Data Backup and File synchronization

If you work on multiple systems like a desktop in office and a laptop in house, probably you would like to synchronize the files between the two. So far I have been using rsync to copy files from my laptop to a usb disk and then using this disk to synchronize data on my desktop at office. While rsync is faster and does not require much configuration, it is good for one way data transfer. But some time you end up with multiple copies or backing up unnecessary data files. For instance if you delete a file in one, you must do the same on the another simultaneously. Probably it can be solved by properly configuring rsync, but certainly its not straight forward for a normal user. Recently I used gui based tool like Unison for file synchronization. I found it pretty much user friendly as it reports the conflicts and allows the user to decide what to do about it. Another tool that I found useful is sBackup for creating backup of important files on your system. These days our work and life depend too much on digital media. Hence backing them up against inadvertent system crashes or human errors, has become very much crucial. sBackup provides a simple gui to configure and setup backup process. You can have complete control over the files you want to backup. You can exclude files based on extension or size. You can set how frequently backup must be taken and you can get rid of old backups which are no more relevant.

In short, file synchronization and backing up data is no more daunting on Linux.

Ubuntu - Most popular Linux

According to distrowatch, Ubuntu is the most popular linux distribution at the moment. I have used several distributions over the years like mandrake, redhat, fedora, debian. For last 2/3 years, I have been using Debian regularly and Fedora intermittently. However, one thing that annoyed me in Debian was its outdated packages. However I was afraid of going to Ubuntu as I thought it would be unstable and it would keep crashing all the time. After going through the reviews, I thought of giving it try.

You won't belive, I was just overwhelmed at its first performance. All of my hardwares got working during the first install itself ... installing flash, media players, java plugin was as simpler than writing this blog itself ... Suddenly my system looked all new and fresh ... I thought speed would be less, but I was wrong again ... It was amazingly fast ...

No wonder why Ubuntu is No. 1 Linux distro. You must give it a try ...


Some later additions:

• Until now I preferred command line interfaces (CLI) for configuring applications like network setting, installing/uninstalling softwares, browsing and even cd writing. Its because I relied less on gui system. However after moving to Ubuntu, I started using much of gui stuff.
• Secondly, the ubuntu forums are very good in the sense that I could get rid of most of my problems in a very short time.
• Barring few glitches here and there, I found Ubuntu quite user friendly and easy to use.