Linux

8812 readers

393 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Ategon@programming.dev

anzo@programming.dev

dwraf_of_ignorance@programming.dev

5 Open Source Apps You Can use for Seamless File Transfer Between Linux and Android (itsfoss.com)

submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] who@feddit.org 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

It's worth noting that KDE Connect works on more desktops than just KDE Plasma. It also supports Linux, Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, and probably other operating systems, and can do more than just transfer files.

[–] qupada@fedia.io 8 points 1 week ago

Using the phone as a touchpad has come in handy on a few occasions for me. Also just niceties like having your music on the PC pause automatically if you receive a call.

It should further be pointed out that it's not even required that one end is a phone. You can connect your laptop to your desktop and share content between them just as easily.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

On Linux, you have to be running Gnome or KDE. There is a headless option called mconnect, but (a) it's essentially unmaintained, (b) it's written in Vala, a niche¹ language, (c) either KDE Connect or mconnect can't maintain an association - leaving the LAN and returning always forces a re-authentication.

It's promising, and nice when it works, but the supported linux daemons are - sadly - tightly coupled to two DEs, making it useless for headless and the large number of people running neither KDE or Gnome.

Device Connect, OTOH, works flawlessly, remembers device authorization, and the Linux server is completely headless. It uses standard tooling for desktop integration tasks, like opening links. It lacks many of KDE connect's features, such as using the phone as a touchpad and media control (the latter would be easy to support through MPRIS2, but media control could also be a separate app; it's kitchen-sinking, so I understand leaving it out).

postfix someone wrote another headless (and, hopefully, KDE services-less) connect server, called konnect. It's Python, but that's still better than Vala.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

On Linux, you have to be running Gnome or KDE.

I've used it without those issues on cinnamon, xfce, and a variety of of tiling WMs. It fails to connect sometimes, but that happens on KDE as well, and I most certainly didn't need to reauth every time I connect to the network. So idk what you're talking about.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 1 week ago

So, you're basically running the KDE infrastructure, just not using the KDE WM? Have you done a ps and counted the number of KDE services that are running, just to run KDE Connect?

Here are the (KDE) dependencies on the Arch KDE Connect package:

kcmutils 
kconfig
kcoreaddons 
kcrash
kdbusaddons
kdeclarative
kguiaddons
ki18n
kiconthemes
kio
kirigami
kirigami-addons                               kitemmodels
kjobwidgets
knotifications
kpeople
kservice
kstatusnotifieritem                           kwidgetsaddons
kwindowsystem
pulseaudio-qt
qqc2-desktop-style
qt6-base
qt6-connectivity
qt6-declarative
qt6-multimedia
qt6-wayland

When you run KDE Connect, you're running most of the KDE Desktop and Qt; you're just not using it.

Have you ever tried running it headless? I have; it doesn't work.