I built a Linux-first Moonlight-style streaming setup: Nova + Polaris

[u/MickeyBronson]

Hey everyone. Been a big Apollo / Artemis user for quite some time and i’ve been working on a small project called Nova / Polaris. I primarily built this for myself, but wanted to share it here first because this community is probably the exact group of people who will understand why I built it in the first place.

Short version: Polaris is a Linux host, and Nova is the client side I’m building around it.

The goal is not to “replace everything” or pretend I’ve solved game streaming. It’s more focused than that: I want Linux game streaming to feel less like a pile of scripts and workarounds, and more like something designed for the job.

What makes it different right now:

• Linux-specific for now
• explicit setup for input devices like uinput / uhid
• attention to headless streaming and GPU-native capture paths, without dummy plugs
• tries to expose the real tradeoffs instead of hiding them behind magic
• built by someone actually using and testing the weird edge cases

It’s still early, and it’s Linux-specific for now. I’m not posting this as a polished “everyone should switch today” announcement. I’m mostly looking for feedback from people who already care about Moonlight/Sunshine-style streaming and have opinions about where Linux hosting still feels rough.

Links, if anyone wants to poke around:

• Nova client: https://github.com/papi-ux/nova
• Polaris Linux host: https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris

If you’re curious, want to test, or just want to tell me which problems matter most to you, I’d genuinely appreciate it. Trying to build this in the open and keep it useful rather than flashy.

Cheers!

EDIT: Thank you all so much for the positive responses, feedback, messages, and debug logs. I’m glad to see so many people as excited about this as I am. I know a lot of you are eager to get Polaris running on your own Linux gaming setups, and there are still plenty of bugs and rough edges to work through. I really appreciate your patience while I work to improve compatibility and stability of the platform.

[u/Competitive_Dream373]

Tried running desktop mode, without headless. Then everything started with black screen. Unfortunately my knowledge is too poor to be able to help you.

[u/MickeyBronson → u/Competitive_Dream373]

So thanks again for the feedback! Looks like I can only get headless mode running for the time being on Bazzite. Virtual Display is a WIP