Maybe it's just a me problem, but I always have had troubles getting KDE Connect connecting my phone to other devices than my desktop. My phone and laptop could both be connected to the same wifi and be within inches of each other but refuse to acknowledge their existence. But I have my phone on the other side of the world and I swear it'll be able to connect to my desktop with no problem.
KDE Connect is a pretty good program, but I can't recommend it because of the troubles I always have.
I had this too until I discovered my router doesn't allow communication between devices connected to the 5GHz band. 2.4GHz works fine so now I have everything connected to that
It's ability to connect your phone to your computer is honestly awful. It would be better if they just openly popped up a window and told you to pick the IP, but they even have to hide that and not support it on every platform.
My laptop's plugged in my phone's on a Wi-Fi network they're on different VLANs. They could let me search for it by DNS name. They could let me just use a couple of static IPs so when I go from home to work it could find it in either place.
If you have any equipment beyond a crappy one band ap, it's just going to fight you every time you want to use it.
I love the software, I love the plugins It's just too damn bad that You have to remember to screw with it every time you think you might want to use it.
Somewhat self promoting for the first two of these items as I'm directly involved. Leaving out the more obvious ones (Linux distro etc.) as they will have been mentioned. I'll stick to some of the less known things I use.
Dust has completely replaced du in my every day work. Other tools also written in Rust I make use of include Bat for an upgraded experience from cat, Tokei for quickly counting and recognising codes, and several other security tools like RustScan.
I learn about Joplin today. Thank you for sharing your list.
I tried various GUI text editors on Android, but they tend to be buggy or hard to navigate. Then there's the fact that I can just open a tmux session, detach, ssh into my phone and attach it.
Termux
Holy hell. So much it can do. Right now I am using it to transcode MPEG2 videos to AV1. With CRF 25, Preset 5, with a 480p30 video I get 5fps in Termux on my older Snapdragon 860. Meanwhile my laptop's Ryzen 3 3200U does 2fps.
You can run different server applications. Some are supported natively (e.g.: Tinyproxy, Privoxy, Squid HTTP proxy, apache2, nginx, navidrome, OpenSSH, TigerVNC, rsync, xorg-server, xwayland, xrdp,...) and some can run in proot (e.g.: Jellyfin, NextCloud). If you already have some web server and want it public, there's cloudflared too, so you can access it via Cloudflare tunnel.
RTL-SDR driver
Allows connecting RTL-SDR on Android and starting RTL-TCP server.
SDR++
The best general-purpose SDR app available on Android, GNU+Linux, Windows and MacOS.
KDE Connect
Nicely connects phone with a computer. Data transfers, remote control, finding your phone, synchronizing notifications.
LibreTorrent
Great client for Android.
There's more, but those I don't use daily, or have already been mentioned.
I get 5fps in Termux on my older Snapdragon 860. Meanwhile my laptop's Ryzen 3 3200U does 2fps.
Is this good or bad for Termux? I'm kinda inclined to think it is good (I have a SD 865 so I'm extra curious).
(e.g.: Jellyfin, NextCloud).
I have read about the self hosting possibilities before for sure and while I will always find it amazing I would die inside if I had to use my phone (and specifically Termux, since I think text selection, copy/paste and overall typing is bad on it), that without proper hardware ofc (like external mouse and keyboard... Or a UI like DeX) so I gotta ask, do you use any of those services? If yes do you have some of those tools I just mentioned?
RTL-SDR driver
Allows connecting RTL-SDR on Android and starting RTL-TCP server.
I kinda want to know what you meant here.
SDR++
The best general-purpose SDR app available on Android, GNU+Linux, Windows and MacOS.
I only know SDR from the video format scene, and I know you want HDR or better.
LibreTorrent
Great client for Android.
This is cool, and I didn't know about it, but surely there are better options to use torrent on Android?
There's more, but those I don't use daily, or have already been mentioned.
I kinda want to know what more, because honestly, if Termux was paid you would almost sell it to me 🤣
RTL-SDR is basically a way of using a digital device as a broadband radio. That is an oversimplification, but that is the idea. There are cheap USB devices out there that will turn a PC into a ham radio receiver (among a really wide range of other bands like weather satellites). I have no idea how they are doing it with Android, however. Maybe using the phone's antenna.
I am sorry for not responding quicker, but I was at school and I am also tired, so don't expect a high quality reply.
Is this good or bad for Termux? I’m kinda inclined to think it is good (I have a SD 865 so I’m extra curious).
I have no idea. My phone and laptop are the 2 only pieces of hardware to test with. I also wanted to try OnWorks, but getting the file to that seems fairly painful. Downloading that particular video from archive.org is too slow, trying to get it from FileNow where I uploaded it would hang every 14MB and fail. The only working "solution" was running nginx webserver with that file there in Termux and creating Cloudflare QuickTunnel, but my mobile data is slow and we don't have internet at home. So I just didn't get to try it.
I have read about the self hosting possibilities before for sure and while I will always find it amazing I would die inside if I had to use my phone (and specifically Termux, since I think text selection, copy/paste and overall typing is bad on it), that without proper hardware ofc (like external mouse and keyboard… Or a UI like DeX) so I gotta ask, do you use any of those services? If yes do you have some of those tools I just mentioned?
I have only tried Jellyfin briefly and want to try running NextCloud when I'll have time for it, as that seems more painful looking at the guides on internet. Jellyfin just didn't fit my use case, so I replaced it for nginx with fancyindex module and Material theme.
I don't have a problem using the touchscreen. Copy-paste works pretty well, like with any other text. Just a little tip: Home puts you on start of the line and End at its end.
But anyway, I do often use a hardware keyboard. Sort of. I don't attach it to my phone, instead I SSH into my phone from some computer, be it my laptop or school PC. For GUI I can also use VNC server. Keep in mind VNC isn't encrypted by default. There's VNC-TLS and X509, but I have no idea how to deal with certificates, which allows anyone to do MITM attack on me. Simplest solution is running it over SSH tunnel, at which point I can use unencrypted VNC which is compatible with more programs.
I kinda want to know what you meant here.
RTL-SDR is one of the SDRs (Software Defined Radio) that I have. I also have a clone of RSP1. I don't know where I would start on that. It allows a lot. But after all, you can just search "What to do with SDR" yourself, and find countless answers.
My most favorite use is receiving satellite signals. So far only in the 137MHz band because I don't have a satellite dish. In this case V-Dipole is enough. Since I have the RTL-SDR Blog's extendable dipole, I can fit a satellite imagery receiving station into my pocket.
Check [email protected]
Example image that I received over APT (it's analog signal, old-school tech):
I used noaa-apt, again in Termux, to decode it.
Or perhaps this catches your interest: Cracking GSM phone calls and SMS with SDR (YouTube playlist) which is obviously illegal. It also only works for the weak A5/1 encryption and only with GSM (2G). While newer standards are sure safer, don't trust anything that's not E2EE at all anyway.
I only know SDR from the video format scene, and I know you want HDR or better.
Yep, SDR = Software Defined Radio.
This is cool, and I didn’t know about it, but surely there are better options to use torrent on Android?
I am not sure. LibreTorrent works well for me.
I kinda want to know what more, because honestly, if Termux was paid you would almost sell it to me 🤣
I meant other FOSS apps, not stuff in Termux. But it's like a locked down GNU+Linux machine, so it just does a lot of Linux things. Thanks to proot-distro or Andronix scripts you can even have Ubuntu, Arch Linux or other distros on it. That's what you need for Jellyfin for example. Just keep in mind that your phone is most likely aarch64 and Termux doesn't emulate other architectures. Though it can run QEMU 😏 (but if you tried Limbo PC Emulator x86 you understand how useless it is with anything better than Windows 98). I did get that to run Windows 7, yes, but even just opening a file browser took a few minutes.
Anyway, cursed screenshot as a bonus:
Even though it CAN be done doesn't mean you SHOULD. I already cooked 1 Poco X3 Pro motherboard to its death.
Thank you for pointing that out. I knew Firefox had updated to enable desktop add-ons to work with mobile but I didn't see Sponsor Block when I took a quick look.
Hey I use my own app every day. Let me tell you about it. :)
nephele-serve is the dedicated server version that I use to manage all my Jellyfin movies and TV shows. I also back up all my systems to it with DejaDup.
QuickDAV is the desktop app version that I use to transfer files around all of my way too many PCs, tablets, and phones (I develop mobile apps too, so I have a lot of devices). It’s easier (and usually faster) than using a USB stick, and it’s safer than leaving shares open all the time.
They’re both open source and use the same server software, Nephele, that I wrote for my email service, Port87.
Oh I’m also working on putting up a Docker image for nephele-serve and a Flatpak of QuickDAV.
Does anyone know of a FOSS file explorer for Android that supports network locations? Fossify file manager would be perfect but doesn't have support for network locations.
There were some scary moments when I lost my only means of accessing Reddit. Finding Lemmy and then using accessing it through Voyager is so awesome I ought to post more about that.
webservers / the internet (nginx, databases, storage, networking, ...)
Mull / Librewolf
Nextcloud (contacts / calendar sync ...)
an email server and client
Matrix chat
LG WebOS on my TV
Home Assistant
lots of user applications
There isn't much important proprietary software in this apartment except maybe for the firmware of the dishwasher / microwave, washing machine and additionally whatever software runs in an old car.
I don't know about every component, but there is the Linux kernel and a lengthy list of open source components and licenses somewhere in the settings and manual. And you can get a busybox shell or something alike.
I really love Onnivore, but my only issue is that RSS feeds are mixed in with the things you add to it. That being said, they’ve had a few updates that make it a lot better.
I'll copy-paste this stackoverflow answer, because it sounds like its written by someone more knowledgeable than me.
blobs are binary firmware, not distributed as source. they are necessary for certain hardware drivers to function, in whole or in part. As the source is not readily available, there are deblobbed distributions for opensource "purists".
In the firefox context, there are certain non-free portions of firefox code base, namely the branding and some mozilla services integrations. Those are removed. This is more about licensing then availability of the code.
I'm curious, what do you prefer about findroid over standard jellyfin media player? They seem to be pretty much the same minus findroid not having transcode support
I’m curious, what do you prefer about findroid over standard jellyfin media player? They seem to be pretty much the same minus findroid not having transcode support
Findroid allows for seamless downloading of media for offline playing, which is pretty useful. Also it's focus on only music makes it a bit simpler and more comfortable for me to use.
I want to highlight a practical usecase for password management with open source tools. Keepass (gnome secrets on computers, and keepassdx on mobile) with syncthing syncing encrypted password files between the devices. Very effective so far. Passwords are synced seamlessly.
I'm having a harder time thinking of proprietary programs I use. I guess the biggest offender is mobile apps. As far my computer goes, discords flatpak is the only one coming to mind.
VPN client in a thin Docker container for multiple VPN providers, written in Go, and using OpenVPN or Wireguard, DNS over TLS, with a few proxy servers built-in.
For android :
Basically almost all app from SimpleMobileTools, a few version right before it was sold (to a company in a controversial city)
For desktop :
some kde app that works both for windows and linux (I used windows for now) like Okular and FileLight (though this one isn't so much daily basis)
Standard stuff, though very few from my phone so I will focus there. On it, atm just things like RetroArch, Firefox, Geometric Weather, Blokada, and Amaze File Manager.
I haven't done any research at all, but if anyone wants to share: does anyone know of a good FOSS grocery store list kind of app for Android? Something that might still work without internet, I don't care about synching anywhere else. Currently I use Listonic, mainly b/c I do not want to use Google Keep. There are some on F-droid so when I get time I'll look into those.
Various flavors of Linux and the many, many applications supporting that. Also OpenWRT. OpenOffice > Google Sheets.
I also grabbed an open-source script that would turn on a fan every time the humidity level rose high enough for a specific type of mold to grow, and move air until it dropped. That ran all day for a few years until the fan broke and I repurposed the other hardware.
I don't have a clue if anyone has mentioned it, but I use the non-root version of NetGuard to make sure some apps on my phone don't have wifi or mobile data access.
I also don't know if this was mentioned by someone else, but for one of my college courses, we are using thonny for python programming.
Because with NetGuard I can use it on not just the apps that normal settings app list shows me, but also system apps that don't show up that you can't disable access to without a 3rd party tool. Since I'm not on a rooted device, I don't have a choice over things like being able in settings mode to try and disable apps like gøøg|e assistant because it doesn't show up in the apps list.
Librera (pdf reader and other formats), tuta mail (private mail), feeder (RSS reader), iceraven (Firefox fork), saver tuner (battery management), aurora store (replacement of play store), breezy-weather (for checking the weather), openBoard (Foss keyboard with spell correction)