I am building a file transfer app purpose built for Linux and Android
This is a personal passion project of mine, it is still in its early infancy (many core features are still missing) and the development is slow but deliberate.
why should I care?
if you care about speed and deep integration with the OS this project might be of interest to you.
why?
Wireless file sharing between my devices is still unnecessarily slow, half-baked, and unintuitive. Direct-Share is my attempt to build a file transfer tool that makes local file transfer more seamless than:
- Android ↔ Android (Nearby Share / Quick Share)
- Apple AirDrop
- LocalSend
- Blip
…but for Linux desktops and Android phones, using Wi-Fi Direct.
what?
- Python, GTK4/Libadwaita on Linux
- Kotlin, jetpack compose on Android
if you want to stay up to date with the project or want to know or read more, you can take a look at the GitHub repo
Pretty cool
Try KDEConnect (or GSConnect for gnome). Clients for Linux, BSD, Android, Sailfish, iOS, macOS and Windows.
Another option (maybe better, depending on your distro) is Warpinator. Linux, Windows, and Android.
Kdeconnect is usually gonna go over regular wifi or ethernet. So that might go phone to ap to laptop, for twice the wifi hops.
Also means the speed is limited by the router, so modern phones would be slowed by an older access point.
Or by being far from the access point yet close together.
Oh I see, thanks. I didn't understand what OP meant by Wi-fi Direct, I was thinking it just meant going over the LAN via the router. So I guess this means a device making itself into a wi-fi hotspot with is own local IP address that can be connected to directly, right?
There is a Bluetooth mode available now, says its in beta though
not to be a downer, but this makes it look like its not much more than an Idea:
Current status (what works / what doesn't) Connection
File transfer
you are right that it does make it look like nothing more than an idea but honestly that's fine by me and maybe I should mention that p2p peer discovery works right now and yeah that's might not be much but well... we all start somewhere, don't we!
i thought kde connect worked very well
I don't want to take away your steam, but doesn't LocalSend already do that?
https://github.com/localsend/localsend
I'd love it if you contributed instead, if these projects are really interchangable as I think they are.
Love your work anyway!
Unfortunately it doesn't, Localsend relies on a WiFi hotspot or AP to transfer files, what I am trying to build uses WiFi Direct (aka WiFi P2P), these two are not interchangeable nor interoperable.
I deleted that. I read your Goals and I think I understand why they are different now. Cool project
LocalSend doesn't use wifi direct which means your devices have to be on the same network for the transfer. WiFi direct is more like AirDrop -- "direct".
Would be nice if done well, I would suggest you post again if you have a usable version (basically a beta) because I for example will not follow a random github repo from a half-baked project that may be abandoned anytime. Even though I woulf look forward to something you described. So dont let this be a downer but post again if you have the core things implemented.
Sure thing!
I just wanted to point out the support for Wifi aware for iOS and Android.
Yep I am aware of it but The thing is Linux doesn't support it yet and most android phones still don't support it yet unlike WiFi Direct, so until that day comes WiFi Direct it is
Linux supports wifi aware. You can already create aware networks using the iw tool. (you need to check the nl80211.h for programmatic usage)
I don't know about android though it should also support it since newer android devices can also share to apple devices (this was forced by the EU using the DMA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirDrop#Transfer_between_an_Apple_device_and_select_Androids
you are right, linux does support wifi aware although the problem is that afaik Wi-Fi chipset and driver support is still lacking behind so most people can't really create aware networks (I just tried on my machine, I can't)
Probably depends on the age of the wifi chip. On my framework laptop it is supported