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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

#111

Post by navane »

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 it running on an ancient android (4.4) phone, perfectly

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

#112

Post by jhickok »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #95
cardanome wrote: post #14

I don't get the use case. Why would you even consider using a cloud desktop? Even a very low-spec laptop is going to run a simple graphical desktop environment like Xfce just fine. Watching a youtube video, browsing the web and even video conferencing can be handled with any new-ish laptop. And in reality, you still want a reliable laptop with decent keyboard, long battery life, good display and so on. So you won't e…

> Why would you even consider using a cloud desktop? I've travelled to and through countries ( e.g. in the Gulf, France, India) with my work laptop where I was deeply uncomfortable having those data on hand. Taking a clean machine and remoting into that one when needed removes a lot of paranoia points.

I don't think you need a remote desktop in order to keep the data off the machine.

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

#113

Post by woeh »

I've had good results with offloading work to a cloud based server where I ran my docker containers during development. Just CLI though, I left the graphical part on the client side. As mentioned by others, VSCode with remote SSH was a blessing for such a scenario.

There are benefits; I could scale up my workstation even for an hour or so, with more memory or a fancier cpu. And it was easier to share my work with other (remote) colleagues; because they were at another timezone I could leave the server up for them when needed, while I shut my laptop down for the day and see their feedback the next day.

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

#114

Post by [deleted] »

jhickok wrote: post #112
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you even consider using a cloud desktop? I've travelled to and through countries ( e.g. in the Gulf, France, India) with my work laptop where I was deeply uncomfortable having those data on hand. Taking a clean machine and remoting into that one when needed removes a lot of paranoia points.

I don't think you need a remote desktop in order to keep the data off the machine.

[deleted]

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

#115

Post by solarkraft »

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 just wish Syncthing would allow for deferred sync, i.e. you see the file, but it only gets fetched once you access it.

That's, imo, the only way to sync large folders. I don't need all my Documents/Photos/Movies/Whatever on my phone at all times, but I do wish I could access them when I need them.

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

#116

Post by jawadch93 »

Rygian wrote: post #3

It is good that these "water is wet" statements get written down so we can point humidity-skeptical people to them from time to time. The deeper problem is the sad state of affairs of distributed computing for the end user : * Application instances expect to be the only ones modifying the files that underlie the document being edited. Most of them simply bail out when the files get modified by another application. *…

[dead]

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

#118

Post by resizeitplz »

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…

Funny you use a spreadsheet as an example. That's been the default for Excel for years. Save to SharePoint/Teams/OneDrive (whatever MS is calling it these days, it's all the same backend) is the default option - and multi-user live editing (or one user in multiple sessions) just works.

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

#119

Post by d--b »

Been working remotely for 6 years. My vm is in New York and I live in rural France. I connect over a 4g connection. I have a 24" monitor.

The stuff is seamless. I mean it. I hate lagging, I hate stuff that doesn't work. But this does work. Really well.

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

#120

Post by prepend »

jiggawatts wrote: post #86
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.

I was a "Citrix consultant" for about two decades. I'd walk into customer sites for the first time, meet people, and within minutes they would start ranting about how bad Citrix is. I suspect only dentists get this kind of feedback from customers before a procedure. Having said that, 99% of the time the problem boils down to this: The guy (and it is a guy) signing the cheques either doesn't use Citrix OR uses it from…

It seems to me that the reason why so many bad enterprise solutions are bought is because the buyer is not the user. It’s such a funny thing to me that people would spend tons of money without firsthand experience or at least someone they trust using it.
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