Launching today
Noctiluca
A new remote desktop for macOS
58 followers
A new remote desktop for macOS
58 followers
Noctiluca is a remote desktop server/client for macOS, built on Sirius β our custom protocol over QUIC. β‘ HW-accelerated H.265/H.264 via VideoToolbox π₯οΈ Multi-display with detachable windows π SSH key authentication π Free cross-platform clients (macOS, iOS, Windows, Linux) π¨ Experimental HDR streaming Sirius protocol spec is open source. Client reference library (libsirius) coming this summer. https://github.com/team-unstablers/SiriusProtocol
Noctiluca
There's a Japanese internet slang "θͺ°εΎ" (daretoku) β roughly meaning "who even benefits from this?" And the classic comeback is "δΏΊεΎγ οΌ" (oretoku da!) β "I do!" That's exactly how this app started. I built Noctiluca because I needed it.
I've been a Linux desktop user for nearly 15 years, mostly on KDE Plasma. After starting a small company, iOS development became a bigger part of my work, so I reluctantly bought a Mac β and reluctantly made it my main machine.
I tried everything to stay on Linux. VNC? Painfully slow on non-Mac clients. Chrome Remote Desktop? Better than VNC, but still laggy β and being browser-based, it can't grab system keys. xrdp? I actually built a predecessor to Noctiluca called 'ιΊ ~Ulalaca~' (https://github.com/team-unstable...), but gave up due to the sheer complexity of the RDP specification.
I wanted to build something like RDP β but for Mac.
Building this app is also my journey back to Linux. My ultimate goal: plug my iPhone into my Linux laptop, have it recognized by a Mac in another room, and use Noctiluca's 'AppStream' to run just Xcode β as if it were a native Linux app.
There's also a deeply personal motivation behind this app and the Sirius protocol. Someone very dear to me, who is no longer with us, first taught me programming through Perl. He loved Linux and open-source software. When the time is right, I plan to open-source the Qt-based Linux/Windows Noctiluca Navigator and libsirius. I want to see my software officially packaged in Debian/Ubuntu distributions β and show that to him, wherever he is.
Thank you.
Noctiluca
@vouchyΒ Hey, thank you for the comment!
At the time, Chrome Remote Desktop was actually the best option I had. It was reasonably stable and smooth. But the keybinding issue was a dealbreaker I just couldn't work around. Certain key combinations would close the browser tab or trigger a page refresh β and when you're trying to work in a remote desktop session, that's absolutely maddening.
That frustration reminded me of xrdp, which I'd used years earlier. I thought, "xrdp is open source β I can just write a plugin for it myself!" That's how the early version of ιΊ ~Ulalaca~ was born.
But I eventually hit a wall β the RDP specification is incredibly complex to implement, and Microsoft had effectively abandoned RemoteFX/GFX, which was the graphics pipeline I needed. So I decided to start from scratch and design both Noctiluca and the Sirius protocol from the ground up.
Looking back, that browser keybinding issue was the spark that set everything in motion. π