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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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, © 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.
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.
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-waylandWhen 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.