In my office I have a Debian server, a Ubuntu workstation, and a Windows laptop. I have a samba share directory on the server where I keep my source code. I access the files in this directory on both my workstation and laptop. What I like about this setup is that I can seamlessly move between the workstation and laptop to do my work. However, what I don't like is when I have to move files around inside the share directory, eg. copying a 100MB file from one location in the shared directory to another. If I use the GUI tools on my endpoints (Windows Explorer or Nautilus) to copy a file, it pulls the file from the server to my machine, then pushes the new copy back to the server. I'm connected over wireless so this is typically a slow process. I have no trouble doing these operations in a shell on the server, but I feel like that's defeating the purpose of using the share.
My question: Are there any tools that can speed this up? It seems like it could be so simple: if I'm moving files inside the share, issue a remote command to the server instead of using the local machines file system.
Alternatively, is there another way to set this up with another shared directory technology?
I'm not afraid of the command line, I would just prefer to be able to do everything inside of the GUI tools like file explorers and Eclipse.
Best Answer
Another approach is to use VNC. You then control the server as if you were sitting in front of it without any file copy operations between the server and your workstations.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VNC