Installation

Option 1 — AppImage (recommended)

Download the AppImage from the Releases page, then:

chmod +x CastMane-*.AppImage
./CastMane-*.AppImage

That’s it — no Python, venv, or pip setup. The AppImage bundles Python, Qt, and all PyPI dependencies.

Host tools you still need

Install these on your system (everything else is bundled):

# Fedora / KDE (tested on Fedora 44, KDE Plasma, Wayland)
sudo dnf install ffmpeg gstreamer1 gstreamer1-plugins-base gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugin-openh264

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly

Component	Wayland backend	X11 backend
OS	Linux, Python ≥ 3.10	Linux, Python ≥ 3.10
Video pipeline	gst-launch-1.0 with pipewiresrc, openh264enc, matroskamux	ffmpeg with x11grab
System service	xdg-desktop-portal with a ScreenCast backend (KDE/GNOME)	—
Audio (optional)	Pulse/PipeWire source (pactl list short sources)	Pulse source

Missing something? The app shows a friendly popup telling you exactly what to install.

Option 2 — Build the AppImage yourself

./packaging/build-appimage.sh
./dist/CastMane-*.AppImage

Option 3 — From source (developers)

python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .
python3 -m castmane

No system Python packages or compiler toolchain required: the Wayland backend drives the portal over D-Bus (dbus-next) and runs GStreamer as a subprocess, so PyGObject is not needed.