Keeping desktop and laptop in synch

[gspr]

This might not be the right category to post in, but I'll take my chances.
Now that I finally have my laptop up and working 100%, I've run into a bit of a headache causer - how to keep the laptop in synch with the desktop and vice versa? This includes documents, music, films, and anything else that I may keep in my home directory. Sometimes the laptop will contain the latest version of a file, sometimes the desktop - and sometimes a directory will have some files which newest version sits on the laptop, and some files which newest version sits on the desktop computer.

Are there any slick systems for quickly keeping my two work environments in synch? I was thinking about using rsync, but it seems like a bit of an overkill...
Preferably I should also be able to synch from anywhere, and with rsync I'd either be relying on per-IP access control or SSH tunnelling, which could end up being a bit too much work.

[snowbum]

rsync is not too much of an overkill I'd say. It's less of an over kill than some GUI app. You can make a file to specify excludes. So your . folders don't sync for example. I mean, you may want to have different icons on one pc that on the other. Stuff like that. rsync can be tweaked quite nicely, and, as you probably know, it only syncs data that is different.

[bryon]

Actully using RSYNC to keep two diffrent computers in sync would be impossible, becuase how rsync works, you can only send files from computer A to computer B. Just as if you where copying but RSYNC just saves you bandwith on subsequent transfures.

What you want to use since you will be editing data on both A and B is a program called UNISON ( http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ ). If the data is only being set over your own LAN then that is no need to set up SSH tunles. Otherwise it is worth researching how to set up password less ssh keys. They are a very cool thig.

Hope that was usefull.

[snowbum]

Actully using RSYNC to keep two diffrent computers in sync would be impossible,

How interesting. I guess that's why I am able to do this everyday. Hmmm... it must be a miracle or something. I even have a cron job do it for me.

unison looks like it's more suitable though. I think one of the nice things about it is that it runs on windows.

[gspr]

Thanks to the both of you!