11 Feb 2009

RSync for windows, mac and linux: Unison ?

Lately I re-installed all my home computers, that means backuping everything to DVD(s).
It's always a really painfull operation, there are differents files and differents folders structure across computers /os (windows, ubuntu...). Some files are the same, some where deleted but not everywhere etc...
So usually I spend almost a week-end cleanup the mess accumulated over 2 or 3 years.

I tried to use subversion to backup files so that I could use associate tools to ease the job. It was a failure for many reasons:
- Using svn add/move everytime you do something with a word, pdf etc... is painfull
- That means synchronising with some kind of server and I don't want to have a running computer all day long at home
- I don't need versions on those documents
- You need a big storage place (+ extra svn info) for the repository

For the sotrage problem I bought a 1To USB external drive! Should be fix now :)

For the rest, I think rsync is better for what I need!
Unfortunatly there is no such thing for windows unless you use cygwin... I'm not really found of cygwin (it's better than nothing but...)

I just found Unison, an implementation of rsync but available on multiple plateforms. Windows, Mac, Linux clients.
I did some tests under windows and it seems to work :)
I only used the client line since the graphical client need Gtk+ (I don't want to install it just for that) and it will be ugly (as usual with gtk).

I need to test the linux client and I should be ready to go...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

RSync ? Do yout talk about the famous Renault RSync ?

;o)