Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Networking Java Operating Systems Programming Software Windows IT Linux

Simple Cross-Platform File Sharing with Chungles 75

Posted by timothy from the marketplace-of-ideas dept.
rammerhammer writes "Sharing files amongst different platforms has most always resulted in using samba -- a program based around the windows file sharing protocol. Chungles aims to provide a nice, graphical, easy configurable file sharing alternative. It's written in Java, uses SWT for the UI, and JmDNS (Rendezvous/ZeroConf/Bonjour) for discovery of computers running Chungles."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Simple Cross-Platform File Sharing with Chungles More

Simple Cross-Platform File Sharing with Chungles

Comments Filter:

  • Looks nice (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kalak ( 260968 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:54AM (#12498227) Homepage Journal
    This looks like a great idea, but the one thing that it seems to lack is to actually work on files on the remote computer. You can transfer files, which is good, but working from a shared volume has a lot of benefits. Also, speed of transfer is something I'd like to see compared (I could test it, but I'm in for a busy morning and should stop slashdotting unless I lie down.)
    • I'd be happy to test it for you... except it doesn't run on my system.

      Some bright spark forgot to package chungles.gif in the linux package.
    • Just a note, Chungles is pretty much Alpha so the file transfer stuff just got put in, I doubt it'll be as fast as it will be in the end.

  • Slightly OT, but fish:// is pretty cool (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:02AM (#12498319)
    In KDE 3.4 (may have appeared in previous versions, not sure) there is a protocol "fish://" that uses ssh. KDE treats it like a regular konq window and you can copy and move files around. Since it works over ssh it's already popular and easy to set up. Another nice trick they've done is you can open a text file from the remote computer, edit, and when you click save it saves it back to the remote computer.

    It's easy to use and integrates well into the rest of KDE.

  • Runs on any platform?!? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by physeter ( 758544 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:05AM (#12498343)
    From the Chungles web site: "It's a file-sharing program for local networks that runs on any platform."

    Chungles uses SWT instead of Swing. SWT being available on a fewer platforms than Swing, Chungles is even less portable than a pure Java application.

    Don't take me wrong: I love SWT but it is definitely not an option if we want to make an application available on as many platforms as possible.
    • I think I may have to check this out and see if it can't be re implemented in swing. I'm assuming this is an FOSS software (didn't read the article, I just assume its FOSS its on /. and isn't negative ;) I'm thinking I've touched upon most the concepts neeeded to implement such a program (in my limited experience) with the exception of the "discovery" of other machines running the app which is something I'd like to learn, the idea of clients communicating directly to eachother vs straight client/server is
  • It sounds like quite a resonable idea, as an alternative windows networking. Bonjour provides a simple discovery service, and with something like this it could provide a really easy to setup network. it should not be hard to port this to other languages/platforms. Everyone has had to struggle setting up a home network, with something like this you do not need to do anything because bonjour does the hard work.

  • No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by m50d ( 797211 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:21AM (#12498508) Homepage Journal
    A java program is still a separate program, and there's the obnoxious java license to worry about too. I find samba really nice to use, so much that I even use it for nix-to-nix transfers. And if you don't like it there's always http, open protocol with tiny servers and clients available for every OS (far more than the JRE runs on, in fact. And I think samba has been ported to more systems than JRE)
    • Hm, excuse my Unix-noobity, but how would you do it otherwise for nix-to-nix?
      • with NFS
      • NFS. It's harder to configure though, so I tend not to bother, samba works and is more crossplatform in practice.
        • So what are the differences anyway, except configurability? Authentication seems to be one thing, and compatibility with winpc's another.
          • nfs can be used on windows (with microsoft services for unix [free download])

            in unix, the attributes of a file are different (there's no hidden bit, but there's an execute bit, etc) so samba has to use the bits on windows computers to mean what they should to unixes, etc.

            i happen to like nfs, and if i remember correctly, its easy to setup (one share = one line in /etc/exports and one lines in /etc/fstab) although this time round im having problems (permission denied errors)
          • It's supposed to failover better, and perform better, and a few other things I forget.
      • eff-tee-pee :-)

        Great speed, simple to work with. More clients than you can shake a stick at.
    • if you just mean the JVM, which I do believe an open source one is in the works, Chungles may be natively compilable with GCJ (i haven't checked)

      I find samba (or rather the windows protocol) to be clunky, alot of times it lagged for no reason, shares didn't have reliable announcement cross-platform, and all around not fun to use.
    • I don't think this is really a product to compete with samba (except maybe file transfer).
      With samba, you can mount a remote (windows) file system, and work with it as if were local. This tool isn't going to provide the capability to do that. It will give you gui'ish directory browsing and file transfer.
      As for using mini http servers, it would definitly provide more security, control, and understanding of what is shared. But, if the files are on someone else's box, you don't really have the option. On this
      • That's part of KDE, not mandrake-only. Mini http servers like that are a better alternative than this program, because the receiver can just use their web browser.
    • WebDAV strikes me as much more useful in this regard, especially since mounting WebDAV sites is a built in feature of most OS's already.
  • Kinda like iFolder [ifolder.com]?

  • Java? (Score:1)

    by SenFo ( 761716 )
    Sounds like it could be a good idea; but (and please no offense to Java programmers) why Java?
    • because there was already bonjour (an OSS apple lib I believe) for very nifty fast multi-cast announcement of 'shares'.

      well and Java makes it easy to have on most major desktop systems with SWT, so it currently will work on Mac OSX (powerpc) or Windows/Linux/BSD (typically x86/amd64) without really any code modifications.

      it's also currently rather lightweight, last time i checked it only used 2megs or so of memory, even though it runs through the JVM.

    • Re:Java? (Score:5, Funny)

      by pyrrhonist ( 701154 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @03:20PM (#12502042)
      Sounds like it could be a good idea; but (and please no offense to Java programmers) why Java?

      You must be new here. The choice of programming language to use on a certain project depends entirely on the reaction you want from Slashdot. This is the key, as there are absolutely no other important factors that affect the choice of programming language. That's right, none. Certainly, when a group is trying to decide on what language to use for a project, there will be all this talk about what a certain language provides, available implementations for the target platform, programming skills of the group, etc. Do not fall for this malarky. Like communism, this is just a red herring. Because every language is simple, does everything, and is available on every platform, the only reason to pick one language over another is how it will be received by the Slashdot community.

      To help you pick a language based on the Slashdot reaction you wish to invoke, I have compiled this handy list:

      • Ambivalence: C
      • Ennui: C++
      • Hatred: C# (.NET)
      • Ebullience: C# (Mono)
      • Depression: FORTRAN
      • Apathy: Ada
      • Elitism: Lisp
      • Paranoia: Scheme
      • Confusion: Prolog
      • Nostalgia: 6502 Assembly
      • Nausea: 386 Assembly
      • Silence: Sh
      • Testiness: Tcl
      • Puerileness: Ruby
      • Blindness: Perl
      • Laughter: VB
      • Ecstasy: Python
      • Ejaculation: PHP
      • Total Protonic Reversal: COBOL
      • Captious Whining: Java
      So there you have it! You should probably print this out now and have it laminated so it will be handy when you need to pick a language for your next project.

      • Ha, that's about right. Why Java? A few reasons. The biggest being libraries. I haven't really found anything quite like SWT for other languages. To be quite honest, I'd rather write it in D but it hasn't really gotten anywhere yet. C is also a great language but I ruled it out because I'd rather deal with something a little more high level for this task. C++ was ruled out cause I flat out hate it. I don't think any slashdotter has justified truly why not to use Java.
        • "I don't like the memory footprint of Java programs"

          How's that?

          Don't tell me how you can write small footprint Java programs and big-footprint C programs, I know already.

          What I mean is that *most* Java programmers don't seem to care about memory usage the way C programmers do.

          I prefer Python myself of course.
      • Thank you! I'm sure that will come in handy some day ;-).
      • Joy: Smalltalk

  • sigh, why re-invent (Score:3)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @11:16AM (#12499088) Journal

    9p [bell-labs.com] has been around for 15 years and reference code is even Open Source these days.

    v9fs on sourceforge for Linux alows mounting remote 9p servers and u9fs is a 9p server for other unix likes.

    I use plan9 to edit files on my hosted Linux / FreeBSD / OpenBSD boxes at the co-lo and on the LAN. plan9 usefully mounts the remote file system into my file tree so one can grep sed awk cut join etc. as normal as though the files were local.

    Excuse me but I must just say one thing : fuck java, fucking fuck off and die

  • Just use scp. I mean, when you're typing in an xterm, who wants to be bothered with a silly cartoon graphics program that takes 30 megs of RAM just to wake up? Oh wait... oooooh that interface is pretty and shiny! Aaaaaaaahhhhh!

  • It sounds great, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by snorklewacker ( 836663 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @12:01PM (#12499599)
    ... it's called chungles.

    I mean, it's useful ...but it's called chungles. It could be exactly what I'm looking for. But it's called chungles. You've maybe even read my posts, which I've written several times, about how naming shouldn't be a barrier to acceptance, that a PHB who dismisses a product by its name alone probably wasn't serious about it, that the names are whimsy but the product should be evaluated on its merits...

    But it's called chungles .

    My boss is very much not a PHB, and is very easy going and technically oriented. But I am not recommending to him or my co-workers that they install something named chungles.

    I have my limits as well.

  • Sharing files amongst different platforms has most always resulted in using samba

    It has? Since when?

    SMB is only one of many file sharing protocols. Samba is generally only used when you want a Windows machine to use filesystems on a *nix fileserver. That's it.

    But Windows is hardly the whole world. There's also NFS (pretty much the standard in the *nix world), Appleshare (what Macs use. To mount *nix filesystems on a Mac, you generally run netatalk [sourceforge.net] on the *nix box, though OSX supports NF

    • Of course, looking at Chungles (awful name, by the way) ... it doesn't look like anything more than a GUI wrapped around a ftp client and server.

      (Well, I assume it doesn't use the ftp protocol, but it serves the same purpose -- it copies files from host A to host B. rsync, scp, rcp and sftp all do the same thing.)

      If so, then it's not even really giving the same functionality as SMB, NFS and others, and they're really doing Samba a disservice by comparing themselves to it.

      Chungles appears to j

  • Simple Asynchronous File Transfer (Score:3, Informative)

    by shapr ( 723522 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @12:04PM (#12499641) Homepage Journal
    I use saft [belwue.de], the simple asynchronous file transfer system. I don't know if it has a windows implementation, but it's great for sharing files with someone else directly.

    Far far better is SFS [fs.net], the self-certifying filesystem. It's more trouble to setup (unless you use Debian) but it allows you to create a secure NFS mount that can safely be mounted and used across the internet.
    I've used it in the past to give read-only anonymous access to a directory, and I could still fly around the world and securely mount the SFS share somewhere else. You probably don't want to mount an SFS share on insecure hardware that might have a keylogger, but it's a great way to have access to all your source code (and research papers in my case) from a friends house in another country.
  • "From the same people who brought you project names like Ubuntu and Ogg Vorbis... we now present.... CHUNGLES!"

    Really, WTF?

  • I want something that is easy to set up, secure, easily tunnelable, cross platform, and allows my users to easily map network drives on windows. Editing files directly is important to me, it takes a whole layer off the support onion (and just seems to be the right thing to do).

    WebDav
    Drive-mountable in windows through certain versions of web folders... still haven't located how to do that mapping in WindowsXP Home. Set up under Apache is a pain in the butt. I just want to set up home directories for
    • WebDAV: Novell NetDrive will map a drive letter, and it works very well indeed.

      Up until recently, it was available from Novell directly for free, but they seem to have taken it away.

      Google around for it and download it from a respectable source (plenty of universities have it on their web servers).

      I've used it within Windows explorer, with RoboCopy, with Notepad++ etc. without glitches.

      As a bonus, it works using https:/// [https] URLs too, so you can be a bit more confident about moving stuff across t'in

    • Sorry, mean to finish off with the whole SMB thing. Use OpenVPN if you absolutely must use native Windows networking. It really does work very well.

      Typically you must configure the client to use the server for WINS. Other than that, Outlook/Exchange work just fine, as do RDP, network drives etc.

    • Actually, this is a major plan for Chungles. I'm looking to get a stable version up before I add native mounting, but it's definitely something needed.
    • WebDrive by SouthRiver works nicely with sftp and it doesn't really break the bank (~$50).
    • Error: PANTS NOT FOUND [kilna.com].
      Cool, Paul Shaffer posts on Slashdot! Ask Dave, he'll give you some worldwide pants.
  • ..over the net (not just local) you may want to try http://www.jetfolders.com./ [www.jetfolders.com]

    Java web-start here [netprogrammer.com]

Slashdot Top Deals

Kleeneness is next to Godelness.

Close