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How do I make it so that whenever the file blah.pdf on computer A is changed, its copy at computer B is updated? I believe I must setup some daemons on A and B.

A is a Linux system and B is a Windows system.

Motivation: I'm editing and compiling TeX documents on A and it'd be good if I can see the output on B's monitor. Alt-tabbing is kind of pain. Maybe I should really just buy a second monitor or a bigger one.

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    I was researching this recently, (specifically real-time mirroring) and found that you need to have a special daemon process that monitors the files and does something with them. The closest solution that I found was using fileschanged sourceforge.net/projects/fileschanged piped through to another script that rsyncs the files once they change, however I have not implemented this and cannot comment on its effectiveness.
    – Josiah
    Nov 12, 2009 at 2:07

4 Answers 4

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There are several possibilities. You could script some file replication system like rsync; or you could just share a drive between the two computers, e.g. via SAMBA.

Or just use VNC/RDP/etc. to work on one computer while using the other. Then there's no need to push files around.

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    +1 for the recommendation of not making things more complicated than they need to be.
    – EEAA
    Oct 18, 2009 at 2:32
  • I'm not sure how the latter (VNC/RDP..) can achieve a poor man's dual monitor: displaying a TeX editor on one monitor and a PDF viewer on another monitor.
    – RamyenHead
    Oct 18, 2009 at 14:23
  • @RamyenHead: Just start a VNC session on one system, then you'll be working on the same system on both monitors. Then just start a PDF viewer on one monitor (e.g. in the VNC session), and the editor in the other.
    – sleske
    Oct 19, 2009 at 7:31
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If its just that you want two monitors, try synergy2 . its basically a software KVM. lets you move your mouse from one screen to the next and use the same keyboard, as if the screen was extended. Really cool little app. Doesnt solve the moving the file thing, but it seems like thats not your primary problem, and that you really just want more desktop space.

Hope that helps

Mark

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You can share a drive from Windows, or use Samba to share a directory on Linux, then use rsync on Linux to ensure the remote drive/shared directory is synced with your working copy.

However you're likely to have the problem that the Windows-based viewer program won't automatically reload the document, so you'll have to go and do something manually on the Windows machine to view the new document. I'd suggest synergy2 (From @Mark) or Win2VNC (or something similar with Linux in control). Then you don't have to switch mouse and keyboard to reload the document, merely move the mouse.

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Dropbox would actually work really well for this. Plus it's cross-platform.

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