Comment by Scene_Cast2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Scene_Cast2 | Hacker News Reader

So here are the reasons why I personally like having a desktop.

  * Quiet under full load. Can actually run jobs overnight in my bedroom (e.g. rendering, machine learning).
  * Frees up space from the desk. Better for ergonomics if you set things up right.
  * Can have more memory for memory-intensive things (VMs, rendering, machine learning, etc).
  * Slightly cheaper for the performance.

In return, you sacrifice portability. If you try to solve that by having a desktop and a laptop simultaneously, it will probably be painful synchronization-wise. E.g. on your laptop, you're comparing some products - you have excel open as well as a few tabs in Chrome. How do you automatically shift everything over?

> How do you automatically shift everything over?

I'd like to know if there's an easy solution for this as well. I have a laptop and a desktop that I snagged at a university auction [1], both with Ubuntu. I keep a portion of my work in Dropbox, but I'd really like to build a "local network dropbox equivalent" for large directories. I don't have the knowledge to do so.

[1]: http://www.publicsurplus.com/

This might be a useful tool for you to try: https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

it's like rsync, but two-way.

You might also find this useful:

https://owncloud.org/

A tool I've the found to be the closest local network dropbox equivalent: https://syncthing.net/

> How do you automatically shift everything over?

I use a combination of a home NAS and Syncthing, both of which play nicely with the Windows/macOS/Debian systems I have deployed.

While not a full solution for everyone, I'm a student who has a laptop and desktop. I use Bittorrent Sync (Resilio) to sync my files. Chrome if forced a bit can sync your tabs. If you do work with laptop and desktop side by side, then use Synergy to use your keyboard and mouse across both computers. My workflow is seamless from when I close my laptop and go on my Desktop to work on the same project.

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