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Computers as I used to love them

tonsky.me

231–240 of 265 posts

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#231

Just want to come in here to say that Syncthing solved my note-taking app "problem" that I've been bothered with for years. I want my notes as plain text files (or Markdown files to be specific), and I'd like to sync them with my phone. I'd also like to use the text editor of my choice to edit said text files. Cool, I just install Dropbox on my desktop, sync the files, and edit the files with Sublime Text. Oh but huh…

What are you using to install syncthing on your phone?

I use similar setup, though Markor as an editor. As syncthing app I use https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthing... and it works pretty good.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#232

The biggest gap I've noticed in SyncThing right now is that their iOS client doesn't work well. It's a third party solution you have to pay for, and it can't sync into app folders or the new iOS file paradigm introduced in recent versions of iOS.

I guess you’re talking about the client “Möbius Sync”. I’ll add that it’s also not available in most countries, for some reason the developer restricted it in the App Store.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#234
post #160

The biggest gap I've noticed in SyncThing right now is that their iOS client doesn't work well. It's a third party solution you have to pay for, and it can't sync into app folders or the new iOS file paradigm introduced in recent versions of iOS.

I'd love to switch over to SyncThing, but it would be next to useless on my iPad Pro, so I'm stuck using the incredibly buggy NextCloud filesync solution.

How so? There seems to be some third party client/implementation. Is there anything wrong or lacking with it?

Asking as a Nextcloud (file only) user considering making a switch.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#236

What's his deal with spaces? Yes, I know some crappy tools can't handle them, but he seems to indict all of Python and Ruby.

The deal with spaces?

I would say Linux-developers and script-wranglers targeting others of the same kin, being allowed to exist within their own bubble, never being exposed to a real/“normal” user.

And I say that as a Linux-user, script-wrangler and developer. In 2022 this still being a thing at all is quite embarrassing.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#237
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you summarize what they maybe introduced/fixed to quell your old review? > over the last week, syncthing has corrupted my git repository twice. I reported this as an issue, but the issue was immediately closed with an explanation I disagree with. > I no longer trust syncthing until this gets resolved, unfortunately. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23660438 — I would absolutely be syncing directories containi…

Doing a quick search of reported issues around git repos, basically the trouble is that a git repo folder does not expect to be sync'ed at a file level, because repos are expected to be in different states on different devices, and the state of a repo is represented in the filesystem via the .git directory. As an example problem-case, say your first device checks out branch A and your second device checks out branch…

> it's a problem of trying to use a file syncing application on the internal state of an application on two different machines with two different states, and expecting the result to be a valid state.

I think that we can narrow the problem down to the fact that git's internal state is represented in a way that is transparent to syncthing (a folder of files), that it will attempt to sync, but only partially succeed. If git's internal state was a single database file, you wouldn't get corruption, just a syncthing conflict file.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#238
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing a quick search of reported issues around git repos, basically the trouble is that a git repo folder does not expect to be sync'ed at a file level, because repos are expected to be in different states on different devices, and the state of a repo is represented in the filesystem via the .git directory. As an example problem-case, say your first device checks out branch A and your second device checks out branch…

> it's a problem of trying to use a file syncing application on the internal state of an application on two different machines with two different states, and expecting the result to be a valid state. I think that we can narrow the problem down to the fact that git's internal state is represented in a way that is transparent to syncthing (a folder of files), that it will attempt to sync, but only partially succeed. If…

That is a much better way of phrasing it, thank you!

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox works well for small files that you need to share with others. However, if you use it to back up large amounts of data ... say >100GB, the experience of using it is very poor. It consumes large amounts of CPU continually. It takes forever to run to completion (literally in some cases, in my case it ran for weeks before I gave up on it). An external hard drive is of comparable cost to Dropbox, and a one-time c…

Then you had some problem. I have ~1TB in Dropbox, files small and large. No problems with sync. Once in a while it does go crazy, eats up a lot of CPU and takes 1 hour to get in proper sync. It’s annoying, but luckily it’s rare. And it goes with me everywhere. How do you access external drive from your phone anyway?

The point of the external hard drives is really just to have a backup. I don't have a 1TB collection of files that I need to access from multiple places. So I would never try to access my big backup from my phone. I don't do that kind of work from my phone, ever. If you're in that situation, something like Dropbox might help, provided that it doesn't eat all your CPU. Good for you! Glad it's working out.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#240

OneDrive is pretty good and underrated IMO

And suffers from the same underlying problem as Dropbox and iCloud: it's profit-driven proprietary software. Are you sure your interests as a user are aligned with that of Microsoft as a company? Are you confident that will not change over time?

Im not, and thats why I don’t rely on it too much. For backup I rely on backblaze - and i pay them for the service. Microsoft OneDrive is clearly a loss leader as it is so cheap when used in a family plan it is crazy!

Im more worried about my gmail reliance to be honest.

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