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varbhaton Show HN: DesktopMCP – MCP server for the Linux desktop

Hello HN,

I have created an MCP server for the Linux desktop. It gives AI access to the Linux desktop. I developed this with the assistance of the AI.

desktopmcp connects AI assistants to the Linux desktop through three system interfaces: XDG Desktop Portals for desktop operations, AT-SPI for semantic UI understanding, and D-Bus for low-level system access. It exposes 144 tools over the Model Context Protocol, letting an AI see what's on screen, understand UI structure, move cursor, click buttons, type text, manage files, operate inputs and interact with desktop services.

varbhaton TIL: You can make HTTP requests without curl using Bash /dev/TCP

Thanks! I dislike this

varbhaton The quiet renovation at Bitwarden

I have moved to KeepassXC[1] on my desktop from Bitwarden. On phone, I use KeepassDX[2] which is Android client compatible with KeepassXC. On browser, I use KeepassXC Browser extension which connects with the desktop client. Since KeepassXC operates on a single file, you can use any Filesystem syncing tool to sync that file between devices or to store it in the cloud. I am really happy with the move.

[1]: https://keepassxc.org [2]: https://www.keepassdx.com

varbhaton Why Is ChatGPT for Mac So Good?

I don't understand this. This post is saying that ChatGPT is good and is a forerunner because it provides a nice Mac App.

In my opinion, not everything requires a native app. AI Chat assistants are completely fine to be used in the web browser. for most used applications like slack, I do have native application( even slack which is website in a shell is completely usable as a desktop application). What i really don't understand is the benefit of a ChatGPT native application other than native widgets instead of web elements.

varbhaton Nano Banana Pro

Can anyone please explain me the invisible watermarking mentioned in the said promo?

varbhaton Passkeys: They're not perfect but they're getting better

I agree. I use Bitwarden on my Samsung Android phone and also on my Linux desktop. Bitwarden currently supports passkeys on almost all the apps on my android including firefox. The same passkeys which i used to login on my phone can be used on my Linux desktop where i use Firefox with Bitwarden extension. What's now possible was not even possible at the start of this year. I haven't switched everything to passkeys but i can see it as an alternative to passwords now(passwords really shines in some areas too).

I read about Passkey comittee being against open source passkey managers during start of this year (can't reference it, sorry) but with open source password/key managers already supporting passkeys, i don't think it turned out to be true.

varbhaton Wine 10.15 (Dev) – Run Windows Applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and macOS

How's wine wayland shaping up? Will it be default in future for the wayland?

varbhaton Why was Apache Kafka created?

Does anyone use https://nats.io here? I have heard good things about it. I would love to hear about the comparisons between nats.io and kafka

varbhaton Pixel 10 Phones

I want to know how the TSMC-manufactured Tensor processors compares to Samsung-manufactured Tensor processors and also how TSMC-manufactured Tensor processors compare to TSMC-manufactured Snapdragon processors. Samsung's Tensors (also Exynos) had the fame of getting superhot. I want to know if these problems persist in new Tensor chips.

varbhaton "Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

i thought that HTML spec is immutable.

varbhaton A ChatGPT Pro subscription costs 38.6 months of income in low-income countries

> low-income

someone has to pay for the servers at the end. are you asking for openai to subsidize ChatGPT Pro for low-income countries? Since OpenAI is for-profit entity focussed on profits, I don't think it might be a wise idea financially for OpenAI to do so.

varbhaton Ask HN: Why every AI company is building a browser?

it was chat-ui last year, vscode forks this year and maybe browsers are next.

varbhaton Brave blocks Microsoft Recall by default

Until the time when Microsoft realises this and creates a privileged API just for Microsoft Recall so that It can see the screen.

Better switch to Linux. It's not perfect but I am sure that you will be fine using Linux(Unless you want to use Adobe Suite or Few Corporate applications which won't be used by many)

varbhaton DaisyUI: Tailwind CSS Components

I would like to use tailwind css for styling but i also like components provided by these CSS frameworks.

Basically a DaisyUI, but with looks of Bootstrap or Semantic-UI

varbhaton DaisyUI: Tailwind CSS Components

I don't like the way how Daisy UI looks. But, I do like the way how Bootstrap or Semantic-UI CSS frameworks look. Has anyone tried to recreate the components of Bootstrap or Semantic UI using Tailwind CSS (including the looks)?

varbhaton CSS's problems are Tailwind's problems

...then goes on to promote "CSS-in-JS"

varbhaton Helix Editor 25.07

vim keybinding. helix doesn't have vim keybindings. it might or might not be better but it isn't vim keybinding.

varbhaton Helix Editor 25.07

It's a soft fork trying to catch up with the main codebase. It feels like a second class citizen. Features introduced in Helix might not be intended for usage with vim keybindings anyway.

varbhaton Helix Editor 25.07

Congrats!

I am happy for helix but i don't think it's a good fit for me.

I use Neovim. It does what i want it to do. It's one of the best available options. But, i am not completely satisfied with it. I personally want an editor with following:

* Modern codebase. Written from scratch.

* VIM Keybindings: I have muscle memory of Vim. I would like to use Vim Keybindings in my editor. I don't want to use any other keybindings even if they are proclaimed to be better. It must walk like vim and quack like vim.

* Good defaults. I hate configuring a lot. Neovim requires configuring a lot and need not always provide good defaults if it provided. Helix might have gotten this right.

* Based on Treesitter. Better they run Treesitter parsers as a WASM in WASM runtime just like how Zed and latest Neovim do.

* Extension System. But, I don't really favor lua, js or scheme. They just aren't my cup of tea. Maybe make it a wasm module with only necessary functions exposed to it. And configuration of those plugins in non turning complete configuration language.

* TUI and optional GUI

* LSP,DAP and Snippets support built-in(along with auto complete/suggestions, UI for Testing and Debugging)

* Oil.nvim like FS as buffer built-in

* Telescope/FZF-lua style Search built-in

* Git integration built-in (Maybe magit/neogit like GIT UI is welcome)

* Flash.nvim style Treesitter based Code AST Manipulation and Jump-to by label built-in

* Macros and Multi cursors

* Optional Cursor Style AI integration (Chat UI)

varbhaton Hacker News now runs on top of Common Lisp

So, Hacker News was not rewritten in Common Lisp. Instead they reimplemented the Arc Runtime in Common Lisp.

varbhaton Making video games (without an engine) in 2025

Isn't that a huge effort? I remember few games which developed their own game engines from scratch (factorio, limbo, bg3). But, wouldn't it be easier and better to use game engines like godot?

varbhaton The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

Cool! Now make Microsoft Office Open Source! I understand you won't,so atleast release the Linux versions of them!

varbhaton Zod 4

I am not an expert here but I had a thought that JSON-Schema might be a good choice because since it's schema based, i can implement the validators in Non-Typescript languages too.

https://ajv.js.org is one such JSON Schema library. How does zod compare to this?

varbhaton The X220 ThinkPad Is the Best Laptop in the World

Best means that it's better than everything else which in this case is factually incorrect.

I do think that X220 is a great laptop because despite its age, it still runs great.

But, tbh, i don't think that it holds up well in terms of performance if we compare it to any modern laptop.

What we do want is a modern laptop which is open source friendly, has a great battery life, is repair-friendly, has a good hardware. Do Framework laptops fit this criteria? I don't know. I also do hear that the modern Thinkpads are good but they used to be better, years back.

varbhaton Material 3 Expressive

When Material Design 1.0 was released with Android Lollipop, it felt so revolutionary and refreshing. Now more than a decade later, I would have to say that I miss both Halo and Material 1.0 as these new design iterations have only made it look worse.

varbhaton Google restores Nextcloud users file access on Android

Can they do the same thing now for Syncthing?

varbhaton Ask HN: What's your go-to message queue in 2025?

NATS

varbhaton Two new PebbleOS watches

I was interested in NFC payments using a smartwatch. Do these watches support NFC payment? I didn't see any mention of it.

varbhaton NewPipe on Linux, Using Android_translation_layer

https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_transla...

I wonder how well this approach works over anbox/waydroid's approach.

varbhaton Show HN: Nano-web – a low latency one binary webserver designed for serving SPAs

I wrote a similar tool long time ago.

https://github.com/varbhat/serv

* Serve the SPA (fallback to index.html): `serv -spa`

* Serve the directory and all it's contents: : `serv -dir=/path/to/my/dir`