Friday, October 28, 2011

Using Dropbox to share Ubuntu desktop state between multiple machines

I like to have my desktop shared between multiple Ubuntu machines so that I can just log in the another computer and continue to work on my "stuff". Shared desktop is also useful if you need to reinstall one of your Ubuntu box instantly (for example because of the broken version update) and do not want to lose the state of your desktop.

The trick is simply to remove your original desktop directory and to create the symbolic link to the directory in your Dropbox folder instead. 
hekonsek@Drone:~$ rm -r ~/Desktop
hekonsek@Drone:~$ ln -s ~/Dropbox/Desktop ~/Desktop
Now all changes to your desktop state will be synchronized with the Dropbox account. Apply this configuration trick to all your machines and you got desktop synchronized between multiple Ubuntu instances. Plus desktop backup for free :) .
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4 comments:

  1. bmajsakOctober 28, 2011 at 1:19 PM

    Ubuntu One?

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  2. Henryk KonsekOctober 28, 2011 at 1:27 PM

    I'm still used to Dropbox. :) But I'm considering migration.

    ReplyDelete
  3. bmajsakOctober 28, 2011 at 1:45 PM

    I migrated when they messed up with the license (which they abandoned/clarified later on). But I'm really happy with u1. You don't need artificial folder, you can pick whatever you want, and Android client is pretty neat.

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  4. Henryk KonsekOctober 31, 2011 at 7:05 AM

    I'm thinking about migration to Ubuntu One due its 5 GB of starting capacity and cheaper paid options.

    ReplyDelete

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