Vibemis

Vibemis is a gamepad-first, actively-maintained game-streaming client for SteamOS and Linux handhelds. It takes the best of both sides of the Moonlight/Artemis world — Moonlight Qt's solid Linux/handheld foundation and Artemis's support for Apollo's extended protocol — and pairs with Vibepollo, its host-side counterpart. Set up Vibepollo on your gaming PC, run Vibemis on your handheld, pair, and stream.

Built for SteamOS. The primary target is SteamOS Game Mode (Gamescope) on AMD handhelds; every release is hardware-verified on a Lenovo Legion Go S Z2 test device before it ships. It runs on any modern Linux desktop too.

Why Vibemis? (the best of both worlds)

Streaming clients in this world come in two flavors, and until now you couldn't get both on a Linux handheld:

• Moonlight Qt is the mainline open-source Qt client for PCs and handhelds — rock-solid and actively maintained — but it speaks only the base GameStream/Sunshine protocol. The extras that Apollo / Vibepollo hosts add (clipboard sync, server commands, OTP pairing, virtual display control, an in-stream Quick Menu, per-client permissions) simply don't work through it.
• Artemis ("Moonlight Noir") is the client family that does speak those Apollo extensions. Artemis for Android is active, but the desktop/Linux build — wjbeckett/artemis, which Vibemis is forked from — went dormant (Aug 2025) with an AppImage that no longer builds on current Mesa/glibc. That left no maintained Linux/handheld client with the Apollo features.

Vibemis takes the best of both: Moonlight Qt's current, well-supported Linux/handheld base plus the Apollo-protocol features from the Artemis lineage — actively maintained, fixed for current SteamOS/Mesa/AMD, gamepad-first, and tuned for the Vibepollo host.

• The Apollo features, on a maintained Linux handheld — clipboard sync, server commands, OTP pairing, virtual display, in-stream Quick Menu, and per-client permissions, all surfaced on-device
• Works on current SteamOS — VAAPI/Mesa compatibility fixes for AMD hardware; every cycle is verified on the Lenovo Legion Go S Z2 (including nested-Gamescope "Game Mode" runs)
• Tuned for Vibepollo — pairing flow, clipboard auth, and SSL handling built for the Vibepollo host specifically
• Kept current — merged with upstream moonlight-qt (May 2026), CI pipeline on every push

Clients vs. hosts: Vibemis, Moonlight Qt, and Artemis are clients (they run on your handheld/PC). They pair with a host on your gaming PC: Vibepollo (the counterpart Vibemis is tuned for), Apollo, or vanilla Sunshine. Apollo/Vibepollo are Sunshine-lineage hosts; their extended features light up automatically when the host supports them.

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Installation

No building, no installer, no dependencies. Vibemis is a single self-contained file — download it and double-click it.

📲 Already have Vibemis installed? Skip the download — it updates itself. In the app open Settings → Advanced → Software updates, pick your channel (Stable recommended; Beta for the newest features), then Check for updates → Update now. Details in Downloads & updates.

Easiest way (Steam Deck / SteamOS)

1. Switch to Desktop Mode. (Hold the power button → Switch to Desktop.)
2. Open a web browser and go to the Releases page. Download the latest .AppImage file (either a Release or the latest Pre-release — both work; the newest one is fine).
3. Find the downloaded file (usually in your Downloads folder) and double-click it to run.
   • If double-clicking does nothing, right-click the file → Properties → Permissions → tick "Is executable" (or "Allow executing file as program"), then double-click again.

That's it — Vibemis opens and you can add your host PC.

If it still won't open and you see a FUSE error (common on SteamOS, which doesn't ship libfuse2), open a terminal in the file's folder and run it in extract mode — no installation needed:

./Vibemis-*.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run

Any other Linux

Same idea: download the latest .AppImage from Releases, make it executable (right-click → Properties → "Allow executing as program", or chmod +x Vibemis-*.AppImage), then double-click or run ./Vibemis-*.AppImage.

Add to Steam (SteamOS / Steam Deck)

To launch Vibemis from Game Mode:

Easiest: run scripts/install-vibemis-desktop.sh from a Desktop Mode terminal — it installs the AppImage to a stable path with a clean Vibemis desktop entry, ready to Add to Steam. Or manually:

1. In Desktop Mode, right-click the AppImage and select Add to Steam
2. Open the shortcut's Properties and set the name to Vibemis
3. Switch to Game Mode — Vibemis appears in your library under Non-Steam Games

The in-stream Quick Menu works in Game Mode: it is composited into the stream itself (OverlayManager surface), so it renders identically under Gamescope and on the desktop. Open it with Select + L1 + R1 + Y; close with B, Back/Select, or Start ("Resume Game").

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Features

From Moonlight Qt

• Hardware-accelerated video decoding (VAAPI, VDPAU, NVDEC, CUDA)
• H.264, HEVC, and AV1 codec support
• YUV 4:4:4 chroma, HDR streaming, 7.1 surround sound
• 10-point multitouch, gamepad with force feedback and motion controls (up to 16 players)
• Pointer capture / direct mouse mode, system-wide keyboard shortcut passthrough

From Artemis / Apollo (extended protocol features)

• Clipboard Sync — bidirectional clipboard between client and host
• Server Commands — trigger custom commands on the Apollo/Vibepollo host
• OTP Pairing — secure pairing via Vibepollo's "Pair Client" web UI
• Quick Menu — in-stream overlay for clipboard, commands, and stream controls
• Fractional Refresh Rates — client-side custom refresh (e.g. 90 Hz, 120 Hz)
• Resolution Scaling — client-side scale factor for performance tuning
• Virtual Display Control — request a virtual display on the host
• UUID-Based App Launching — modern app identification with legacy fallback
• Permissions Viewer — inspect host-side client permissions from the app

Added by Vibemis

• Game Mode Quick Menu — the in-stream menu is rendered offscreen and composited into the video (works under Gamescope, not just the desktop), with full gamepad navigation and a discoverable "Resume Game" exit (B / Back / Start)
• Tailscale-first remote play — one-command scripts/setup-tailscale.sh, an in-app setup button, and automatic preference for tailnet addresses when reaching a host
• SteamOS one-click integration — scripts/vibemis-setup.sh guided setup (doctor → update → install → pair → add games to Steam), plus per-script helpers and a self-update command
• Settings export / import — portable .ini backup of the full configuration
• In-app updates with channels — pick Stable / Beta / Alpha in Settings → Advanced → "Software updates", check for updates on demand, and (when running as an AppImage) install the new build in place with one tap — no browser or terminal needed
• Performance overlay controls — corner anchoring, text size, optional wall clock, and a data-usage estimate next to the bitrate slider
• Handheld quality-of-life — battery-saver bitrate, controller-rumble suppression, motion (gyro) capability detection, host software version & per-client permission surfacing, AV1 and native-resolution guidance, HDR display-capability gate
• vibemis selftest — headless smoke test used by CI and the on-device test harness
• Per-game stream profiles — save resolution/FPS/bitrate/HDR per game from the app tile's context menu; the profile applies automatically at launch without touching global settings
• Auto-reconnect (opt-in) — a dropped stream retries in place (3 attempts with backoff) instead of dumping you back to the game grid
• Gamepad-first redesign — a full controller-first UI on a unified dark design-token system (one accent/surface/type language), across every screen: the Computers list (rich status cards + live host count), app grid, Add-PC dialog, Host-options side-sheet, Settings (a category sidebar), and in-stream Help — per-screen chrome, a single header, the accent focus-ring, and line icons

Known limitations

Feature	Status
HDR streaming	Ships opt-in and marked Experimental (off by default; auto-disabled on unsupported PCs). The code path is complete but has not yet been validated on HDR hardware — the primary test device's panel is SDR. Validation is planned via an external HDR display.
Microphone passthrough	Not possible yet in any Moonlight-family client: it requires host-side protocol support that Apollo/Vibepollo does not ship (tracked upstream — Apollo discussion #591).

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Remote Play (over the internet)

Vibemis streams over your LAN out of the box. To stream when the client and host are on different networks — without port forwarding or exposing your host to the internet — put both devices on the same Tailscale network. Tailscale is free for personal use, end-to-end encrypted (WireGuard), and handles NAT traversal automatically.

1. On the host (the PC running Vibepollo/Apollo/Sunshine): install Tailscale and sign in.
2. On the client (Steam Deck / handheld running Vibemis): install Tailscale and sign in with the same account. On SteamOS, Tailscale is available as a Flatpak or via the static binary.
3. In Vibemis, add the host by its Tailscale address — either its 100.x.x.x IP or its MagicDNS name (hostname.your-tailnet.ts.net). Pair and stream exactly as you would on the LAN.

Notes

• No Vibemis configuration is required beyond using the Tailscale address as the host.
• For best latency, Tailscale will establish a direct peer-to-peer path when possible and fall back to an encrypted relay (DERP) otherwise. Expect LAN-class latency on a direct path; relayed paths add some overhead.
• The host's streaming ports do not need to be forwarded — Tailscale carries the traffic over the encrypted tunnel.

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Keyboard and Gamepad Shortcuts

Quick Menu

Input	Shortcut
Keyboard	Ctrl + Alt + Shift + \
Gamepad	Select + L1 + R1 + Y

Full Keyboard Reference

All shortcuts require Ctrl + Alt + Shift:

Key	Action
\	Toggle Quick Menu
Q	Quit stream
E	Quit stream and exit app
S	Toggle performance stats overlay
X	Toggle fullscreen
M	Toggle mouse capture
Z	Toggle input capture
C	Toggle cursor visibility
V	Paste clipboard text
L	Toggle pointer region lock
D	Minimize window

Gamepad Reference

Combo	Action
Select + L1 + R1 + Y	Toggle Quick Menu
D-pad / A (while menu open)	Navigate / activate menu item
B, Back/Select, or Start (while menu open)	Close menu / resume game
Start + Select + L1 + R1	Quit stream
Select + L1 + R1 + X	Toggle performance stats overlay
Long press Start	Toggle mouse emulation mode

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Downloads & updates

Each release ships a single .AppImage — download and double-click; nothing to extract.

📲 Already have a previous version installed? Update in-app — no download needed. Open Settings → Advanced → Software updates, pick the channel that matches the build you want (see the table below — Stable for 0.x.y, Release candidate for -rc, Beta for -beta, Alpha for -alpha), then Check for updates → Update now. The AppImage swaps itself in place (the previous build stays alongside as .old for rollback) and relaunches. The scripts/vibemis-update.sh helper does the same from a terminal or a Steam shortcut.

Versions follow Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 — pre-releases are suffixed versions of the stable they precede (0.5.0-beta.007 → 0.5.0), with dense zero-padded counters. The first stable is 0.1.0; its release-candidate lineage (0.1.0-rc.001..006, including the interim-scheme cuts) is preserved on the releases page.

Channel	Tag shape	Built from	Use
✅ Stable	0.x.y (bare)	Explicit release cuts	Recommended — hand-verified on device
🎯 Release candidate	0.x.y-rc.NNN	Explicit rc cuts	The exact build proposed as the next stable, for on-device verification
🧪 Beta	0.x.y-beta.NNN	vibemis-main	Manual-testing channel — newest features
🔬 Alpha	0.x.y-alpha.NNN	test<N>-* branches (on request)	Automated test-agent artifacts

→ Download the latest stable · 📅 build timeline — newest first, all channels · all releases · newest betas · newest alphas

ℹ️ GitHub's Releases and Tags pages sort by SemVer precedence, not date — and per SemVer, alpha pre-releases rank below beta ones of the same version, so the newest alpha appears after all the betas (often on page 2). Use the filtered links above, or the in-app channel picker, to find the newest build of a specific tier.

The releases page lists the project's complete build history under the semver catalog — from 0.1.0-alpha.001 (the first automated build, July 2025) through the beta and rc trains to the 0.1.0 stable. Historical entries are prerelease-flagged markers without artifacts; see docs/RELEASE_HISTORY.md for the full map (original tags, commits, CI runs, and the story of every stable number).

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Building from Source

For development or debugging only. No need to build to use Vibemis — just download the AppImage above.

Dependencies

Ubuntu / Debian:

sudo apt install \
  qt6-base-dev qt6-declarative-dev libqt6svg6-dev \
  qml6-module-qtquick-controls qml6-module-qtquick-templates \
  qml6-module-qtquick-layouts \
  libegl1-mesa-dev libgl1-mesa-dev \
  libopus-dev libsdl2-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev libssl-dev \
  libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev \
  libva-dev libvdpau-dev \
  libxkbcommon-dev wayland-protocols libdrm-dev

Fedora / RHEL:

sudo dnf install \
  qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtdeclarative-devel qt6-qtsvg-devel \
  openssl-devel SDL2-devel SDL2_ttf-devel ffmpeg-devel \
  libva-devel libvdpau-devel opus-devel \
  pulseaudio-libs-devel alsa-lib-devel libdrm-devel

Build

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/navyas321/vibemis.git
cd vibemis
qmake6 vibemis.pro CONFIG+=release
make -j$(nproc)
./app/vibemis

AppImage

# Requires linuxdeploy-x86_64.AppImage in PATH
bash scripts/build-appimage.sh
# Output: build/installer-release/Vibemis-<version>-x86_64.AppImage

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Attribution

• Artemis (desktop / "Moonlight Noir") by wjbeckett — the C++/QML desktop client (a Moonlight-Qt-lineage build that speaks Apollo's extensions) that Vibemis is forked from; now dormant
• Artemis Android by MobinYengejehi — Android Apollo client whose features serve as a reference for Vibemis
• Moonlight Qt by the Moonlight Team — the upstream streaming client this is built on
• Apollo and Artemis Android by ClassicOldSong — the Sunshine fork and Android client whose protocol extensions this client speaks
• Sunshine by LizardByte — the original open-source game streaming server
• moonlight-common-c (ClassicOldSong's Apollo-lineage fork) — the protocol/codec library submodule
• Vibepollo — the Apollo/Sunshine-lineage host Vibemis is built to pair with (the counterpart to this client)

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License

GPL v3 — see LICENSE.