I love how I can customize my PC/VPS (Linux), and I feel truly at home. I hate smartphones (iPhone and Android). I hate it how limited I am in configuring them, and it’s a PITA to make sure it all syncs with my main computer.

Why isn’t it much more common to just use our phones as little windows/gateways to our actual computers? Using something like VCN? Internet speeds should be fast enough?

We could even build a little interface that makes it easier to navigate?

  • Darkassassin07English
    3·
    3 months ago

    I used to use RDP from Android to my Windows 10 pc constantly. Since switching to Debian, I haven’t gotten around to getting that working again. (Debians out of the box RDP solution gives me a black screen on the remote device)

    Instead I’ve been using ssh a ton with JuiceSSH for a terminal. X-Plore for GUI managing files between local(android), ssh, gdrive, dropbox, and many more locations all in two tabs you can swap between and copy/paste/move files as if it’s all one big file system.

    Finally I use Folder Sync to keep all of the userdata files on my phone backed up to a folder on my server via SSH. Images are synced immediately on creation, and everything else is backed up on a schedule.

    (my phone’s always connected to a private VPN keeping it within my LAN and able to reach things like my SSH server, without exposing them to WAN)

    The only thing I really miss having RDP for is the occasional website that refuses to play with a mobile browser. Hotmail/Outlook (I know, I should really change to someone not trash for email) for example will not let you edit inbox rules via a mobile browser or their mobile app. (even with ‘request desktop site’ enabled). You have to use an actual desktop browser for that. :(

    Otherwise I do pretty much everything from mobile.

    • m-p{3}A
      3·
      3 months ago

      Finally I use Folder Sync to keep all of the userdata files on my phone backed up to a folder on my server via SSH. Images are synced immediately on creation, and everything else is backed up on a schedule.

      On a similar tangent, I use Syncthing-Fork on my phone to sync my userdata between my phone, desktop, laptop and VPS.

      I use the untrusted device feature to encrypt my data with an additional password, which I entered on my phone, desktop, and laptop, but not on the VPS. That way I have an encrypted copy of my userdata that I securely store on my VPS for an extra layer of protection in case of a security breach.

      • Darkassassin07English
        4·
        3 months ago

        That’s a fair solution.

        I’ve just got remote devices syncing to my local server. From there Borg handles encrypted historical backups of that server which can be sent offline/offsite.

        I like borg because of its insane de-duplication and compression algorithms. I’ve currently got ~480GB of data being backed up, with 16 historical copies going back 6 months: that entire archive takes up 303GB of space currently. Without the de-duplication and compression that’s 7.76TB of data.