This might be good. Hope you enjoy what I made.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16356895
I hope this software is useful to those who feel they need it.
Available on codeberg: https://codeberg.org/MarshReaper/GuardianSecurityCenter/releases/latest
This is a client that makes use of the ClamAV packages available in most repositories. It is made to replace ClamTK and check that box for people wanting to use Linux.
Some features are still in development, so not for production use just yet. But, you can run a quick scan and update signatures which is basic enough for most users.
I saw a video DistroTube posted and it made me a bit confused. It was about the Kasperky being offered on Linux. If you have seen the comments you would understand.
Anyways, this had me remember people I know ask me about anti viruses on Linux. I tried ClamTK, but it is very unintuitive and has a somewhat broken workflow.
I hopped on Godot and searched for an image of a popular antivirus software. I then made the software using the pretty layout that many people are used to.
I learned some things about Godot and I hope others will too with this project. Enjoy!
Also, if anyone could help me find the best way to distribute this software that would be great! (flatpak? repos? it requires administrative privileges)
I recently read about this concept of user interfaces with Godot. Pretty cool that you’re already doing it!
Do you use ClamAV yourself?
There’s a lot of naysayers, who insist that game engines like Godot shouldn’t be used for drawing application UI as they tend to defender the entire application every frame, rather than just the parts that get dirty. They’re not wrong in that it’s not the most efficient way to do it, but it still works and is fit for purpose in a lot of cases. I put together a Godot based android app in about a week with very little Godot UI experience. That to me is far more important than absolute efficiency.
Actually it appears this has been addressed:
The last important thing you need to know is that you’ll want to turn on Low Processor Mode in the project settings. This makes it so that the screen only refreshes if something changes, as opposed to the default behavior where it would refresh every frame (which is typical for games).
https://popcar.bearblog.dev/using-godot-for-gui-app-development/#technical-notes-you-should-know
It really doesn’t scale up. On a 144hz monitor, having 20 applications open like that. It’s a lot of rendering for literally no purpose. A traditional toolkit may render zero things for long periods of time.
You are absolutely right, I did just discover that Godot 4.2+ supports a new mode called “low processor mode” that prevents redrawing unless something changes. I’ve edited my original comment to mention it. I have tried it out yet myself. That at least would prevend a very heavy amount of redrawing across 20+ apps as from your example.
Neat! I wish there was more documentation and comparisons using that. I’d expect more mature UI focused solutions still are significantly more efficient.
Oh they would for sure. Having worked with a few of them they are really aggressive about what will render and when. Usually, only the control that changes is rerendered. With Godot even in low process mode Id imagine it is going to rerender the entire application window when anything changes. I’d have to do some tests. I know from research before there are other optimisations you can make in code to low memory and processor usage.
What about accessibility?
Are there no optimisations? Surely the main menu of a game doesn’t always render, does it?
It does, as is typical of all game engines but there is now a new mode you can enable called “low processor mode” to prevent redrawing unless something changes. I’ve edited my original comment to mention it.
Redrawing a painting app every frame, isn’t that just nitpicking optimisation from year 2000?
Not necessarily, as pointed out in another comment, if you had 5, 10 or even more apps open at once, and ALL of them were redrawing entirely every frame there might be some significant impact. In the naive case where you’re build a small app to do one thing, Godot works great as is, once you understand this limitation. I also just learned of a new feature "low processor mode that explicitly prevents full redrawing unless something changes, Ive edited my original comment to mention it.
Well that’s not how it works?
I mean you play 8 games, have photoshop and 3DStudio open at the same time?
Modern GPUs can handle a lot, 10 programs painting the whole screen is easy peasy, but again, when do you have 10 softs open at the same time??
I’m quite confused why this could be a problem outside some artificial setup :-)
I don’t think its that unlikely, depending on the workflow. For example when I’m working on a game in Godot I have Godot itself, aseprite for texture editing, trenchbroom for level editing, audacity for sound editing, a 3d modeling tool, a code editor, messaging app, music player, that’s 8 already and not counting the browser!
Yeah but except the 3D modeling & Godot the rest isn’t using a quarter of half of 10% of the VRAM or the GPU (probably way less).
I mean I had 3dStudio, Photoshop & the multiplayer 3D game + server I was working on open without a hassle (plus browser, audacity, …) on a standard E8400 Core in 2010.
A full HD screen is like 2M pixels, you can write that 100 times at 60hz with a 6600GT.
It’s just a non issue, or I’m missing something here.
I think you might think I’m arguing against Godot for app UI. I’m not in fact I’m totally in favour of it! What I’m originally saying is that people who are against it, argue it’d because its inefficient compared to regular UI toolkits. To deny that would be a lie, because yes, it is. But that doesn’t mean you don’t use it. You just understand the trade offs your making, and you try to minimise those tradeoffs with optimisations. If every app ignored optimisations for efficiency, wed be in a much worse situation. All those apps run smoothly in tandem because devs have made the optimisations. Its good practice to try and do the samez if you use Godot for app UI.
I do not find it very useful to myself as we all know that “common sense is the best antivirus”, but I was a bit upset how run down the front end applications for it have been.
Thank you for posting here!
I am having thoughts that I wonder if others may agree with. What if with the use of this tool on most linux newbie systems, the background processes of clamav scanning causes slowdown on their computers causing doubt in their try of Linux?
Maybe I’m missing something but why was Godot used for this?
It’s the best I know 😆
Is it different than python GTK?
I am not too sure about Godot UI tools in relation to python GTK UI tools. Godot may provide an easier environment to create software applications. I hope we see more of this use! I also hope there are no issues with security or concerns I should be aware of.
Whats clamAV?
“ClamAV is a free and open-source antivirus software and a cross-platform antivirus toolkit. Its primary purpose is to detect various kinds of malicious software, i.e. viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits, and many other forms of possible threats to your system.”
As ClamAV only offers a command line interface to its features, I elected to make a pretty UI to give less technical end users an easy way to manage this antivirus backend.
That’s really cool of you
