We all love open-source software, but there are so many amazing projects out there that often go unnoticed. Let’s change that! Share your favorite open-source software that you think more people should know about. Here’s how you can contribute:
- Single Option Per Comment: Mention one open-source software per comment to be able to easily find the most popular software.
- No Duplicates: Avoid duplicating software that has already been mentioned to ensure a wide variety of options.
- Upvote What You Love: If you see a software that you also appreciate, upvote it to help others discover it more easily.
Check out last year’s post for more inspiration: Last Year’s Post
Let’s create a comprehensive list of open-source software that everyone should know about!
KDE Connect: An app for iOS, android, pretty much every flavor of linux, windows, etc. that lets you connect any devices together to share files, show notifications of other devices, use your phone as an input device(keyboard, mouse), control multimedia applications(start, play, stop, etc.), trigger commands, and everything else if you make a plugin for it.
The craziest thing I discovered when I started using it was when I noticed that because my desktop was now connected to my phone and my phone was connected to my watch, I could completely control the media on both from my watch and the integration felt natural - but also something I haven’t seen work that well in the proprietary world.
For me it was, that the video i was watching paused when i got a call and repeated the moment i hung up. FUTURE (or apple ecosystem, i suppose.)
Yea! I forgot it did that as well, but when that happened I had that same reaction of “holy crap, anything proprietary isn’t even close to being this good”.
This might read as a stupid question but ; Do you have to use KDE Plasma as a DE for it to work ?
no! there is GSConnect which is a gnome extension that provides the protocol as well
Ty !
I use it on Fedora with GNOME. Its available as a GNOME extension
Nice !
No, it works on other setups too! I have used the regular kde connect app with enlightenment DE for example.
It even works on windows
I have it running on my i3wm
I wish I could send a whole folder of files at once with this, mine seems to only work one file at a time.
workaround: zip the folder?
i know it’s a little annoying, but it does make it into “one file” ;)
With Termux you can use rsync
You can also share access to your phones entire filesystem with kde connect, so you can browse you phones storage from dolphin as if ot was connected through usb and copy entire folders to/from you phone.
Unfortunately I think my phone’s USB is only good for charging these days, but it’s a pixel 6A so it’s on the way out anyways. I’ll have to take a look at that I didn’t see it, thanks!
On the 3 dots menu, theres “configure plugins” (or smthing like that), then you have to enable something like “expose filesystem” (dont know the exact wording because mine is not in english).
Doesn’t seem to work on my phone, even thouvgh I have given it the permissions it asked…
Did you enable the plugin called expose filesystem?
…Yes, I just said that.
Tbf you only mentioned the permissions, but ok
The next level i kinda wish it had (because it already has about everything else) would be to have the phone screen shown in the desktop.
You should be able to achieve that with scrcpy (at least with Android). Never got around to test it myself, so I can’t vouch for how well it works though. My usecase for it died with installing a mini-PC in my living room, and now it would only be a curiosity for me.
Works quite well. Scrcpy is some great “just works” piece of software. I use it for all kinds of stuff, from typing with my PCs screen and keyboard in android apps, to remotely connecting to phones hooked up in a lab (using adb over SSH port forwarding, plus reverse forwarding whatevet 27… port scrcpy uses)
For some reason, I just can’t get my Kubuntu desktop and Android phone to talk to each other with this. It does weirdly connect just fine on Arch/EndeavourOS, though.
Maybe kubuntu has some weird firewall default settings. When i tried using opensuse some years ago, it took me quite some time to figure out that it was its firewall that wasnt letting me use my printer and some other stuff i cant remember
That could be it! I haven’t tried messing with firewall settings in detail.
I also have problems with one machine, it just refuses to see the others. It might have something to do with the firewall or SElinux, but I’m not sure.