Show HN: A free Linux adaptation of NETworkManager by BornToBeRoot

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Summary

NMLinux is a free, open-source Linux adaptation of NETworkManager, providing a unified GUI for common network tools. Built with Python and PySide6, it includes modules for SSH, RDP, VNC, Wi-Fi, traceroute, speed test, and more, aimed at sysadmins and power users.

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thongor77/nmlinux

Source: https://github.com/thongor77/nmlinux

NMLinux · v1.2.9

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A free Linux adaptation of NETworkManager by BornToBeRoot.

NMLinux brings the spirit of NETworkManager to Linux desktops, reimplemented from scratch in Python and PySide6 (Qt 6). It is not a port of the original C# code, but an independent project inspired by the same idea: a single, unified GUI for the most common network tools a sysadmin or power user needs.

NMLinux is not related to the Linux system daemon /usr/bin/NetworkManager (NetworkManager by Red Hat/GNOME). The name comes from NETworkManager by BornToBeRoot, a similar tool for Windows that served as the original inspiration.

Built with Claude Code (Anthropic) and the contribution of its author.


Screenshots

DashboardTopology
DashboardTopology
TracerouteWi-Fi
TracerouteWi-Fi

Changelog

v1.2.9 — 2026-05-30

  • VNC — new module for managing VNC connection profiles; groups/subgroups like SSH and RDP; launches vncviewer (TigerVNC); compatible with macOS ARD (DH30 auth handled natively by vncviewer); password never stored; detects missing vncviewer with distro-specific install instructions
  • About — Tools & services — new section listing all third-party tools and APIs the app depends on
  • Sidebar i18n — all 23 nav tooltips now translated into FR/EN/ES/DE (were hardcoded French); labels corrected: Topology, Connections, Subnet

v1.2.8 — 2026-05-30

  • Remote Desktop (RDP) — new module for managing Windows RDP connection profiles; groups/subgroups like SSH; launches xfreerdp as an external process; password prompted at connect time, never stored; fields: host, port, username, domain, resolution, fullscreen; detects missing xfreerdp with distro-specific install instructions (Arch / Debian / Fedora)

v1.2.7 — 2026-05-26

  • Bundled Lucide icons — 21 SVG icons from Lucide (MIT) are now bundled in assets/icons/; rendered at runtime via QSvgRenderer; coloured #60a5fa; app no longer requires any system icon theme (Breeze, Adwaita, Papirus…)

v1.2.6 — 2026-05-24

  • GNOME / Adwaita compatibility — fixed icons on non-KDE desktops: main.py now auto-detects the GTK icon theme via gsettings and applies it to Qt; extended fallback chains for Wi-Fi, Traceroute, Speed Test, Interfaces, Port Scanner, Firewall, MTR; themed_icon() now validates that a real pixmap exists before accepting a theme icon
  • NixOS / KDE compatibility — fixed all icons on NixOS: Breeze 6.x ships SVGZ-only icons; the Nix wrapper now adds qt6.qtsvg to QT_PLUGIN_PATH so Qt can render SVG icons; themed_icon() tries sizes 22/24/16/32/48 (Breeze uses 22 px, not 24); theme forced to breeze when the Nix-bundled icon set is detected; also checks /etc/xdg/kdeglobals for system-wide KDE config

v1.2.5 — 2026-05-23

  • MTR — embedded My Traceroute: runs mtr --report, parses text output, displays a live table with Loss %, RTT Last/Avg/Best/Worst/Jitter per hop, colour-coded by loss severity; continuous mode; CSV + TXT export
  • Speed Test — dependency-free speed test via curl + Cloudflare (speed.cloudflare.com): download (25 MB), upload (10 MB), ping to 1.1.1.1; up to 5 runs persisted in JSON; historical line graph (Download/Upload)
  • Firewall Viewer — read-only ruleset viewer: parses /etc/nftables.conf and /etc/iptables/*.rules without root; live ruleset via pkexec nft list ruleset; columns: Table / Chain / Rule / Port / Action / Comment; colour-coded actions; live filter
  • Sidebar hints — each nav entry now shows a subtle ? badge; hovering displays a tooltip describing what the module does; vertical separator added between sidebar and content area
  • i18n — all new modules translated in French, English, and Spanish

v1.2.0 — 2026-05-22

  • Theme adaptation — full runtime light/dark switching support across all pages; new core/theme.py with is_dark(), color_ok(), color_err(); custom painter widgets (_Graph, _MapWidget) read palette at paint time; all hardcoded Catppuccin Mocha colours replaced with semantic Qt palette roles
  • Subnet mask — Dashboard, Interfaces, and Connexions pages now display dotted-decimal subnet mask (e.g. 255.255.255.0) derived from CIDR prefix
  • Bandwidth Monitor — explicit Start/Stop button replaces unreliable auto-start on page load
  • Export CSV/TXT — Nmap and Traceroute pages now offer Export CSV and Export TXT buttons (appear after scan/trace completes)
  • i18n — new translation keys for all above features (fr/en/es/de)

v1.1.1 — 2026-05-16

  • SSH terminal — complete rewrite with pyte (VT100/xterm emulator) + QPainter renderer; 2000-line scrollback, cursor blink, 256-colour support
  • Visual Traceroute — world map (Natural Earth 110m), live geolocation per hop (ip-api.com), interactive zoom/pan, dual parser (traceroute / tracepath fallback)
  • Bandwidth Monitor — real-time per-interface throughput, 60s sliding graph, live speeds, session totals and peaks
  • Wake on LAN — pure Python magic packet (UDP broadcast), persistent host book (JSON)
  • IP Scanner — hostname resolution via getent/avahi/nmblookup; MAC address, vendor (IEEE OUI 39K entries), interface columns; CSV/TXT export updated
  • i18n — full fr/en/es/de translation for all new pages

v1.0.0 — 2026-05-14

Initial public release — 13 modules: Dashboard, Interfaces, Wi-Fi, Subnet Calculator, DNS Lookup, Ping Monitor, IP Scanner, Port Scanner, Nmap, Whois, SNMP, SNTP/NTP, SSH.


Features

ModuleDescription
DashboardLocal machine info, gateway, public IP, geolocation, DNS resolvers
Connection ManagerNetworkManager profiles via nmcli: list, filter, connect/disconnect/edit/delete
InterfacesNetwork interfaces table with per-interface detail (ip + nmcli)
Wi-FiAvailable networks, signal bars, security, connected network highlighted
Subnet CalculatorNetwork/broadcast/host range from CIDR, host table up to 4096 entries
DNS Lookupdig-based lookup for A, AAAA, MX, TXT, NS, CNAME, PTR, SOA, ANY
Ping MonitorContinuous ping to multiple hosts, RTT stats, packet loss %
IP ScannerCIDR/range ping scan, 50 threads, hostname (DNS/mDNS/NetBIOS), MAC address, vendor (OUI), interface, CSV + TXT export
Port ScannerTCP connect scan, 200 threads, service presets, CSV + TXT export
Nmap7 scan modes, XML output parsing, Host/Port/Protocol/State/Service table, CSV + TXT export
WhoisRaw whois output in monospace
SNMPsnmpwalk/snmpget, v1/v2c, 10 OID presets, results table
SNTP / NTPPure Python RFC 4330 UDP client, offset/delay/stratum/reference
SSHEmbedded PTY terminal (pyte/VT100), saved connections (JSON), key auth, scrollback
Remote DesktopRDP connection profiles (groups/subgroups); launches xfreerdp; password never stored
VNCVNC connection profiles (groups/subgroups); launches vncviewer (TigerVNC); macOS ARD compatible; password never stored
Visual TracerouteHop-by-hop route on a world map, live geolocation (ip-api.com), zoom & pan, CSV + TXT export
MTREmbedded My Traceroute: loss %, RTT Last/Avg/Best/Worst/Jitter per hop, colour-coded, CSV + TXT export
Firewall ViewerRead-only nftables + iptables/ip6tables ruleset (no root); live via pkexec; filter by table/chain/action
Speed TestDownload/upload/ping via Cloudflare; no external tool beyond curl; history graph (last 5 runs)
BandwidthReal-time per-interface throughput: 60s sliding graph, live speeds, session totals, peak
Wake on LANPure Python magic packet (UDP broadcast), persistent host book, no external tool required
Topology MapAuto-discovers LAN devices via nmap -sn; interactive graph with draggable nodes, zoom/pan, detail panel
SettingsLanguage selection (French, English, Spanish, German), persisted

Requirements

System tools

Most are already present on a standard Linux install:

# Arch / EndeavourOS
sudo pacman -S iproute2 networkmanager bind-tools nmap whois net-snmp iputils mtr curl

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install iproute2 network-manager dnsutils nmap whois snmp mtr-tiny curl

# Fedora
sudo dnf install iproute NetworkManager bind-utils nmap whois net-snmp-utils mtr curl

Optional tools

ToolFeaturePackage
xfreerdp / xfreerdp3Remote Desktop (RDP)Arch: freerdp · Debian: freerdp2-x11 · Fedora: freerdp
vncviewerVNCArch: tigervnc · Debian: tigervnc-viewer · Fedora: tigervnc
nm-connection-editorEdit connections from Connection ManagerArch: nm-connection-editor
tracerouteTraceroute alternative (tracepath used by default)Arch: traceroute

Python

  • Python 3.11+
  • PySide6 6.6+
  • ptyprocess 0.7+
  • pyte 0.8+ (pip install pyte or sudo pacman -S python-pyte)

Installation

Option 1 — Arch Linux / Manjaro / EndeavourOS (AUR)

yay -S nmlinux

All dependencies (PySide6, ptyprocess, pyte, nmcli, …) are handled automatically.

Option 2 — Wheel (all distros)

Download the .whl from the latest release and install it:

pip install nmlinux-1.2.9-py3-none-any.whl
nmlinux

Option 3 — From source

git clone https://github.com/thongor77/nmlinux.git
cd nmlinux
pip install PySide6 ptyprocess pyte
python3 -m nmlinux.main

Option 4 — Desktop entry (KDE / GNOME / etc.)

Copy the .desktop file to make NMLinux appear in your application launcher:

cp data/nmlinux.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications/

Then edit the Exec= path in the file if needed.


Running

./nmlinux.sh
# or, after pip install:
nmlinux
# or directly:
python3 -m nmlinux.main

Project structure

nmlinux/
  core/
    i18n.py         — Translation system (fr/en/es/de), tr(key) function
    icons.py        — themed_icon(): 21 bundled Lucide SVG icons via QSvgRenderer
    settings.py     — AppSettings dataclass, JSON persistence
    ssh.py          — SshConnection dataclass, SshStore
    rdp.py          — RdpConnection dataclass, RdpStore, find_xfreerdp()
    vnc.py          — VncConnection dataclass, VncStore, find_vncviewer()
    terminal.py     — SshWorker (QThread) + PTY via ptyprocess, emits raw bytes
    cli_bar.py      — CliBar singleton: pedagogical CLI equivalent bar
  pages/
    about.py        — About page (credits, tools & services)
    bandwidth.py    — Bandwidth Monitor: per-interface 60s graph, live stats
    connection_manager.py — Connection Manager: nmcli profiles, connect/disconnect/edit
    dashboard.py    — Dashboard
    dns.py          — DNS Lookup
    firewall.py     — Firewall Viewer: nftables + iptables parser, live via pkexec
    interfaces.py   — Network Interfaces
    ip_scanner.py   — IP Scanner
    mtr.py          — MTR: mtr --report parser, live hop stats table, export
    nmap_scan.py    — Nmap
    ping.py         — Ping Monitor
    port_scanner.py — Port Scanner
    rdp.py          — Remote Desktop: RDP profiles, launches xfreerdp
    settings.py     — Settings page
    snmp.py         — SNMP
    sntp.py         — SNTP / NTP
    speedtest.py    — Speed Test: curl + Cloudflare, history graph
    ssh.py          — SSH page (connection manager + terminal)
    subnet.py       — Subnet Calculator
    terminal_view.py — TerminalView: pyte VT100 emulator + QPainter renderer
    topology.py     — Topology Map: nmap -sn, interactive graph, zoom/pan
    traceroute.py   — Visual Traceroute: world map, geolocation, zoom/pan
    vnc.py          — VNC: connection profiles, launches vncviewer
    whois.py        — Whois
    wifi.py         — Wi-Fi
    wol.py          — Wake on LAN: magic packet, persistent host book
  assets/
    icons/          — 21 bundled Lucide SVG icons (#60a5fa)
    world.geojson   — Natural Earth 110m countries (map background)
  window.py         — MainWindow (sidebar + QStackedWidget)
  main.py           — Entry point

Desktop environment compatibility

Since v1.2.7, NMLinux uses 21 bundled Lucide SVG icons rendered at runtime via QSvgRenderer. The app no longer depends on any system icon theme (Breeze, Adwaita, Papirus…) and displays correctly on KDE, GNOME, XFCE, and others. The Qt style adapts to the running desktop automatically.


Limitations

  • Linux only (relies on nmcli, ip, dig, ping, subprocess tools)
  • No root/polkit integration — tools requiring elevated privileges (some Nmap modes, raw sockets) must be run manually with sudo
  • SSH supports password and key-based auth; agent forwarding not yet implemented

Credits and acknowledgements

  • BornToBeRoot — for NETworkManager, the original inspiration and reference for features and UX
  • Anthropic — Claude Code, the AI assistant used to build this project
  • The author, for the vision, testing, and direction

License

GPL-2.0 — see LICENSE.

This project is an independent reimplementation. No code from NETworkManager was used or translated.

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