Re: [Evolution] Sync'ing desktop & laptop Evolution

[Nick Jenkins <nickpj gmail com>]

> > I'm running Evolution (2.30.3) on my desktop, and want to be able to
> > sync this with Evolution on the laptop (for use when away from
> > base).
> >
> > Can this be done simply by copying ~/.evolution from one to the
> > other? (This is what I do with the Pan newsreader and its ~/.pan
> > directory.)
>
> I wouldn't recommend syncing that way. It may have side effects. I'd
> rather use SyncEvolution.

It would be nice to be able to sync the files too, surely? SyncEvolution
does a great job, but from memory (so I could be wrong!) it does
memos/appointments/contacts/tasks, but not email. So if you have local
email, that's not on an IMAP server, then file sync would be useful.

Also the two don't have to be in competition - they can be
complementary. File sync could be nice for users with a desktop for the
office & and a laptop for when they're on the road, who are already
using a service like dropbox, to semi-automatically keep the two in
sync. (I say semi-automatically, since you'd have to make sure the two
are not running Evo at the same time [evolution --force-shutdown on
both], and that all changes are synced between the two before switching
from one machine to the other).

Some of the obstacles to this seem to be: maybe the computer names in
some of the file paths (like
~/.evolution/memos/local/[random_numbers] [computer_name]/ ), and
perhaps binary files if evo uses those and they're architecture-specific
and there's syncing between architectures (like x86 <-> amd64), and the
gconf and password settings.

Semi-related to this, I have wondered if it would be helpful if Evo
shipped with a shell script that did what's described at
http://live.gnome.org/Evolution/FAQ#How_can_I_transfer_all_my_Evolution_data_from_an_old_home_directory_to_a_new_home_directory.3F
 using SSH and rsync, taking the destination host and username as command-line arguments.

-- All the best,
Nick.