Re: Keeping desktop PC and laptop in sync

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On Mon, 31 Oct 2022 16:06:16 +0100
Joel <j-archlinux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> as we have a discussion ongoing about setting up a new PC, I thought
> I could jump in with my current issue : I have retired my laptop and 
> bought a desktop PC. Gone through the fresh installation process
> (once every 12 years is OK to declutter a bit), and rsync'ed my home
> directory (parts of it, mostlyskipped ~/.local and~/.config where I
> found some 10-20 years old files from programs I used once but never
> since).
> 
> Now I still want to use my laptop when I'm on the road, which happens 
> rather seldomly (once every 2 weeks), i.e. have my files, my
> bookmarks etc available on my laptop. Also not only have to sync
> my /home/$USER but also /root and some more mountpoints (source code,
> website stuff, audio, video, pictures), totaling around 1.5TB of data
> 
> I've been playing around with rsync and adding many many exclude
> rules to
> 
> a) limit the amount of files being transferred (eg exclude ~/.cache, 
> browser's cache, thunderbird's imap cache etc) so I can keep an
> overview if something is getting overwritten that I don't want
> 
> b) keep certain files (especially XFCE config etc) distinct as eg I
> have 2 monitors on my PC vs only 1 on the laptop -> different menus,
> window settings etc
> 
> Now this is pretty tedious, initial rsync's dry-run showed ~700k
> files that would be sync'ed, which I brought down to 1k after several 
> iterations and adjustment of exclude settings, and this is so far my 
> first run - currently using my laptop and will sync back when I'm
> home again... let's see how many files will differ then !
> 
> So I'm looking for more easy-to-use alternatives. Most important
> thing : I want dry-run functionality to prevent unwanted data loss,
> which means automatic sync tools are not the way to go ! I think
> synthing is such a candidate, unless I missed the dry-run option
> somewhere. Have used unison many many years ago, but I think it was
> also not perfect and had issues handling thousands/millions of files.
> Heard of some new systemd homesync (?), but didn't have a look at it
> now, sounds also like it automatically syncs.

The systemd home stuff is all pretty new - I wouldn't use it yet myself.

> Any thoughts / recommendations / advices ?

Now you've gone through the painful bit of setting up a suitable rsync
command, why not just store that in a file as a bash script somewhere
(maybe ~/bin ?) Then you can easily use it whenever you want and
shouldn't need to spend any more time than typing its name :)

> Many thanks
> 
> Joel



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