#linux friends!
One of the most popular features of MacOS are it's "continuity features" which allows clipboard, activity, screen, and notification sharing.
KDE Connect does nearly all of this but it doesn't seem to be used nearly as much. It's certainly well known and liked. Why do you think it isn't used more? I've been told a few things things:
1. It's more complicated to setup
2. It's a bit of a swiss army knife and a bit complex
3. It doesn't work on some wifi networks
@scottjenson my guess would be that it's because KDE Connect (or GSConnect) isn't installed by default on distros that don't use Plasma by default, and thus people just don't know that KDE Connect exists.
@prafferty That is clearly a problem but I've now heard from many people that say even if you do install both halves, it is still rather hard to setup and even then, has reliability problems.
@scottjenson @prafferty the way it works is similar to mac's bonjour afaik, broadcasting compatibility across the network but client isolation will block that connection
apple has relay servers to establish a p2p connection around that or uwb/WiFi direct to skip it entirely in proximity
tbh I use it every day and it's not hard to set up but that's if you know the mechanics of it, and they are very unclear to users because it fails to connect and there's no indication of how to recover
@scottjenson It sadly doesn‘t really work with my devices 😐 and I didn‘t want to spend time debugging if it‘s because of the laptop’s firewall, the phone‘s firewall or the wifi.
Anyways, I only wanted to use it for direct file transfer, which I now do via running a local-content-share from a docker container (…this is somehow easier)
@scottjenson it's also not nearly as well integrated and lacking a lot of features, such as using a phone as a webcam.
@betalars I would take fewer features to get the basic ones working more reliably. I think part of the pressure on KDEConnect is that it tried to do too much and had headwinds in making the setup/configuration easier.
If it helps, I'll share my _perception_ which is ill-informed and does NOT represent most people:
It looks cool but every time I notice it, Im not sure what problem it solves. It seems like one of those things that when it works, it is great, but if it isnt working it is extremely annoying and not worth the time to troubleshoot - for what is probably a task easily accomplished another way. Seems like a security risk.
Maybe none of that is true though, so Ill try it out and see!
@ike @scottjenson security, I don't know about that, but the rest matches my experience. Annoys me with notifications, when I would rather not see them, and almost always breaks when I'd need clipboard sync or sending a file to my phone. I think it would be much more useful though if it was a little more integrated, and worked more reliably.
@scottjenson It seems like you posted this four separate times
@scottjenson Regarding the 3), I wonder if there would be a fallback mode possible that works over the internet via relay servers like Syncthing with trustworthy encryption. #KDEConnect
@frumble @scottjenson I think a better solution would be a direct P2P connection between both devices (eg. Wi-Fi direct). This is what is used in Apple Continuity
@scottjenson Regarding the 3), I wonder if there would be a fallback mode possible that works over the internet via relay servers like Syncthing with trustworthy encryption.
