A Japanese Internet slang is “誰得” (daretoku) – which roughly means “who benefits?” And the classic comeback is “俺得だ！” (oretoku da!) — “I do!” That’s exactly how this app started. I made Noctiluca because I needed it.
I’ve been a Linux desktop user for about 15 years, mostly on KDE Plasma. After starting a small company, iOS development became a big part of my work, so I reluctantly bought a Mac — and reluctantly made it my main machine.
I tried my best to stay on Linux. VNC? Painfully slow on non-Mac clients. Chrome Remote Desktop? Better than VNC, but still slower — and being browser-based, it can’t capture system keys. xrdp? I actually made a predecessor of Noctiluca called ‘麗 ~Ulalaca~’ (https://github.com/team-unstable…), but abandoned due to the sheer complexity of the RDP specification.
I wanted to create something like RDP – 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 just run Xcode — as if it were a native Linux app.
There is also a deeply personal motivation behind this app and the Sirius Protocol. A very dear person of mine, 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 – and show it, wherever it is.
thank you