Draft: New Bluefin Features

[castrojo]

Feature list for ~October releases:

Utahraptor: Exists
Fedorafins -> projectbluefin/bluefin and lts

Dakota first:
Dakota is fastest to build for right now so it's all landing here first, these are in the testing branch:

A few things first. We're doing this for two reasons:

• Hive makes this nearly trivial (the world has changed)
• It's not open season on extensions, we looked at everything mac/windows/android has and chose them based on competitiveness. We don't want to ship "KDE but with GTK", it's always going to feel like Unity, that's Bluefin's direct predecessor. All in all this adds a clipboard icon to your panel for copyous, everything else is in a menu somewhere. Subtle things that make GNOME better welcome. Things like pie menus not so much. 😄

Sync folder

First things first, we wired up the ~/Sync folder with syncthing. In the final UX it's "Sync Folder". There's a quadlet that just uses the official syncthing container and shares that directory. You turn it on and then accept the join request on the webui of each client once. There's also a notification when it turns on and off since it respects your "metered connections" setting. This just landed so if it's not magical please file issues until we get it right!

Each peer has discovery on your LAN, and you can always plop a central one on your homeserver. When I mention things like this feel free to assume that Bluefin Server will automagically detect and integrate with this stuff. So imagine you throwing your Pictures folder into syncthing and then your server automatically importing it into Immich and your home displays update with the latest photos, that kind of thing.

BudsLink

We're going with this thing called budslink, which was a GNOME extension but is being made into a normal app with a thin extension. This moves the heavy lifting out of the extensions system and into a proper app. This one is awesome I love this thing.

TailscaleQS is back and appears to be well maintained! Someone asked in another thread why we ship this. It's because it's the only user friendly way to VPN your stuff with a company that supports OSS and has a free generous tier. Alex is a Bluefin Advisor and in general I'm a fan of how they do business. There's other good ones but also realistically all of our users are technical and everyone uses this lol. We could make this toggleable/hideable by default though (someone file that issue)

Light Mode

I was able to take an existing extension and finish a real light mode. This was worth the entire thing. This is why I push back against all the anti-AI people in OSS. I have a friend who legit can't use dark mode, it hurts his eyes. He wants to use Bluefin but he can't. I use an LLM to do things like "deploy the next set of bluefin server builds with the shell fix through 10 runs, if they pass push to github." I used to have to type so much, and now as I get older this becomes so important.

These are real accessibility improvements!

Audio quick select

LOL those names!

Macropads

Now that there are linux friendly options available we're exploring having sane ootb keyboard shortcuts for macropads. Kyle and I use apple magic touchpads with bazzite/bluefin and it feels so good. So we're hoping to crowdsource configs for the good stuff.

Tiling Shell

We turned off the icon in the top panel so it's subtly there.

WTF Scope?

I know, you're thinking OMG GNOME EXTENSIONS and all that. Maintenance, what happens if ...? And that was all true in the past. That is no longer true. My agent was able to pull in all the inprogress PRs of the GNOME 51 updates from their repos, which means we can help test these. And since we'll always have a raptor on the latest gnome devel release we'll always be able to do the work. Building on GNOMEOS has it's advantages for all raptors!

We added some other ones (someone feel free to start linking these up in the comments, I'll integrate your work and add you to the blog author list!)

• quicksettings audio devices hider and renamer. Necessary evils, life is too short for spidf shortcuts
• fuzzy-application-search - better menu search, no brainer
• power-status-color - this brings my favorite unity feature to bluefin. If you need to reboot the power button will turn yellow, if it's been over 30 days it'll turn red.
• projectbluefin/bluefin-bling has our extensions, contributions welcome?

Other Things

• Dakota updates are real small now, working on charts for this so you can track everything
• https://docs.projectbluefin.io/leaderboards/

[znmeb]

BudsLink: Only a few well-known brands of earbuds can use it. Will there be some way I can add the configuration for my Moondrop Pill earbuds?

[Ffffnord]

I think he's about Bluetooth Battery Meter extension which previously was promoted in the docs section (but now I can't find it) and which is works fine for my Mist BT earbuds and should work fine for yours too.

[murphym18]

Sync folder
First things first, we wired up the ~/Sync folder with syncthing. In the final UX it's "Sync Folder". There's a quadlet that just uses the official syncthing container and shares that directory. You turn it on and then accept the join request on the webui of each client once. There's also a notification when it turns on and off since it respects your "metered connections" setting. This just landed so if it's not magical please file issues until we get it right!

Each peer has discovery on your LAN, and you can always plop a central one on your homeserver. When I mention things like this feel free to assume that Bluefin Server will automagically detect and integrate with this stuff. So imagine you throwing your Pictures folder into syncthing and then your server automatically importing it into Immich and your home displays update with the latest photos, that kind of thing.

Wow! That syncthing feature is super cool! 😄

I recently implemented Syncthing in a quadlet on bluefinx-dx too. I'd love to compare notes!

Here's how my container file turned out:

[Unit]
Description=Syncthing

[Container]
Image=docker.io/syncthing/syncthing:latest

#Exec=/bin/syncthing -

# map your usual config path
Volume=%h/Sync:/var/syncthing/Sync
Volume=%h/.config/syncthing:/var/syncthing/config

SecurityLabelDisable=true

Network=host

Environment=STGUIADDRESS=127.0.0.1:8384

Timezone=local

# run as your user (rootless)
UserNS=keep-id
User=1000
Group=1000

[Service]
# restart policy
Restart=no

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

• I needed to set SecurityLabelDisabled=true because when moving a file from my home directory to the ~/Sync directory, the syncthing process is blocked from reading/accessing the file because of a permission error. This permission error is perplexing because the standard UNIX permissions and owner/group IDs are all correct. But file access is denied because the the SE linux label is wrong.
• I needed to set Network=Host because syncthing has "local discovery" functionality. This only works if the Syncthing process can communicate freely on the LAN. Usually a container is connected via a bridge and in that case when syncthing sends/receives multicast it's only communicating on the software bridge. You'd also need Network=Host in order for the NAT functions to work...

Did you guys run into any of the same issues?

Beyond the gotchas in the Syncthing .container file, I also ran into a few other little gotchas related to backups. When configuring Pika Backup and Deja Dup, I needed to ignore the *.pem files and the index-* directory found in ~/.config/syncthing/. It's potentially pretty dangerous to restore the index-* directory without also restoring your ~/Sync directory. By the way, if you are backing up ~/Sync + all of ~/.config/syncthing/, then you should probably be careful to capture the index-* directory and the ~/Sync directory in an atomic operation (or at least in a consistent state). And this might be tricky...

In my specific syncthing deployment, my NAS is the system responsible for backing up the data. So I ended up ignoring the ~/Sync directory along with the previously mentioned files in ~/.config/syncthing/. In the event I'm restoring from backup, I'll just connect the restored machine to Syncthing like it's a brand new system. This way I avoid backing up my ~/Sync directory twice (on the laptop and the NAS too), but this also means I avoid the whole atomic can of worms related to backing up ~/Sync and index-* in a consistent state...

Edit: I think my post is giving the wrong impression about needing to backup the index-* directory and the ~/Sync together.

If you restore Syncthing’s index-* directory, then you should restore the Sync/ directory along with it and they need to be consistent. Otherwise, it’s safer to omit the index-* directory and let Syncthing rebuild its index by rescanning 🙂

[castrojo]

Thanks for the notes, I'll ingest them on the next go around!

[murphym18]

Sounds good! And I can probably drone on all day about Syncthing. I tested it a ton when implementing that quadlet. 🙂

By the way, Regarding Syncthing and Tailscale, I ran into a weird issue where Syncthing via UDP over Tailscale just doesn't work. I don't know why... I tested Syncthing's networking capabilities like crazy using wireshark and TCP dump lol (I think computer networking is kinda cool 😎). Anyways, on September 4th, QUIC over Tailscale just didn't work. I feel like I tried everything. Ultimately I decided I'd just use Syncthing via TCP over Tailscale instead. I only need this when I'm not on my home LAN.

My ultimate goal was to use Syncthing with global discovery turned off. And I can do this with Tailscale, and Network=Host. I feel like I've been able to configure Syncthing in a way that's pretty slick.

Here's a screenshot of my settings:

Important

For anyone trying to follow along at home, I also configured each Remote Device in a special way. For each remote device, under Advanced > Addresses: I specified dynamic, tcp://[TAILSCALE_IPv6_ADDRESS]. The Syncthing documentation explains what this means. But basically this is how my Syncthing processes find each other without the global discovery servers. Also you don't necessarily need to use IPv6 only, I just think IPv6 is cool.

When I'm at home, I get QUIC over the LAN. And when I'm not home I get Syncthing over Tailscale. (I also configured my home firewall so that I'm highly likely to get a direct connection with Tailscale). I get the best of both worlds with this config. Native LAN speeds at home, plus direct connections while away. Also I was able to successfully disable the NAT traversal stuff. So I'm not trusting my computer with an open port...

By the way, when you enable NAT traversal, Syncthing asks your router for a port forward. Basically it wants to listen for incoming TCP on the open internet... I just don't know how I feel about my laptop or NAS directly exposed on the internet with my data lol... I mean I'm sure it's probably fine... (Syncthing does everything right as far as I know) but I prefer Tailscale. 😃 (also there's something comforting about feeling protected by your firewall 😆 )

I had a lot of fun playing with Syncthing and quadlets. In fact, this project is how I found that SE Linux labeling issue in bluefin-dx #4928

Note

The default Syncthing settings are very good and completely acceptable (even for me). I could get the same general functionality and performance with the default settings, no problem. Using the Global Discovery Servers, Syncthing is able to figure out how to connect via tailscale and everything just works. There's no need to copy my complicated config. You can have a functionally identical experience with less effort. 😅 And with Tailscale you probably don't need to enable Syncthing's NAT traversal.

[Ffffnord]

Audio quick select

If you talk of Quick Settings Audio Panel ext. I suggest also to include MoreWaita icons so it'll look consistent.

[Ffffnord]

LOL those names!

Should be fixed with the new release.

[castrojo]

AMAZING!

[ryanhellyer]

This Dakota stuff looks amazing; such a cool concept in how it works. I'm really interested to see where this heads in the future and if it makes it's way into the stable Bluefin eventually.

[zilexa]

Wow, I did not expect Bluefin to become a bit 'bloated' with techie/developer-focused apps.
What about this part?

The project strives for a minimalistic approach to serve the audience that is currently not using Linux. The project targets the 96%, not the 4%:

Quoting the very first item of Project non-goals. https://docs.projectbluefin.io/mission/#project-non-goals

The 96% doesn't even know what Tailscale stands for, have no clue what it is. Same applies to SyncThing ofcourse. Why can't both not simply be a ujust script?

Things like Tiling Shell I get. I can't imagine a desktop without such functionality (and this is def een weakness of MacOS that requires keyboard combinations).. And BudsLink while it sounds like a bad dating app, the functionality looks practical, and well designed.

If you want an excellent menu in the taskbar, ArcMenu is the holy grail btw. It has pre-defined layouts (ranging from WinXP to Mac to absolutely anything, I can imagine you may want to create a Bluefin layout, that would be pretty cool). I am still discovering small features of ArcMenu after using it for a couple of years already.

[murphym18]

I think I know how you feel. I've used plenty of operating systems filled with services and programs that I don't understand, and don't want to deal with. It's especially concerning when it feels like the developers are putting other stakeholders ahead of end users. For example, a computer might feel bloated because the developers bundled some questionable adware or other software that benefits somebody other than you.

But this doesn't really feel like bloat to me, for a few reasons.

First, there's the way this particular Syncthing feature works: you'll need to turn it on. So to me, this looks like an optional Quadlet. It's basically a tiny text file describing a carefully prepared deployment recipe. You only get the actual software (the OCI image) if you choose to use it. Otherwise, what's sitting on your computer is essentially a little bit of metadata saying "here's how to deploy this thing."

In that sense, I think of it a little like the package metadata that apt update downloads on Debian/Ubuntu. Your computer can have information describing a huge amount of software that you don't actually have installed. Obviously a Quadlet file isn't literally an APT package index, but the distinction I'm getting at is the same; having a recipe or metadata for some software isn't the same thing as having that software installed and running.

There's also a trust/community aspect to this for me. This seems like software made by the community for the community. Things feel very different when I get the impression that the developers are genuinely looking out for the end users. I get that impression a lot with open-source software.

Honestly, if Bluefin eventually had hundreds of these optional Quadlet files and I only used three of them, I don't think I'd mind. The unused ones would just sit there dormant, taking up essentially no space and consuming no runtime resources. The plus side is that they make the platform more enticing and compelling to more people.

As for actually running Syncthing in a Quadlet, I wrote one myself, and it's pretty much invisible. It runs in the background and I genuinely forget that it's there.

The only measurable drawback I've noticed is possibly a small effect on battery life. I probably wouldn't have noticed even that if I weren't collecting unusually detailed battery telemetry. I wrote some software that periodically records my battery level to a CSV file. It looked like the battery might drain slightly faster with Syncthing running, but I haven't analyzed that data in a while, and the difference wasn't large enough that I was worried about it. 🙂

[castrojo]

Working filesync isn't bloat to me. If I buy 2 $3000 devices I expect them to share files without hassle. I can do that on any OS except desktop linux. That's silly to me. We have warp and wormhole but it falls apart with more than two machines. Entire continents are begging for freedom from proprietary cloud vendors. "Setting up syncthing" isn't an option for my mom or dad. Modern computing demands file sync, and there's a phone app for them too. That's the 95%. My dad would totally use syncthing if it was just set up for him. It's a quadlet and a container published by syncthing. It's not like we're shipping a nuclear reactor.

I also expect an OS to be able to tell me the battery of the headphones I connect to it. I fully expect someone who installs linux on their computer to know what tailscale is before reformatting their computer to an operating system that they don't understand. I don't want my computer to treat me like an idiot, we're shipping custom terminal profiles and podman containers. I design for my dad but he's not installing Linux because that's a ridiculous notion to 95% of people. I'm an expert and I can't get into the BIOS on new machines -- I have to look that up.

It takes ONE CLICK for you to turn it off I don't see what the problem is, tailscale is one of Bluefin's best features. Doing my job from an airplane because if tailscale and a k8s server is an awesome experience. Yes, people will need to learn new skills. The entire purpose of this project is for people to learn new skills.

Also did someone look at the image sizes between ublue-os/bluefin and dakota:stable or are we just guessing?

Just files aren't a feature, part of the reason we're moving away from them is they get advertised as features. Then we have people complaining that there's not enough of them. Then you end up with a using just as a package manager - we're the opposite of Bazzite in this regard.

It's not labeled "Syncthing" it's labelled "Sync Folders" which will just be your preconfigured empty XDG folders.

If you want we could have Bluefin "Thicc mode" be an installer option but if ever came to that it'd be enabled by default anyway - the other half of this feauture is the entire "Mandrake Powerpack" style DLC with the best libadwaita app for every catergory in one fell swoop. Install this for your family and their computer will be useful, the anti bloat people can learn to uninstall apps - I'm going to shove that GNOME Drum machine in as many user's faces as we can because it's awesome.

(The effect on battery life we can figure out by measuring and I am working on that now. Right now I have the lab tesing the file syncing on vanilla Dakota installs in a loop to test everything.)

[castrojo]

We could also put "thicc mode" as a button on the installer but it would default to on that skips whatever list people want. It's just GNOME extensions and quadlets.

[castrojo]

I went and looked, here's the headline: "Windows Update got you down? This Dinosaur Linux adds features in huge -147MB update. Memes ensue."

[castrojo]

Summary of printer thread. I talked to TillK, who I worked with at Canonical. He's one of a handful of printer people left. He works at OpenPrinting, which is an LF Project. Lucky day, score!

Canonical's done a bunch of work snapping up all the cups stuff. Most of the new printers are driverless and work out of the box. This is for ... those machines ... the bane of humanity.

It's all a bunch of web services. They offer OCI packages for the following things:

• ps-printer-app: PostScript printers with manufacturer's PPDs, also has facility for the user to add PPDs.
• hplip-printer-app: HPLIP driver suite, with web GUI to install HP's proprietary plugin, but for now only printing support (Scanner Applications are not ready yet).
• gutemprint-printer-app: The Gutenprint driver suite. All fine-tuning which is not mappable to IPP is available in the web admin interface
• ghostscript-printer-app: All the other legacy drivers

Matthew Sweet apparently has more, including that Label Printer driver. Their snap support is solid, but they were unable to find someone for GSoC to fix up the OCI containers. I started with the ghostscript one and I applied some love and buildstream. These will be really nice fsdk distroless wonders which we hope to donate upstream. We just need to wire up the quadlets.

TLDR: All the legacy printing crap is in OpenPrinting and they publish distro agnostic packaging - we're gonna help them out. It's low work with a huge payout to keep things outta landfills! snaps work ootb on Dakota so if you have a weird printer it might be worth trying, I'd love confirmation!

[therivernix]

Very cool stuff!
I am running a custom build of ublue-os/bluefin (called Spinosauros!) using the ublue image template and I have also added all the extensions you listed. Great minds think alike? :D
Another extension I use as a replacement for the Search Light extension is Lightning Gnome Launcher Extension. It is really nice!
Looking forward to removing these configs from my custom build!

[hunger]

Does dakota work on secure boot yet? I want to use it, but I am kid of stuck with secure boot :-(

What would I need to look at to help with that?

[stevehipwell]

I am also chasing my tail in regards to this.

[deepdowntraumahound]

Same here. I tried Dakota a month ago and the installer errored out. Tried the latest iso and it works! ... but no since there is no secureboot, I can't use it. I'd rather not disable all that if I don't have to.

[castrojo]

No secureboot in Dakota for a while!