Singularity Puppy

[Cadejo]

All,

Just wanted to run down a thought experiment with you guys, I'm a bit inspired by the Ubuntu concept of convergence and wanted to discuss an idea.

Namely, what I was thinking about was a single session that ran in tangent across several PCs at the same time, each with the same os, sharing that session. Perhaps clustered? Maybe. Perhaps virtual? Nope, it's reverse virtual. What Ubuntu calls "convergence" is a common interface across devices, but it's not a shared interface.

I'm toying with the idea of the same OS to run across multiple devices, sharing the same session. An OS KVM perhaps, where regardless of the what device you were on, the session would synchronize across all of the devices.

I was looking at off the shelf solutions. Dropbox could organically sync a save file across devices, this would take care of files, programs, and configurations.

But what about the video? How would a X-video session be shared across PCs? I need to do more research.

It's kind of blurring the line of the clients, server sort of concept, and while it will use the cloud, it's not. So I'll call it a Blackhole, a singularity to be cheeky.

What do you think?

[disciple]

I'm not sure exactly what you're after, but are you aware of this kind of thing: http://multicursor-wm.sourceforge.net/

[p310don]

But what about the video? How would a X-video session be shared across PCs? I need to do more research.

Why would you need to share the video?

My interpretation of what you're asking is if you can have the "same device" across all your devices.

If you use your desktop PC to do some work, then have to catch the bus to work, you could continue on your smartphone or laptop or tablet using the same interface and files and everything. There would be no need for the video on each device to be doing the same thing would there? As long as it updates to the last state when a device logs in.

Chrome browser somewhat does this, in the sense that it can save your last state and resume on the next synched device.

In the context of a Puppy, if you had a save file loaded on a central server, and the same puppy installed on all your devices, each device could use the same centrally stored save file upon log in. Issues would be different drivers, massive downloads each boot to find the save file, probably more I can't think of right now.

The idea has merit, but would be a doozy to crack.

The Chrome solutions are here:

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2591582?hl=en

and here

https://support.google.com/chromebook/a ... 1195?hl=en

[Moose On The Loose]

...
Namely, what I was thinking about was a single session that ran in tangent across several PCs at the same time, each with the same os, sharing that session.
...

I think I understand what you want to do. A few points come to mind straight away.

For many things you may want to do, you need a good file system that can keep things on a transaction by transaction basis so that a change made from one machine and a change made from another don't step on each other.

Each machine should watch the common storage for updates but keep a local copy of how things now are so that the network traffic isn't too huge.

You need to keep the hardware related settings local to each machine.


For a lot of this, the layered file system seems to be a natural way to implement things.

[disciple]

On second thoughts, perhaps you just need to do everything via Google - they can store your documents, emails, photos, internet bookmarks, browser history...

[Cadejo]

I'm doing a mock up where I have selected folders sync'd via dropbox, I'll let you know how it works out.

[gcmartin]

Not sure if this is what you desire, but, what you describe in the OP is a cluster. But in some cluster approaches, there is only 1 desktop video streaming while all the individual PCs handle the work of the session's needs. ... all running Linux.

One such Puppy user actually accomplished this and published his accomplishments. All PCs do not need be same speeds, but, I would recommend that your fastest be your primary where the you sit at video.

Ubuntu, too, as well as other Linux distros, do this where you can lash several multiple PCs together to be sled-dogs for the bob sled.

Hope this helps

[greengeek]

Depending on how you structure the whole (or components of) the cluster these two threads may be worth a quick look:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=98934

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=96434

[gcmartin]

True Cluster
The author is Master_wrong. His work: "How to use PUPPY Linux to run a Home Cluster taking multiple PCs to operate as a powerful single image system."

Very practical approach.

[Cadejo]

That is very close, but from my perspective, I'm thinking in terms of RAID 1 vs RAID0, as far as computational performance. The PC's would replicate a session.