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Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

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Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#71

Post by josteink »

generalizations wrote: post #63
jagged-chisel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Distributed files to where exactly? My desktop computer, my laptop computer, my tablet computer, my pocket computer. Whether that’s cloud or p2p doesn’t matter to me, the user. I should be able to start working on a spreadsheet or presentation on one and, without the ceremony of “save to a shared location, close the app, switch devices, open the app … now where’s that file again?” switch to another and continue edi…

That sounds like syncthing. Dunno about phones and tablets, but I have that functionality among my computers.

I use syncthing. It's awesome for computers. Coming from Dropbox, then Nextcloud, I find it solves all my needs much, much better, at least on well-supported platforms.

I love how I can decide what to sync where, and even create my own topology of sync-devices if I like. That may sound like crazy complex stuff and over-engineering and what not, but it was a solution I landed on organically, just through normal use.

That said, it's not entirely smooth on iOS and you sometimes needs to manually launch the (third party) app to force a sync after changing some files.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#72

Post by easton »

robertlagrant wrote: post #24

I know this sounds gross, but I wonder if Chromebooks could benefit from being able to trigger local browser actions in the remote browser. So you can click "open in new tab" in your remote and it opens in your local browser. Bonus points if the remote session is also in a tab, so it just switches you away and you can come back easily.

Well thought out Citrix and RDP setups have something like this, where certain apps are able to break through and use the local GPU (usually video conferencing apps, like Teams and WebEx).

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#73

Post by ale42 »

gw99 wrote: post #21
spaniard89277 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RDP works fine for Windows honestly, but in Linux the only decent solution is nomachine and sometimes not even that. Anyway, in my company they decided to hand us out a company laptop and connect through VPN to the corporate network, with shared drives, and it's the best solution IMO.

I worked over RDP for a couple of years. It's not terrible but it's not too good either. You pretty much have to have a wired Internet connection and there are still problems with Alt+Tab and high DPI displays. That's a reasonable compromise from your org. Good on them. I was suffering with corporate OneDrive. Fortunately everything I do ends up in git anyway so I just turned it off and don't use it.

I work almost daily with RDP when I'm working from home, and I have to say that most of the time I almost can't tell if I'm on the remote machine (I'm working full screen) or on the local one. Unless I'm playing a video or use a graphically-heavy application. But it is very true what a good wired connection is needed (at least 100 Mbps, with low latency ~15 ms). Tried this on a LTE connection (a few Mbps and quite some latency >150ms), and it's a pain.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#75

Post by pluijzer »

generalizations wrote: post #63
jagged-chisel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Distributed files to where exactly? My desktop computer, my laptop computer, my tablet computer, my pocket computer. Whether that’s cloud or p2p doesn’t matter to me, the user. I should be able to start working on a spreadsheet or presentation on one and, without the ceremony of “save to a shared location, close the app, switch devices, open the app … now where’s that file again?” switch to another and continue edi…

That sounds like syncthing. Dunno about phones and tablets, but I have that functionality among my computers.

I have no affiliation but want to second this.

If you want to keep your filesystem in sync across many devices Syncthing fully enables this.

It is a use case where you would expect a payed service would be easier or more reliable but with Syncthing it is the exact opposite. Just install it on your devices and select the folders you want to keep in sync ... done.

I had never had any problems with it something I cannot say about Dropbox which can be terribly slow, hogs my PC and resulted in lost files on some occasion.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#76

Post by candiddevmike »

destroy-2A wrote: post #31

Try working in banking for 20 years, stuck behind at least 1 layer of citrix living in citrix inception. Latency for every keystroke, your brain starts to add latency to latency that is not there to compensate for a life lived wearing citrix latency goggles.

Printing worked great though, right?

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#77

Post by franga2000 »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #60
jasode wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What we need is not [...] cloud storage. We need [...] a decent distributed filesystem, Distributed files to where exactly? You need to be more concrete about the remote location of non-local data that normal people can use. Ok, so you want "distributed filesystem" to not mean "cloud storage" ... So is it p2p? Something else? In other words, we want Windows, macOS, Linux, iPhone, Android, etc operating systems... to…

> Distributed files to where exactly? My desktop computer, my laptop computer, my tablet computer, my pocket computer. Whether that’s cloud or p2p doesn’t matter to me, the user. I should be able to start working on a spreadsheet or presentation on one and, without the ceremony of “save to a shared location, close the app, switch devices, open the app … now where’s that file again?” switch to another and continue edi…

The "to where" bit is really important when specifying the fs. If it includes at least one high-bandwidth high-storage high-uptime device (like a server), the requirements and capabilities change drastically compared to if it's composed of a bunch of battery-powered portable devices on limited data plans.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#78

Post by forrestthewoods »

It’d be nice if the author mentioned what cloud desktops and how good people think they are. Don’t tell me it’s worse than I think without specifying what you think I think!

I know numerous gaming companies that swear by Parsec. Except the author doesn’t appear to be talking about Parsec tier cloud desktops. But then again it’s not clear what the author is talking about

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#79

Post by moduspol »

GiorgioG wrote: post #29
simfoo wrote: post #13

Nothing beats working directly on a fast but quiet workstation sitting next to my table. At least for me, the productivity gains associated with quicker builds, IDE resyncs (CLion, looking at you) or just being able to have email, chat, calendar and an active video conference running without making the system crawl to a halt or long latency spikes are huge. 3-4k for a machine that will likely last 2-3 years is nothin…

For the life of me I don’t understand why folks default to laptops for development. Yes portability is great, but most of us park our behinds at the same desk everyday. If I’m going to be out of the office (away from home) I take a laptop and remote into the desktop! Even M1 macs (I have one and love it), while powerful, just can’t hold a candle to a workstation class machine.

What development are you doing where there's a notable difference between an M1 Mac and a "workstation class machine?"

Is it just running a bunch of VMs? I don't doubt the tasks exist but it's got to be a list that's been dwindling for the last few years.

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