Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

Decided this needs its own thread, so here it goes:

Quick (or not so) compiled (and refreshed, so the previous users please redownload it) Unison 2.27.57 for Maemo - works, program menu item added. Requires ssh or rsh to run via network, the remote computer should also have the same version of Unison installed (most distrbutions have this one (the latest stable) on some repo). Also has local synchronization.

First check the site here:
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

Configuration goes like this: Start unison, it will ask you for local directory to sync, after that for remote directory and method to sync to. You will also need an user name and you can configure passwordless connection the usual way (just remember that you start Unison as user on the tablet, so you need to generate the key for the maemo user and add it on your linux machine authorized_keys for the user you connect with). You can also configure directly the Unison profiles for more advanced options. The Unison documentation can be found here:
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/u...on-manual.html

Screenshot of a configured two way sync between N800 and my Eee. Tested, works quite fast.
http://www.bundyo.org/maemo/unison/unison.png

GTK version /can work like console version too/:
http://www.bundyo.org/maemo/unison/u...57-2_armel.deb
1.6mb/4.5mb

You can also install it from qole's repository, see this post:
http://internettablettalk.com/forums...946#post270946

Have fun :)

I want to clarify that I won't try to hildonize it. It is written in OCaml/LablGTK and if some OCaml god steps forward, ports the hildon libs and hildonizes it - please be welcome. :D

Console version, if someone wants just that, but it isn't very small too:
http://www.bundyo.org/maemo/unison/u...57-2_armel.deb
1.3mb/?

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

Hmm, when you click on the shortcut for it, it won't launch. But it launches fine in terminal. Now getting it to work on the other hand. >.<Seems it won't recognize the ssh connection even though it's already been setup for using keys.

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

How do you launch it? What you get if you run start-unison from terminal? What do you mean by an already setup ssh connection?

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

If you run /usr/bin/unison-latest-stable-gtk it will launch. It starts on my N810 after I have created a symbolic link in /usr/bin:

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

Will fix later today.

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

This is definitely something to go into Extras when it is stable. Thanks, Bundyo!

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

If I run start-unison from the terminal it says that /usr/bin/unison is not found. But I can link it myself. What I mean by SSH is that my laptop is an SSH client, I have OpenSSH server running on my tablet and I say up key authentication (so I don't have to type a password to connect). But if I use unison on my laptop and set it up to ssh to my tablet it doesn't seem to connect (says can't find server or disconnected). But I can access it through regular SSH, or mounting it, etc..etc..

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

Cool port. Great alternative for rsync or lower layer solutions like ZFS/ODS!

You can also run Unison on the other computer instead. It runs on Linux, MacOSX, Windows, and Solaris. Be careful on OSX; there is also a Usenet reader called Unison for OSX. It is interesting what gives a better performance; running Unison local or running Unison remote?

Compliment it with SSHFS/SMBFS to access files you only want to access over network connection instead of copying. You can even use it to synchronize settings of applications or make sure N8x0-related files on your desktop or server get copied to the NIT. For example you place new backgrounds in ~/n8x0/backgrounds and they get auto available on your NIT.

However because there is no master/slave this can be difficult. What happens when there are changes in the same file on both computers? It has to merge them; this can create trouble, and often requires manual intervention.

Last, I wonder about the impact on performance. Using SSH for this on a embedded device is probably a resource hog.

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

You can specify in the profile either a program to merge specific files with it or a direction for unconditional copy. There are more complicated rules to do the syncing, too bad they can't be controlled from the GUI. Then again you will seldom need to change them more than once if you plan carefully.

The impact on performance is serious since it employs several processes to do the copying. However many changes are seldom if you sync often and it is fast with the default settings.

Re: Unison - Powerful file synchronization.
 

Fixed the symlinks and reuploaded the package.