Roachys Weblog

I frequently flit between using a laptop and a desktop for work (both Ubuntu),

and I use a lot of files on the go. I’ve always just copied the files across from the

laptop when I returned to the office, but it’s not really efficient, as I had to either

a) copy all data – which could be several GB

b) select individual files, of which there were often loads.

I just stumbled across a small application called Unison though, and it’s pretty easy toinstall and configure. Potentially using this method, you could even sync securely over the web, as it uses SSH

First install OpenSSH server

$sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Then install unison :

$ sudo apt-get install unison unison-gtk

You then need to modify the profile (you can either set up a new one or modify the default) in ~/.unison

$sudo pico default.prf

Under the profile, you should have the local root path, remote (SSH) root path, and then any paths that you want to include, followed by any paths to exclude:

# Unison preferences file

root = /home/roachy/ root = ssh://roachy@10.204.4.35/ path = work/ path = Music/ ignore = Path work/archive/*

Save the file and either run the GUI version

$unison-gtk

or the command line version

$unison

Just been rebuilding my Ubuntu Gutsy box after it had really started to crawl – mainly due to me playing with too many bits of software trying to learn new things. The advantages of hosting a separate partition for /home have saved me loads of time and effort as all my data is separate to the OS, so a quick format and within 10 mins I have a shiny new system.

Anyway, one of the things I find essential now on a desktop is AWN (Avant Window Navigator) – it adds that nice Mac dock at the bottom of the screen. The steps to install are as follows:

First add the repository containing AWN:

$sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following lines:

## Avant Window Navigator

deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/ gutsy avant-window-navigator

deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/ gutsy avant-window-navigator

Download/install/remove the reaocard

$wget http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/reacocard.asc

$sudo apt-key add reaocard.asc

$rm reaocard.asc

Install Avant Window Navigator

$sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-bzr

For extra applets, just add

$sudo apt-get install awn-core-applets-bzr

Done