I’m looking for a way in Plasma to backup and sync my data from PC to a LAN Samba share on my NAS, using a GUI program.
The many sync apps (Grsync, Unison, Lucky, RealTime, Kup etc.) I’ve tried over many years, don’t let me set a remote/samba target. Most navigate locally only. I would mount the share, but nobody I’ve found knows of a GUI way to permanently mount it.
Everything else I need on Plasma has a GUI solution. Just a sync fails. I’d be grateful to hear of a GUI solution
Typing magic spells is not something I want to explain to my kids. Bad usability is bad usability, even if they have to do it just once. Also it’s not always worked for me. Maybe I got just 1 letter wrong? That is the weakness with a hack. Some time ago I did autostart smb4k. But after a while it no longer mounted any shares. Also I suspect running an app just to mount the share seems like an iffy workaround. Does everyone do it? And no I don’t really want to mount the share at all. Yes I can already access it via Dolphin easily. But then I’d have to manually copy any new files and navigate to folders every time. More poor usability compared to 1 click in a sync app. I think Plasma is better than this.
You’re right, there probably should be a GUI way to do this but the GUI is literally going to do exactly what you described as a ‘magic spell’. All GUIs in Linux just run commands like the one above in the background. Everything starts out as a command and sometimes people make a GUI that run it. Naturally not every command has a GUI yet.
Framing this as a hack or magic spell is the wrong way to think about it.
For what I use Linux for, Inkscape, Blender, web browser etc. do you think they send text commands from the GUI to another UI, the CLI? Sounds like an inefficient, legacy irrelevance to the user.
Remember this a usability issue, so for non IT users, incoherent text strings or commands are indeed magic spells. Any inappropriate UI is bad usability. They have put a lot of effort into usability on Plasma. So it’s quite a shame that they got this so wrong.
@ian @Lem453
> do you think they send text commands from the GUI to another UI, the CLI? Sounds like an inefficient, legacy irrelevance to the user.
This is literally what programs do in one way or another.
@ian @Lem453
They didn’t get it “wrong”. There’s a million ways to do it, no matter what system you’re using and none of them is zero effort. If you don’t test your backups somewhat regularly, you don’t have backups.
Your kids shouldn’t need to worry about backups. Script them.
If you’re scared of a cli and you’re not willing to step out of your comfort zone, go for MacOS with Time Capsule, which is the only fully integrated solution that brings you zero involvement.
It doesn’t have to be zero effort. But it’s good to have commands available for non IT specialists too. Where they don’t have to learn IT or memorise complex commands or use an unfamiliar type of UI. Usability.
My kids need to learn about backups. Backups should be easy. They are easy on Windows or Android. It could be easy on Plasma too.
Script them? That sound like a lot of IT skills are needed for that. I’ve never seen or used a script. Nor have my kids. Telling non IT users to do that is going to scare people back to Windows.
I’m not ‘scared of the cli’. I’m scared of wasting my time. I’m scared other people being told to use inappropriate tools and end up dropping Linux thinking it’s a nerds OS. I’m prepared to put effort in, to try out lots of methods to find appropriate solutions. And share the results.
@ian
> That sounds like a lot of IT skills are needed for that. I’ve never seen or used a script. Nor have my kids. Telling non IT users to do that is going to scare people back to Windows.
You might be surprised, but you could have both learned scripting and already have a working solution in the time you spent replying to this thread.
Windows is a good solution to people who don’t care how something works.
> I’m scared of wasting my time.
Learning something useful is never a waste of time
The solution, as I posted at the start, is to do it with a GUI. So a script could never have helped.
Solving this and sharing it, will also help everyone who uses a GUI. Not just me.
Also, you might also be forgetting that I would have a whole lot more to learn as a non IT user. So a script would be a massive investment. And I will have forgotten it all again if I ever need to do another one in the future. I think that is unlikely. So a lot of effort for a one-off. Also I’d need to have the script in the App launcher. Even if that is possible, it’s yet more to legacy crap to learn.
Sure. I will happily spend my time learning useful stuff. I don’t want to waste time using bad UX because something is broken in a strange domain. I want to discover and share a good solution.
If you are not in to usability that’s OK. But this is a usability issue. A different world from yours. Software is there to help people. Never change the user to help the software.
@ian
I still don’t get how this is a plasma issue. It’s more of a “linux mindset” issue.
I just meant that, as a Plasma user, there is a missing function. And backing up is quite important too.
Also it seems like this app allows windows shares as the remote location
https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnome.DejaDup
Thanks. Yes Gnome is better for apps accessing the LAN. And Deja Dup does connect as I’d expect. But it creates special files that can’t be accessed on the LAN itself. Only via restore, that cant be used by other PCs or if you change your distro. So yes there is almost a way with Plasma. But if that is totally useless, it’s still a fail.
@ian
> Also I suspect running an app just to mount the share seems like an iffy workaround.
There is always some process mounting the shares, be it graphical or not, even on windows
> And no I don’t really want to mount the share at all.
Ah, yes, then you can try freefilesync, it supports a bunch of clouds and ftp, smb, etc
There is also rclone
OK. Thanks. I thought the fstab entry looked a lot less involved, process wise.
Freefile sync Files mode, can’t navigate to the LAN and Cloud mode only has SFTP, FTP and Google Drive. I tried anyway and it did not like it. Maybe there is a trick.
Rclone command line tool has a web GUI mode. I’ll try that next. Edit: No go. It seems the command line is needed to launch the rclone Web interface.
@ian
For rclone I use this: https://kapitainsky.github.io/RcloneBrowser/
As for freefilesync, I mixed it up with something, sorry. You are right, it doesn’t support smb sadly
Yes I tried the RcloneBrowser. But there is no way to create a new Sync in the GUI. Only manage already configured ones. Unless it’s well hidden.
@ian
Yes, but doing it in terminal doesn’t require any obscure commands, it will guide you through and ask questions for everything
The terminal is obscure in itself. I’m not sure how to start it or what commands to use.
@ian
There is a button in the gui to add a remote which opens a terminal which asks you for stuff
Oh thats what that was. It looked like an error message. So I tried it. Horrible UX, and it did not have samba. I tried a few of the alternatives and it didn’t manage to connect.