t launch

So, I tried running it via /opt/Transcreen/Transcreen and got the following errors.

$ /opt/Transcreen/Transcreen
No PulseAudio daemon running, or not running as session daemon.
fopen: No such file or directory
fopen: No such file or directory
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.666: InitTFFControler() call InitHidManager()!
fopen: No such file or directory
fopen: No such file or directory
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.676: InitTFFControler() where strServerId=,value=
fopen: No such file or directory
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.676: InitTFFControler() Call Broadcast
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.677: InitTFFControler() Call HeartBeat
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.677: InitTFFControler() Call PaPa
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.677: InitTFFControler() Call Video
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.677: InitTFFControler() Call Audio
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.678: InitTFFControler() Call PPT
[INFO]2026-02-09 21:18:27.678: InitTFFControler() end
cat: /etc/redhat-release: No such file or directory
../SreenCast/TFFAudioManager.cpp: pa_simple_new() failed: Invalid argument
Assertion 'p' failed at pulse/simple.c:315, function pa_simple_read(). Aborting.
[1]    4815 IOT instruction (core dumped)  ./Transcreen

I also tested the official .deb on LinuxMint too but same crash. Seems like this isn’t an Arch specific issue; it affects any distro using PipeWire instead of PulseAudio.

My System
#

EndeavourOS with Niri (Wayland) & Cinnamon (X11)
PipeWire
Installed transcreen via debtap

Fixes I tried
#

The following steps were all performed on Niri (Wayland).

First, cd into Transcreen directory

cd /opt/Transcreen

Forced the app to use XWayland
#

I first installed this package

sudo pacman -S xorg-xwayland

And then launched transcreen again via this

QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb ./AppRun

But similar error as above.

PulseAudio Crash (Main Culprit)
#

The last few lines had this error.

../SreenCast/TFFAudioManager.cpp: pa_simple_new() failed: Invalid argument
Assertion 'p' failed at pulse/simple.c:315, function pa_simple_read(). Aborting.
[1]    4815 IOT instruction (core dumped)  ./Transcreen

I installed apulse

sudo pacman -S apulse

and then ran this

QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb apulse ./AppRun

and I got this error

fopen: No such file or directory
fopen: No such file or directory
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.929: InitTFFControler() call InitHidManager()!
fopen: No such file or directory
fopen: No such file or directory
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.940: InitTFFControler() where strServerId=,value=
fopen: No such file or directory
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.940: InitTFFControler() Call Broadcast
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.940: InitTFFControler() Call HeartBeat
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.940: InitTFFControler() Call PaPa
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.941: InitTFFControler() Call Video
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.941: InitTFFControler() Call Audio
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.941: InitTFFControler() Call PPT
[INFO]2026-02-09 22:19:08.941: InitTFFControler() end
cat: /etc/redhat-release: No such file or directory
pactl: symbol lookup error: pactl: undefined symbol: pa_context_send_message_to_object, version PULSE_0
../SreenCast/TFFAudioManager.cpp: pa_simple_read() failed: Oops.
../SreenCast/TFFAudioManager.cpp: pa_simple_read() failed: Oops.
[1]    9826 segmentation fault (core dumped)  QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb apulse ./AppRun

Now I got slightly different errors. Then I ran this to create a fake pulseaudio library

cat > /tmp/fake_pulse.c << 'EOF'
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdio.h>

typedef struct pa_simple pa_simple;

pa_simple* pa_simple_new(void* a, void* b, int c, void* d, void* e, void* f, void* g, void* h, int* error) {
    printf("fake pa_simple_new called\n");
    if (error) *error = 0;
    return (pa_simple*)0xDEADBEEF; // Return fake pointer
}

int pa_simple_read(pa_simple* s, void* data, size_t bytes, int* error) {
    if (error) *error = 0;
    return 0; // Success
}

void pa_simple_free(pa_simple* s) {
    printf("fake pa_simple_free called\n");
}

int pa_simple_write(pa_simple* s, const void* data, size_t bytes, int* error) {
    if (error) *error = 0;
    return 0;
}

const char* pa_strerror(int error) {
    return "No error (fake)";
}
EOF

and then

gcc -shared -fPIC -o /tmp/libfake_pulse.so /tmp/fake_pulse.c

and again ran transcreen using this

LD_PRELOAD=/tmp/libfake_pulse.so QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb ./AppRun

Now, finally the application launched, I had a window running!

But it was in Chinese and I dont know chinese!

Attempted to enable English
#

Here are the files ls /opt/Transcreen in

doc  plugins  translations  config.ini  default.desktop  Transcreen
lib  qml      AppRun        cursor.png  qt.conf

I tried modifying config.ini which had the following content.

[CONFIG]
##################################################
################# 【基本配置信息】 ###############
##################################################
# 语言设置
language=1
# 镜像投屏授权
Autoaccept=1

So, tried changing the value of language to 0, 2, 3, -1, en, eng and english but it was still in chinese.

Tried forcing english

LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LD_PRELOAD=/tmp/libfake_pulse.so QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb ./AppRun

but failed.

Also tried finding any other config files in ~/.config/Transcreen but it didn’t existed.

At this point, I thought fine I’m gonna use it in chinese as long as it works I’m good and made this simple translation guide for myself.

Also, make sure to allow the firewall for the application according to your distro. I used this

sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=mdns --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

And now I’m good to go.

Black Screen on Niri
#

Now it was time to test it. I tried sharing my screen via Niri and got a BLACK screen.

I thought maybe the application was faulty, so I switched to Cinnamon and tried again and it worked perfectly.

So the issue was specific to Wayland. I tried installing screen capture portals:

sudo pacman -S xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-gnome

Configured portal preferences in ~/.config/xdg-desktop-portal/portals.conf:

[preferred]
default=gnome;gtk
org.freedesktop.impl.portal.ScreenCast=gnome

Restarted the portal:

systemctl --user restart xdg-desktop-portal

Still black screen. Tried a few more compatibility tweaks but nothing worked.

The reason: Transcreen uses old X11 screen capture APIs that don’t support modern Wayland compositors. There’s no fix for this without the developers rewriting the app to use PipeWire screencasting.

Bottom line: You need an X11 DE or WM to use Transcreen.

And that’s where I am right now - it works great on Cinnamon, but not on my preferred Niri setup.

Success …well kinda!
#

Prerequisites: Any X11 DE or WM

Here is the final stuff that worked:

Step-1: Run the following commands to create a fake pulseaudio library

cat > /tmp/fake_pulse.c << 'EOF'
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdio.h>

typedef struct pa_simple pa_simple;

pa_simple* pa_simple_new(void* a, void* b, int c, void* d, void* e, void* f, void* g, void* h, int* error) {
    printf("fake pa_simple_new called\n");
    if (error) *error = 0;
    return (pa_simple*)0xDEADBEEF; // Return fake pointer
}

int pa_simple_read(pa_simple* s, void* data, size_t bytes, int* error) {
    if (error) *error = 0;
    return 0; // Success
}

void pa_simple_free(pa_simple* s) {
    printf("fake pa_simple_free called\n");
}

int pa_simple_write(pa_simple* s, const void* data, size_t bytes, int* error) {
    if (error) *error = 0;
    return 0;
}

const char* pa_strerror(int error) {
    return "No error (fake)";
}
EOF
gcc -shared -fPIC -o /tmp/libfake_pulse.so /tmp/fake_pulse.c

make it permanent

sudo mkdir -p /opt/Transcreen/lib/custom
sudo mv /tmp/libfake_pulse.so /opt/Transcreen/lib/custom/

Step-2: Create a permanent script by running the following

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/transcreen

remove existing data and add the following

#!/bin/bash
cd /opt/Transcreen
LD_PRELOAD=/opt/Transcreen/lib/custom/libfake_pulse.so QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb /opt/Transcreen/AppRun "$@"

Press Ctrl+X, then y and finally press enter to save the file.

Make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/transcreen

Step-3: Create a desktop entry

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/transcreen.desktop

add this data

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Transcreen
Comment=Wireless Screen Casting
Exec=/usr/local/bin/transcreen
Icon=/opt/Transcreen/cursor.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Network;AudioVideo;

Step-4: Allow transcreen through the firewall. I use firewall-cmd, check what your system uses.

sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=mdns --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Step-5: Launch the application either via terminal or via the application launcher(if you added a desktop entry at step-4)

transcreen

Now, get in the same network and enter the device IP shown on the smartboard and press the big blue button at the bottom to share the screen.

Here is a picture of it running,

Conclusion
#

I thought to myself that I only have to share my screen rarely and I have already invested so much time debugging it. It works flawlessly now on Cinnamon tho but I really wanted it running on Niri. But this is it for now, maybe in future I will pick this up again and work on it.
This was such an amazing debugging session that I had. Got to learn about so many things that I never thought even existed, glad that I finally switched to EndeavourOS from LinuxMint 2 months ago. In the past few months, I learned so many things that I hadn’t in the past few years.

Note: I used Claude AI to help troubleshoot and document this process. The debugging was collaborative as I ran the commands and reported errors, while Claude suggested fixes and explained why things were failing.

Author

silentfin

it’s more fun to be competent.

The Problem#

My System#

Fixes I tried#

Forced the app to use XWayland#

PulseAudio Crash (Main Culprit)#

Attempted to enable English#

Black Screen on Niri#

Success …well kinda!#

Conclusion#