[mmh0000]

I’ve always managed this problem in a different way. I don’t know if my way is better, but it works really well for me.

I treat my powerful desktop computer as my main machine. Then I have a bunch of laptops.

Then I just rsync my entire home directory out to all the laptops.

From there. The rule is quite simple. Any file created on a laptop are considered ephemeral. If I create data that I have to keep. It gets rsynced back the other direction to the main machine.

This process has served me well for at least 15 years now and is supported by a small handful of shell scripts to automate this process

[shevy-java]

Interesting. I go about this differently. I have one master setting and from there ruby just autogenerates anything I'd ever need on other computers. If ruby is unavailable then I just copy the generated files. But I only edit the master setting to enable what I need.

> This process has served me well for at least 15 years now and is supported by a small handful of shell scripts to automate this process

I feel in a similar way but not with shell scripts. Ruby autogenerates them if I need them too. Ruby is my ultimate glue to hold together everything.

[cwel]

  > rsync my entire home directory out to all the laptops

Interesting approach. Whether it could be considered 'better' or not depends on what your 'handful of shell scripts' do.

[mixmastamyk]

I feel like git or other vcs would be a bit safer. I could see myself syncing the wrong way.