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Ask Slashdot: User-Friendly, Version-Preserving File Sharing For Linux?

Posted by timothy on from the when-diff+cron-isn't-the-right-answer dept.

petherfile writes: I've been a professional with Microsoft stuff for more than 10 years and I'm a bit sick of it to be honest. The one that's got me stuck is really not where I expected it to be. You can use a combination of DFS and VSS to create a file share where users can put whatever files they are working on that is both redundant and has "previous versions" of files they can recover. That is, users have a highly available network location where they can "go back" to how their file was an hour ago. How do you do that with Linux?

This is a highly desirable situation for users. I know there are nice document management things out there that make sharepoint look silly, but I just want a simple file share, not a document management utility. I've found versioning file systems for Linux that do what Microsoft does with VSS so much better (for having previous version of files available.) I've found distributed file systems for Linux that make DFS look like a bad joke. Unfortunately, they seem to be mutually exclusive. Is there something simple I have missed?

3 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. FreeNAS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    FreeNAS will do all of that shiny stuff. And snapshots, too.

  2. OwnCloud by jd142 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Take a look at the features list at https://owncloud.org/features/. It seems to have what you want. I played with it a couple of years ago and it was easy to set up then. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to try it in production.

  3. Re:sharepoint... by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Funny

    You must not be using it right. Sharepoint can do EVERYTHING. It is a one stop shop for all your worlds problems. It has a feature list that make most OSes look lame in comparison. Just think of all the use cases:

    - You want document management with integration into popular MS products which breaks horribly whenever you use something non-standard? SHAREPOINT!
    - You want a metadata search system which fails to properly search metadata fields? SHAREPOINT!
    - You want to run a website with dynamic content that is so difficult to edit you'll yearn for using HTML and Notepad? SHAREPOINT!
    - Are your users being too productive? Want to slow people down a notch with slow load times so they don't embarrass you? SHAREPOINT!
    - How about an integrated user management system which allows you to search users by hitting a single key and waiting half an hour! SHAREPOINT!

    And on the days when you think you have hit rock bottom, your corporation is slowly falling apart after a SAP implementation has screwed the accounts system so badly that few invoices can be found, we have 3 words for you that you can integrate and ensure that the invoice you do find become unusable: SHARE FUCKING POINT!

    Sharepoint is a great OS, all it needs is a decent text editor. Oh wait, MS Word. ... SHAREPOINT!