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KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

community.kde.org

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Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#141

Post by WD-42 »

bityard wrote: post #92
Flamingoat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch has an installer these days. It works pretty well and you can have a system up and running in about 20 minutes if you have a fast internet connection. For people that want a Windows like UI, I would probably suggest Cinnamon. It works pretty much like Windows 7/10 without all the visual nonsense that KDE typically has.

My experience is that KDE 6 has very little visual nonsense right out of the box. 4 and 5 did have a lot more, but most/all of it could be disabled. Most other Linux DEs don't really let you customize them to your own personal level of nonsense at any rate.

The clutter is real though, take a look at this screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/nkedVYq

Stock Konsole on the left, stock Ghostty on the right. Note that both terminals have multiple tabs open. The amount of wasted space and visual noise in Konsole is baffling. Not to mention Ghostty is able to display 4 more lines of actual console output (you know, the whole point of a console).

In my experience, many KDE apps follow the same UX. Great for configuration and being able to use primarily the mouse, bad if you are more interested in a keyboard centric flow with a focus on the content.

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#142

Post by WD-42 »

dingnuts wrote: post #111
Flamingoat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch has an installer these days. It works pretty well and you can have a system up and running in about 20 minutes if you have a fast internet connection. For people that want a Windows like UI, I would probably suggest Cinnamon. It works pretty much like Windows 7/10 without all the visual nonsense that KDE typically has.

Cinnamon? Really? In a KDE Connect thread? KDE actually was built around the Windows paradigm; Gnome is a Mac clone. Cinnamon is a fork of Gnome maintained as a side project from a distro with a bad security and management track record. Really the only thing it adds is a launcher; KDE optionally provides the same style if the user wants it. Go find a thread where your pet software is on topic. This thread is about KD…

> Does Cinnamon support that? Does Cinnamon offer anything like it?

KDE Connect can be used with Cinnamon via GSConnect.

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#143

Post by Flamingoat »

saubeidl wrote: post #134
Flamingoat wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree with your assessment of KDE lacking "taste". Imo, it looks like a system designed by engineers, not designers. TBF, I was linked their more up to date screenshots in a sibling thread and it does look more consistent but it still seems off. > I currently use KDE, but am not happy with it for the reasons you described. I used to use GNOME, but wasn't happy with it for the reasons above. I don't like any of th…

Do you think GNOME has similar UI issues? In my view, it's "pretty", but just doesn't let me configure it the way I want it to without hacking around way too much.

Yes. I agree. Gnome is kinda weird OOTB.

I ended up installing Dash To Dock and Ubuntu App Indicator Icons when I was using it and I ended up with something decent. I also usually have to faff around in the gnome tweaks tool to get the old "legacy" apps and the new apps looking consistent.

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#144

Post by aidenn0 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #138
aidenn0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so if I setup mDNS on my workstation KDE Connect will be more reliable? Kind of annoying since I DNS already works to resolve names.

Your desktop probably already has mDNS set up, most user-friendly distros do it out of the box. But it doesn't really matter, because KDE Connect implements its own sort-of mDNS system by itself, in the form of JSON broadcast across the local network on a standard port offering hostnames, services, and other metadata. Actual, real mDNS would require integration into the host's networking setup and that's too much to…

1. I don't use a user-friendly distro

2. Thanks for that info; next time it fails to connect I'll take a look in wireshark.

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#145

Post by gear54rus »

ezst wrote: post #114
gear54rus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely have a need for this, but I can't stomach same-network requirement. Maybe they need self-hostable coordination server so that devices can connect to each other through it. For now it's still 'send to telegram saved messages' for me.

> self-hostable coordination server What a long way to spell VPN :-) (been using it for a decade or so through wireguard)

No, vpn takes over your network and you have to fight weird issues on different platforms. This seems like a square peg for a round hole.

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#146

Post by gear54rus »

exdeejay_ wrote: post #98
gear54rus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely have a need for this, but I can't stomach same-network requirement. Maybe they need self-hostable coordination server so that devices can connect to each other through it. For now it's still 'send to telegram saved messages' for me.

Have you considered using Tailscale to get around the same-network requirement?

I am a heavy user of it. I don't want to stay connected to it 24/7.

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#147

Post by Flamingoat »

immibis wrote: post #139
Flamingoat wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Debian 13 (stable). It is very solid. I was using Debian Trixie when it was testing and there was breakage twice. I would make the /boot partition twice the size the installer suggests though as on my laptop I can't upgrade the kernel because the /boot runs out of space. The laptop is used to view old manuals in PDFs while working on my car so I don't really care. TBH any of the major Linux distros that have be…

Debian is a very solid, stable, but slow-moving distribution.

Yeh. I'm used to using old version of RHEL at work so I ended up learning how to deal with slow moving distros.

I use the OS as a base system and most of the stuff that needs to be newer versions can be done by installing the binary to to ~/bin as it is added to your path by ~/.profile if the directory exists on Debian.

Stuff like Discord, Slack, Kdenlive, OBS etc. I install using flatpak.

Other stuff. Go, Vim (I compile vim from source) and nvim can stuff can be compiled or dropped into /usr/local

That covers most stuff IME. However I appreciate this won't work for everyone.

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#148

Post by johannes1234321 »

maqnius wrote: post #88
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #6

This is a killer app. There have been times when I asked someone "why can't you just send me a screenshot on signal" or "Oh, can't you copy the URL to your desktop?"... only to realize that the poor fellow didn't have KDE connect (yet). It's not perfect, but it does things I haven't found anywhere else, makes your phone and laptop and pc. It might help that I'm actually running KDE everywhere, of course.

I have a all my messengers running on my desktop as well, so I don't really have those problems. How's KDE Connect superior? I'm seriously interested, since I read it's a killer feature but I cannot really imagine how it would help me.

It is less about messengers per se, itnis about interacting between devices.

I can share clipboard contentents, can send files, send web page urls from phone to desktop to open a browser there, can control media playback between devices (switch to next track/pause desktop from phone and vice versa) etc also I get phone notifications on desktop

(All optional)

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#149

Post by ezst »

gear54rus wrote: post #145
ezst wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> self-hostable coordination server What a long way to spell VPN :-) (been using it for a decade or so through wireguard)

No, vpn takes over your network and you have to fight weird issues on different platforms. This seems like a square peg for a round hole.

Not really? I mean, it's easy to set and forget which subnets get tunnelled with wireguard (and others, it's just that wg forces you to be explicit about it)

Re: KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

#150

Post by Zak »

aidenn0 wrote: post #115
maqnius wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a all my messengers running on my desktop as well, so I don't really have those problems. How's KDE Connect superior? I'm seriously interested, since I read it's a killer feature but I cannot really imagine how it would help me.

Those of us who live in the US where SMS is the default messenger can't have all of their messengers running on their desktop.

Sure you can. Just use KDE Connect.
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