KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

At least in my use case (as link between Android devices and both Linux/Win PCs) KDE Connect is a real killer app. It enabled seamless integration and saved me lots of hassle and time. It really should get more exposure.

I see reports that it doesn't work. These are mostly for distros where Plasma is either rather old or taking a backseat after other environment (usually Gnome). I'm having great results with the latest Plasma 6 on Slackware-current and also in a standard Windows 11 environment.

How is Slackware doing nowadays? Last release was several years ago, but I need a replacement for Win 10 on my PC.

Why Slackware specifically? You can install any distribution. I use Gentoo btw - not really a distribution so much as a distribution construction kit. There are other popular distros, notably Arch.

Slackware’s last release was 2.5 years ago.

Look at Fedora (if you like RPM distros) if you’re after something pretty nicely put together that stays reasonably well up to date. Very well maintained. Influenced by Red Hat (or “led by” or even “owned by”), which works for some, not for others.

CachyOS is trendy these days. EndeavourOS is basically Arch with an installer.

There are a few distros targeted at Windows refugees. ZorinOS is well regarded. AnduinOS is a newer entry. But if you’re willing to walk away from a Windows-like UI, skip these.

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.

It's doing very well. The Slackware 15.0 release is now a few years old, though the packages are still being updated. Slackware-current has latest everything.

I liked Slackware a lot way back when. No deeper reason.

Currently leaning towards Debian Testing, but that might depend on my testing of Slackware now. I use Arch daily in WSL, but I've have had enough breakages that I don't want it as my primary OS.

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 been around for a while are fine. I don't like Fedora or Ubuntu because they are a bit corporate.

I personally wouldn't bother with any of the derivative distros. Typically there isn't a lot different other than they've pre-configured some packages. IME that causes more headaches long term.

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.

I've been using KDE Connect without a hassle for years on Debian stable as well :).

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

> Why Slackware specifically?

To me, coming from Unix, it's mostly sane.

I probably see a lot more than other people since I spent a good few years doing pixel perfect web dev.

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that I can see a pixel out of place on a webpage on the other side of the room.

https://kde.org/content/home/main.jpg

This is a screenshot from their site. Just in this screenshot I see the following:

1) there is an horrendous text shadow effect on the text under the "Home" desktop icon in the top left.

2) Clock text is too large compared to the rest of the interface, especially the icons next to it.

3) Trash Icon looks like out of place compared to the other icons.

4) Drop shadow effect on the window and the start menu thing. It kinda too dark really.

5) Every single gap between interface elements seems different and off. The icon sizes seem a bit all over the place.

6) There is a gradient on the window title bar and rounded corners. Cinnamon does this as well. I dunno it is very Window XP Luna (which I never liked).

7) The window control icons look off to me and don't fit in with the rest of the interface IMO.

A lot of this I appreciate can be probably be changed. But that is how it comes OOTB if it is an official screenshot. It feels like a Windows Vista ripoff.

Generally I find KDE lacks "taste". None of the Linux GUIs are that great tbh. People put up fancy screenshots, but I guarantee the moment the windows are arranged in any other way it looks not so great.

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 KDE Connect. Does Cinnamon support that? Does Cinnamon offer anything like it?

> self-hostable coordination server

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

I agree with your assessment of KDE lacking "taste". Imo, it looks like a system designed by engineers, not designers.

GNOME has the opposite problem imo. I feel like it has "taste", but it feels like a system fully designed by designers, with no engineers giving practical pushback. It's the same issue macOS has, but amplified: Designers have some grand idea about their vision being the one true way of using the system and made it hard to impossible to customize.

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 have high hopes for Cosmic [0]. It seems like that one might get the balance right.

[0] https://system76.com/cosmic

That screenshot is very old, for an actual screenshot. For an actual screenshot, you can find one on today's announcement: https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.5.0/

Btw as one the web developer behind KDE's website, do you mind telling me where you found that screenshot?

> Cinnamon? Really? In a KDE Connect thread? > Go find a thread where your pet software is on topic. > This thread is about KDE Connect. Does Cinnamon support that?

In this particular part of thread, people were talking about Windows UI replacements. Like it or not conversations do diverge from the original intended purpose.

Secondly, Cinnamon isn't my "pet software". Cinnamon IMO is more similar to the Windows 7/10/11 UI than KDE and has none of the fluff that KDE normally has in it. I actually don't really like any of the Linux UIs. I think they all suffer from significant issues.

> 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.

It seems that you really don't like cinnamon and thus why you are being so aggressive. I don't really appreciate the unwarranted hostility.

I don't personally use Linux Mint (I use Debian). I don't like derivative distros for the reason that you highlighted. However Cinnamon seems works reasonably well and tends to be quite a bit lighter than KDE IME.

> This thread is about KDE Connect. Does Cinnamon support that? Does Cinnamon offer anything like it?

You are aware that you can use KDE software in other Desktop Environments? It took me a few seconds to do a web search and it seems that you can use KDE connect and Cinnamon at the same time.

> That screenshot is very old, for an actual screenshot. For an actual screenshot, you can find one on today's announcement: https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.5.0/

Those do look better admittedly. I still think it looks a bit "Fischer Price" but that is personal taste.

> Btw as one the web developer behind KDE's website, do you mind telling me where you found that screenshot?

Of course. It was on your screenshots page that I found via DDG

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=KDE+screenshots

The first result I go was:

https://kde.org/screenshots/

> 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 the Linux DEs tbh. They all have issues.

I might give KDE a go. But I think Debian does a poor job at packaging it and I don't really want to change distros.

> I have high hopes for Cosmic [0]. It seems like that one might get the balance right.

I tried compiling Cosmic on source on Debian 12. I ran out of memory on the VM I was doing it on. I also found out that on Debian 12 their rustc was broken!

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.

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

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.

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

KDE Connect can be used with Cinnamon via GSConnect.

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.

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.

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

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.

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)

Wireguard is purely point-to-point. You have to manually specify any configuration involving routing more than just the local IP addresses you add.

Not sure if it's the best solution, but there's no reason to take over your entire network.

Even with my old OpenVPN setup I had a config where only my local 10.2.0.0/16 got routed over the VPN, everything else went straight to the outside world. Set up IPv6 ULA and you don't need to worry about IP addressing conflicts.

Tailscale doesn't support mDNS / multicast at all, making working with KDE Connect more nebulous. I attempted to add a static peer via the Tailscale hostname, but both ends report not reachable, and the Tailscale daemon is constantly dropping multicast packets. So I'm not sure how this helps, but I also don't have a use case - if I'm on my laptop, my phone is on the same Wifi network 99% of the time.

I had a use case that isn't the primary function of KDE Connect, but where KDE Connect worked well: file sharing from a Mac to an Android phone. I had no idea apps like KDE Connect existed and now I'm hooked.

That said, for my specific use case, Blip is a FAR superior option, and much lighter weight.

The stable distribution might be a little dated, but the -current development branch is really solid. In my very subjective impression, it is more stable than many distros' stable releases. If you're not afraid of doing some hand-tuning and configuring things the old ways, you should reeally try it, especially with community packages such as Plasma 6, Chromium and LibreOffice (the latest release).

In my case, it's my distro since always. I'm not at all one of those h4xx0r types, I'm just a lawyer, translator and theologian (and professor) doing my job with Linux. I started using Linux in May 2000 with a boxed version of Red Hat 6.2, then went to Red Hat 7.1, 7.2, then switched to Mandrake until 9.2 came about, and the dependency hell really irked me. So I searched alternatives. About 2003-2004 (not sure really) I began to use it. It was easy for me to configure it. I always used my Linux on laptops, at that time if I wanted to be online I had to setup a Winmodem, and maybe other hardware. That meant that even on "friendlier" distros such as Red Hat or Mandrake I had to tinker with the command line and config files.

Thus, when the time came, upgrading to Slackware came naturally. And I appreciated that it always was fast and lean, consuming much less resources than other distros. Now that's not so crucial, but in the early 2000's it was quite important.

Slackware was there at the right time, offering me what I needed, and it was fast and lean. And I like its simple approach to system maintenance; I can get a good grasp of the whole system.

Also, at the time Gentoo was just beginning and (again) I was using dialup Internet, paying by the minute, and I really didn't appreciate the prospect of compiling almost everything. Other distros (such as Arch) were also beginning.

I disagree with all your points. What gives?

> I can't stomach same-network requirement.

The Android app let me add a peer by IP address. Once I opened traffic on the right port, it crossed a network boundary just fine.

My case was an adjacent network, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work across more hops.

Remember that Debian uses stable to indicate slow moving and predictable breakage, not "avoids breaking".

I would avoid using those two terms together because it implies two different goals when you are in fact repeating yourself.

Not everyone would consider avoiding fixing bugs as "stable" if those bugs directly impacts your day to day working.

It is doing well, I run both current and 15, rock solid, stable both in use and features. It has never given me anything to complain about, OS stays out of your way and even running current I never have to think about my system or worry about what is going to happen when I update. It all just works and sticks to the slackware way.

For me, an OS should be something I never have to think about, slackware gives me that. Very little has changed in all the years I have used it and almost everything I learned all those years ago when I first installed it still applies. The scripts I wrote over a decade ago to setup and install some stuff on a fresh install, still work 100% and the only change I have made is to have it enabled PipeWire, which is one command.

Thanks for the link to the screenshots page, I completely forgot we had one

With that level of nit picking everything is off and there is no OS / DE with zero inconsistencies.

KDE is good for me. I admit that I simplify the interface in a new setup turning off some things but the fact that it gives me that capability is a huge plus for me.

KDE Connect rocks by the way...

I has been using KDE connect for years, including Plasma 5 before I updated to Debian 13 .

The only two issue that I found, it's that not works on the wifi network of my work office. Something there must be blocking it. And that sometimes gets confused when you have multiple videos open on the browser and shows the wrong video on the multimedia controls.

FWIW, KDE Connect lets you select what media to control when there are multiple options.

The broken WiFi probably has something to prevent broadcast from working. It's not uncommon for some enterprise setups as a trickle of broadcast traffic can really mess with WiFi efficiency. You can work around it by manually specifying the IP addresses of the devices you wish to connect if those are static-ish.

No problem.

I use KDE on Debian and found it is well packaged

Slackware-current is pretty current. And sbopkg has quite a lot of packages. I run it on my homeserver (and has been for the last..10-15? years or so). Since everything that I host uses docker its easy as pie to keep it running.

ZFS via ZoL etc.

As a daily driver i use PopOs! which is very nice since the've packaged nvidiadrivers etc. and I mainly use it to play games.

> With that level of nit picking everything is off and there is no OS / DE with zero inconsistencies.

It isn't nitpicking. Those are like quite noticeable and actually quite bad. By the looks of it, a lot of this has been addressed now. But tbh it shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Of course there isn't any OS/DE with inconsistencies the fact that I spot that within like literally a few seconds on such a basic screenshot is indicative of other issues.

Even if it was nitpicking, to create something of high quality you should be extremely critical of your own work. That is how you actually make improvements.

> KDE is good for me. I admit that I simplify the interface in a new setup turning off some things but the fact that it gives me that capability is a huge plus for me.

Things shouldn't need a bunch of changes out of the box for them to be okay. I find that KDE (and have always had this impression since KDE 2 or 3) is it feels they bung a bunch of features in as a checklist. That doesn't create a good interface.

Unfortunately people will defend it. I am not sure why.