DEV Community: albilu

Linux Device Manager — every bus, driver, and kernel event in one GTK4 tree

albilu — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 10:36:49 +0000

Windows has Device Manager. Linux has lspci, lsusb, lshw, three sysfs walks, and a dmesg grep you run from memory. I wanted one window that shows all of it — with safe enable/disable — so I built Linux Device Manager (LDM): a native GTK4 app that combines sysfs, udev, and the proven CLI tools into one clean category tree.

Repo: https://github.com/getldm/linux-device-manager (GPL-3.0-or-later, v0.2.0 out now)

What it does

Category tree — Multimedia, Network, Storage, USB, PCI and more, with functional categories taking priority over raw bus groupings
Detail tabs — General, Advanced, Driver, and Kernel logs/events, loaded lazily and cached until refresh
Safe Enable / Disable — USB authorization plus driver bind/unbind through a polkit-protected privileged helper, with state verification after every action
Accurate identity — canonical sysfs paths deduplicate aliases, so controllers stay separate from their disks/NICs; USB composites are classified by all their functions
Kernel logs that actually match — current-boot snapshots matched to device/interface IDs, not shared driver names
Fast search — type in the tree, Ctrl+F, Esc returns focus, full keyboard + context-menu support

How it's built

Java 25 + java-gi for GTK4 bindings, UI defined in Cambalache (main.ui) loaded via GtkBuilder — no programmatic widgets
Data layer reads sysfs/udev directly and shells out to lspci, lsusb, modinfo, journalctl, dmesg, udevadm (all optional enrichments)
Ships a trimmed jlink runtime; only GTK4 and the hardware tools come from the host
XDG-compliant, no hardcoded home paths — works sandboxed

Install

Packages for Debian/Ubuntu (.deb), Fedora/RHEL (.rpm), Arch (pkg.tar.zst), plus portable AppImage and Flatpak, all assembled from one stage tree:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install ./linux-device-manager_*.deb

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo rpm -i linux-device-manager-*.rpm

# Arch
sudo pacman -U linux-device-manager-*.pkg.tar.zst

# AppImage (needs host GTK4)
./LinuxDeviceManager-*-x86_64.AppImage

# Flatpak
flatpak install --user ./org.ldm.LinuxDeviceManager.flatpak

Build from source in one reproducible Docker image (eclipse-temurin:25-jdk + GTK4 + Xvfb):

make build && make test && make package

Status and roadmap

v0.2.0 is released with all five formats; AppStream metainfo validates clean
In flight: Flathub submission (offline source-build manifest with vendored Maven deps — Flathub builders have no network), AppImageHub catalog entry, and an awesome-sysadmin listing
Known limitation: inside the Flatpak sandbox, enumeration is read-only best-effort and the privileged helper is degraded — future work is reaching host tools via flatpak-spawn --host

How you can help

Test on your hardware — exotic USB composites, multi-function PCI cards, and weird drivers are where bugs hide; issues with lsusb -v / sysfs paths attached are gold
Packagers — a Debian sponsor, Fedora COPR, or AUR maintainer would get LDM into Repology/pkgs.org automatically
Design eyes — the UI is Cambalache-defined, so layout tweaks are XML diffs, not code refactors

If you've ever wished lspci had a GUI with an off switch, give it a spin. ⭐s and hardware-bug reports equally welcome.

Open Download Manager: One Native GTK Queue for Files, Torrents, Video, and Website Mirrors on Linux

albilu — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 17:59:44 +0000

Browser download queues top out fast. Real life is ISOs, torrents, playlists, full-site mirrors, flaky Wi-Fi, and rate limits — scattered across five CLI tools.

Open Download Manager (ODM) puts them in one native Linux queue: HTTP/FTP, BitTorrent/magnet/Metalink, video, and website mirrors, with pause/resume that survives restarts, proxy/Tor routing, scheduling, and batch automation.

One queue, four engines, live details.

Full user guide with screenshots: docs/wiki/Home.md.

Why another download manager?

One queue, proven engines. aria2 (HTTP/FTP/BitTorrent/Metalink) + yt-dlp (media) + HTTrack (mirrors) + curl fallback — instead of one narrow protocol.
Crash-safe. XDG settings, persistent history, aria2 session files, ordered events, auto-resume.
Private. Tor lifecycle + health, proxychains, proxy rotation on 403/429/5xx.
Automated. Clipboard polling, .torrent/.metalink folder watch, batch imports, weekly scheduler, checksum/AV/move/notify/shutdown actions.
Native. GTK4/Libadwaita via java-gi, tray/background mode, search/filter/detail tabs. .deb / .rpm / .pkg.tar.zst with bundled Java 25 runtime.

Everyday downloads

Hit +, paste a link or pick a .torrent, set folder and filename, Start. Pause/resume/reorder anytime; close the app mid-download and it resumes later.

Queue controls, live search, status/category filters, and Files/Trackers/Peers/Sources tabs keep big lists manageable.

Video without browser gymnastics

Paste a page URL, Fetch info, pick format, subtitles (en,fr), playlists (1-3), cookies for logins, SponsorBlock — Download.

Torrents + built-in search

Magnets, .torrent/.metalink, per-torrent file selection — plus Jackett-powered search that sends results straight to the queue.

Search ubuntu 24.04, tick two results, Download. No browser detour.

Offline websites

Mirror docs for travel or archiving: depth, scope, include/exclude (*.html *.css, skip */admin/*), cookies, then Start Scrape.

Privacy routing

Global or per-download: SOCKS5/HTTP proxy, proxychains, or Tor (127.0.0.1:9050) with verification, exit IP, and New Identity. Rotation kicks in on rate limits.

Automation that pays off

Clipboard monitoring (silent mode queues links without asking).
Folder watch for dropped descriptors.
Batch import lists/sequences, scheduler presets (night/weekend/business), completion pipeline.

Settings cover General/Network/Aria2/yt-dlp/HTTrack/Advanced plus tray and troubleshooting:

Under the hood

Java 25, Maven multi-module (core engine + odm-gtk4 UI), Jackson, Java-WebSocket, java.util.logging.
Core stays toolkit-independent; all UI updates marshal through one UiThread (GLib.idleAddOnce).
GtkBuilder .ui layouts with fail-fast widget lookup — ID mismatches break the build, not at runtime.
Docker-first dev: make build/compile/test/run/package (Xvfb, aria2, yt-dlp, httrack, tor, proxychains in-image). Surefire forks per class; tests hit real tools.
Installs: sudo apt install ./open-download-manager_*.deb / sudo rpm -i … / sudo pacman -U … — no system Java needed.

Try it

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install ./open-download-manager_*.deb

Then open the app, set your download folder, and queue your first link. If something breaks, restart — it resumes.

Repo: odm-linux/open-download-manager · Guide: docs/wiki · Stack: aria2, yt-dlp, HTTrack, curl, Jackett, proxychains-ng, Tor, java-gi.

What would make you switch download managers — seeding controls, browser handoff, or something else? Tell me in the comments.

Open-Finance: Local-first, privacy-focused personal finance application.

albilu — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 10:06:50 +0000

I got tired of handing my bank credentials to hosted finance apps.

Finary, Monarch, Maybe — great dashboards, but your most sensitive data lives on someone else's server, export is painful, and bank-file import is an afterthought. Desktop tools like GnuCash, HomeBank, and Skrooge keep data local, but feel stuck in 2005.

So I built Open-Finance: a local-first personal finance manager. All your accounts, assets, liabilities, and transactions in one secured dashboard — that you self-host.

Stack: Java 21 + Spring Boot + SQLite (WAL) + Flyway on the backend, React 19 + TypeScript + Vite + Tailwind 4 + shadcn/ui on the frontend. Licensed Elastic v2 — free to self-host and modify.

Repo: https://github.com/openfinance-app/open-finance

What it does

Open the dashboard and you immediately know where you stand: net worth, cash flow, budget health, portfolio movement — then act in seconds.

Dashboard: customizable card grid (layout persisted in localStorage), privacy eye-toggle to mask amounts
Accounts & institutions: multi-currency, multi-institution, base + secondary currency conversion
Transactions: income / expense / transfer, splits, tags, attachments, global search, auto-categorization rules, recurring transactions
Assets & market data: portfolio tracking with Yahoo Finance + ECB rates refresh
Liabilities & real estate: amortization schedules, property management — things hosted PFAs charge extra for
Budgets: monthly budgets with alerts and progress
Import that actually works: QIF / OFX / QFX / CSV / JSON wizard with duplicate detection and rule application
Undo / redo + full audit history: every operation is reversible, with backup / restore
Planners: FIRE, compound interest, loan, buy-vs-rent, early payoff calculators
Financial news + AI assistant (opt-in): RSS news feed, floating chat + generated insights powered locally by Ollama via LangChain4j — no data leaves your box
Bilingual EN/FR: every string exists in both locales, enforced by tests

How it compares to the usual suspects:

Full dashboards, QIF/OFX import, real-estate mgmt, file attachments, undo/redo, financial planning, multi-currency, local AI, and client-side encryption — while staying FOSS and self-hosted.

Full user guide: docs/wiki/HOME.md in the repo.

Privacy is the feature

Self-host with Docker — SQLite file you can back up, no vendor DB.
JWT auth + session-scoped encryption key (X-Encryption-Key header from sessionStorage). Server never sees plaintext amounts.
AI is 100% optional via docker compose --profile ai (Ollama ~4.7GB + SearXNG). No AI calls unless you enable it.

Run it in 60 seconds

git clone https://github.com/openfinance-app/open-finance.git
cd open-finance
cp .env.example .env

# Generate JWT secret (min 32 chars)
JWT=$(openssl rand -hex 32) && sed -i.bak "s|^JWT_SECRET=.*|JWT_SECRET=${JWT}|" .env && rm .env.bak

docker compose up -d
# Open http://localhost:8080
# demo user: demo / demo123 or register a new account

With local AI:

docker compose --profile ai up -d
docker compose --profile ai exec ollama ollama pull qwen2.5:0.5b

Dev setup (DevContainer recommended — Java 21, Maven, Node 20, SQLite preconfigured):

mvn spring-boot:run   # backend :8080, swagger at /swagger-ui.html
cd openfinance-ui && npm install && npm run dev  # frontend :3000

API is straightforward REST:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/v1/auth/register \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"username":"alice","email":"alice@example.com","password":"MyP@ss1!","masterPassword":"MasterP@ss1!"}'

GET /api/v1/dashboard, /api/v1/accounts, /api/v1/transactions?accountId=..., /api/v1/assets, /api/v1/budgets, /api/v1/reports/net-worth, POST /api/v1/import/upload, POST /api/v1/ai/chat

Why this stack?

SQLite WAL + Flyway: zero-ops for self-hosters, busy_timeout=10000 for writer contention, migrations run on startup. Postgres driver included for cloud deployments.
Spring Boot: interfaces + impls, constructor injection, MapStruct, BigDecimal everywhere for money, @ControllerAdvice error DTOs, Bucket4j + Caffeine rate-limit/cache.
React 19: TanStack Query for all server state, Zustand for UI state, react-hook-form + zod, axios apiClient, Recharts, react-grid-layout.
Quality gates: JaCoCo (66% line), SpotBugs, OWASP Dependency-Check, Spotless Google-Java-Format, Vitest + Playwright + ESLint + Prettier + tsc --noEmit. Backend + frontend CI on SQLite, Postgres, and browser.

Current version is 0.4.0-beta. If you do bank-file imports, multi-currency, or self-hosting — I'd love your harsh feedback.

Bug reports and feature requests → GitHub Issues. If you want to contribute, start with CONTRIBUTING.md — architecture, API reference, i18n workflow, and Conventional Commits (feat(scope): ...) are all documented.

Own your ledger. Self-host your net worth.