"Network Indifference" in the Free Unixes?

PapaZit asks: "Laptop and home users don't alway have access to a network. There are many tasks that can be done off-line, but require an occasional network connection (reading and responding to email, for example). In the Free Unix front, there has been some work in this direction, but it hasn't made it anywhere outside of Windows. Coda has made it possible for me to work with centralized files offline, and I have some ugly scripts involving perl, fetchmail, and procmail that handle email, but I wouldn't inflict them on others. An OS with automated "Network indifference" seems like it would be useful to both novice users and power users, and it's the sort of thing that could make these alternative operating systems more appealing to the masses. Are there any efforts in this direction that could use support or testers? Are people waiting until networking becomes so ubiquitous that the problem goes away?"

Pardon?

[hatless]

Not sure I agree with your premise that Unixes are farther along in this than, say, Windows and MacOS. Next time you're on a Windows 2000 machine, have a look at the features for synchronizing a network folder for use offline, not just the Briefcase. You can schedule syncs or have them take place during idle time.

MacOS has had a similar feature for years now, though it's a bit less slick.

As for other applications, last I checked, most mail programs, even low-end ones like Outlook Express and Netscape supported offline composition and reading, with message delivery on reconnect, and have for years. Internet Explorer's ability to pull down web pages and sites for offline browsing has been in since 4.0 and also keeps getting better, with automated background fetching and notification.

These sort of features could certainly stand to get better and easier to use; many people--yourself included, it seems--don't even know they exist, which certainly points up poor interface design and probably also bad documentation. But the funcionality is there.

Lotus in particular is good at these things. Not happy simply with Notes, the mother of all offline-sync application environments, they and IBM have now got interesting little personal web proxies and containers you can install that allow you to replicate working web-based applications, so that forms can be validated and local copies of databases can be updated with full logic offline through a browser interface.

Or are you asking about something else?

Local server?

[Christopher Thomas]

Stupid question time - couldn't you get this functionality by setting up a mail server and a cacheing proxy server on the box you're using?

They'd hit the net when it was available to transfer data, and silently fail (and return cached data, for the proxy server) when you weren't connected. You'd just be talking to the local daemons, so as far as your mail client and web browser can tell, you'd always be connected.

Yes, this will eat system resources, but it shouldn't be that much if you've configured the system properly.

Good idea

[bee]

I've always thought the init level concept was a good one that was implemented poorly. I've never seen any rational explanation as to why, for example, Solaris defines init level 5 to be 'shut the machine down and power it off if possible'-- if the init levels are supposed to be a linear sequence, then shouldn't that be like level -1 instead, presuming that 0 is 'stop the OS'? And shouldn't single-user be one of the steps between 0 and multi-user, instead of state 'S'? Or maybe I just don't grok the higher zen of it, and need enlightenment. Anyone?

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Re:Pardon?

[ivan256]

I think he was saying that Windows was farther along other operating systems.

Man, I swear that people figure every Ask Slashdot like this is trolling for windows biggots. He's on your side this time :).

Knowing When Network Changes

[SEWilco]

I once used NetEnv [sourceforge.net] to tell my laptop at boot time where it was. Next time that I change locations often I'll start with divine [www.fefe.de], which looks for servers at PCMCIA init time to identify the current location. Should be interfaced to sleep/resume actions so closing/opening the screen lid will cause network reconfiguration.

As others have pointed out, proxies and configuration adjustments can deal with other network changes. For example, have your applications configured to send outgoing mail to a port on "localhost", then redirect where spooled mail gets sent to based upon the network config.

Bloated Notes (OT)

[Mr. Slippery]

Not happy simply with Notes, the mother of all offline-sync application environments...

Is anyone happy with Bloated Notes? Having to use it is definitely the worst part of contracting at IBM.

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

UUCP

[spike_gran]

Back in the old days, UUCP was a common way for computers that were only occassionally connected to do file transfer, mail transfer and the like. It worked pretty well.

Maybe it'd suit your needs.