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I've been using my Dropbox space as a way to turn my systems into a thin(ner) client. I install portable (ini and not registry based) Windows apps into d:\Dropbox that I know can be run in Wine and run them in Wine on my Linux systems from ~/Dropbox

Best part of it is that UI changes done on one system remain consistent when using other machines. Completely took the pain out of a format/reinstall, too.

Trying to constrain Home to my Dropbox folder also reawakened an old skill: Space discipline. With drive space exploding and SSDs still being relatively constrained, I had forgotten how much crap I tended to hoard and not sort through until I was feeling pinched again thanks to my Dropbox quota.



This is also what I do, but almost the inverse: I use Cygwin on Windows to get all the same applications (I do everything other than browse the web in my terminal) as I would on Linux, then use Dropbox to keep everything the same across machines.

Each of my machines is configured (almost) exactly the same, and all the media/projects/work is available on all my computers at the same time.

I also experience the forced "space discipline" and would add that I also have to have a better organizational structure in general. I'm constantly "re-balancing the tree" that is my directory structure, re-defining and re-grouping my media into ever finer groups in an effort to stop things from accumulating in digital "junk drawers".

On a different note, I disagree with the suggestion of having a "virtual filesystem" that is the entire Dropbox service. I feel that doesn't fit with what Dropbox is: a folder that syncs. I don't want to have to worry about the physical location of my files, which I most definitely would have to do based on my internet speed (which is as good as it can get right now).


I've done similar.. though I will symlink the config directories for some applications, copy others, and have a couple portable apps.

That said, don't put your irc client in there... I wind up forgetting it's connected when I leave work only to get tons of notifications at home...




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