TEAMS and LINUX: The Future is Now!

[Aubrey Marshall]

Using Microsoft TEAMS in a web browser and getting the same level of capabilities as the Windows Desktop client has been limited at best, especially for Linux users. The inability to video conference or share desktops and applications or give presentations usually makes using TEAMS on Linux a no go.  

Using Linux myself to host my VMs for various OSes, the need to be able to use TEAMS and other Office 365 tools on Linux is quite high. It’s not always convenient to boot a Windows VM for a meeting or send emails or collaborate with a Team mate. Fortunately, and surprisingly this is no longer the case when using TEAMS on Linux. But to enable this new level of functionality requires just a bit of effort on the end user’s part. 

By using Chromium or Chrome browsers and making a few settings tweaks an installing a single browser extension you can achieve near parity with the Windows desktop client. You should be able to make in-private video calls, give presentations and use other functionality not previously possible in TEAMS for Linux users. 

Unfortunately, there has not been enough time to completely vet this as thoroughly as desired to identify what is or is not working once these changes are made. So, hopefully the TEAMS community will tackle this and update this site accordingly with their findings. 

Please keep in mind that you will need to have the appropriate TEAMS and sharing settings enabled in your Office 365 tenant. Also, for expediency sake this article will not be getting into the minutiae of the following step by step procedure for TEAMS on Linux. 

To get started there are a few required resources that you will need to have so just follow the step by step to get going. 

Step 1: Download and install one of the browsers listed below. 

1. Chrome for Linux 
2. Chromium for Linux 

Step 2: Install the following extension from the Google Webstore. 

1. User Agent Switcher for Chrome 

Step 3: Add one or both of the following user agent strings to the “User Agent Switcher for Chrome”. This will allow you to switch to the desired one that works for your system. 

1. Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.140 Safari/537.36 Edge/17.17134 
2. Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.79 Safari/537.36 Edge/14.14393X 

Step 4: Click the User Agent Switcher and choose your Edge browser string. This should remain selected until you change it to something else or back to the browser default. 

Step 5: Open the Chrome browser, in the address bar type Chrome://flags and hit the Enter key. In the search box provided, search for each of the settings below. Set each one to ENABLED. 

1. Hardware Acceleration 
   1. Override software rendering list: ENABLED 
2. PWA 
   1. Enable PWA full code cache: ENABLED 
   2. Desktop PWAs: ENABLED 
   3. Desktop PWAs Link Capturing: ENABLED 
3. WEBRTC 
   1. Negotiation with GCM cipher suites for SRTP in WebRTC: ENABLED 
   2. Negotiation with encrypted header extensions for SRTP in WebRTC: ENABLED 
   3. WebRTC Stun origin header: ENABLED 
   4. WebRTC Echo Canceller 3: ENABLED 
   5. WebRTC new encode cpu load estimator: ENABLED 
   6. WebRTC H.264 software video encoder/decoder: ENABLED 
4. Downloads 
   1. Parallel downloading: ENABLED 
5. Verify that Setting work. 
   1. Open Microsoft Teams in your browser.  
   2. Start a private chat with someone and verify that the video chat icon switches from grey to purple and white. If so, you can start making video calls and you should also be able to make presentation.  

One quick note; this same procedure should also work on Windows and MAC but further testing is required for these platforms. 

Enjoy! 

[#2]

i have created a chrome extension that enables the calling function for MS Teams.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/enable-teams-calling/ifgnnjhhfdpjpjokajkolhioakajhidc

Basically it sets a value in the settings that enables this function: 
angular.element(document).injector().get('callingSupportService').oneOnOneCallingEnabled = true 
angular.element(document).injector().get('settingsService').appConfig.enableCallingChromeOneOnOne = true

[#3]

Hey,
ive enabled video calls in version 0.2.0. 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/enable-teams-calling/ifgnnjhhfdpjpjokajkolhioakajhidc

[#4]

Using these instructions no longer work for me. I am able to start joining a call, my video is available, but when I finish to "Join", it says "Sorry, couldn't connect you to the call." (or something similar.

I had to reset all of these settings in `chrome://flags` to default, and follow the instructions here: http://nelkinda.com/blog/microsoft-teams-on-linux/#d11e89

Those instructions got me up and running.

[#5]

@Rainson12 

That worked like a charm. On Opensuse Tumbleweed here. Instructions in original post no longer work and is too many steps.

Also found this (screenshare extension for chrome; has 2 stars but works well for me so I can't complain): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/microsoft-teams-screen-sh/dhheiegalgcabbcobinipgmhepkkeidk

[#6]

@Rainson12 : so is this something i have to do on top of the chrome config mentioned in the OP's first message, or does it replace all of the manual config you had to do ?

Great initiative! thanks !!

[#7]

Has anyone other than me had an issue when mentioning another user in teams using linux / chromium ?

I have found that, using teams in chromium, if I prefix them with an "@" to bring up the list of suggested names, and select the person I want to mention then their name becomes a hyperlink, and if I send the message immediately they get a notification as expected.

However, if I keep typing after their name, then the hyperlink immediately reverts to plain text, and they receive no notification at all when the message is sent...

[#8]

Hi,

There is no need to switch user agent (and have the @mentions issue by doing it).

You can either use this electron wrapper or check in the app/browser section where you can pick and choose things to enable you screen sharing, etc.

Repo here (note, I am the main maintainer and this is a fork of ivelkov - no longer maintained - with many fixes):
https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux

Hope helps,
Ismael

[#9]

Hi ! About "teams-for-linux-0.1.15-x86_64.AppImage" My linux is: Leap15.1. Default browser is FF. (chrome is also installed ) When I run teams-for-linux-0.1.15-x86_64.AppImage, it uses firefox... As a result - there is no dialer.. How do I specify teams-for-linux-0.1.15-x86_64.AppImage to use Chrome? Serg

[#10]

@SergeyU2 KoltogyanU2 

please se report issues in the github. 

I suspect is is because you have ff as default browser but maybe there is a way around it. 

Again, issues in github. 

[#11]

@ismaelmartinez : just installed the teams-for-linux snap on my ubuntu 18.04.  Works great so far  :)

Thanks for this initiative !!  I'm moving from WebEx > Teams and your work just made my life sooooo much easier !

kudos x 1000

[#12]

@ismaelmartinezKudos for the great work on https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux!!

Works well in my Ubuntu 18.04.

[#13]

Thank you, it really worked for me in my (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) Edge/17.17134
Oh, I meant (X11; Linux x86_64) Chrome/73.0.3683.86

[#14]

Looks it gonna work (audio, video, screen sharing) for me as well:
https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/releases/tag/v0.2.0
@ismaelmartinez, thank you!

[#15]

Thanks a lot for the new version with desktop sharing @ismaelmartinez 

[#16]

@Thibault Cohensharing via Chrome is not in GA quite yet. We are hoping it becomes available soon as well.

[#17]

Could someone provide the latest update for OOTB Chrome under Linux? As far as I know, I can join a meeting, but I am unable to add audio or screen sharing, is that correct? If so, have Microsoft confirmed it will be in GA at some point?

[#18]

@Paul Mitchell  It still is not GA on Chrome - so whether it is Linux or not isn't relevant. Original ETA was 5/31, but they missed it and I have not heard an update yet.

[#19]

I accept that we have only carried out limited testing so far, but using Chrome 75.0.x we have audio, video and screen sharing when joining a Teams meeting.  We don't yet have 1:1 calling, but the meeting piece is a 'game changer' for our Dev Ops team. @jeffwhite 

[#20]

Excellent! I wish we had more time to test various scenarios. 
Just heard that anonymous users on Chrome screenshare went GA yesterday.

[#21]

@ismaelmartinez any chance to get the icon showing new messages like it does Rambox?