File sharing should not be this difficult

I really hate networking. For something as simple as trying to get two machines to communicate, it is actualy quite a difficult thing to do. And once done, it is very easy to break or introduce some instability into the link.

Take for example trying to move a file from one Linux PC to another Linux PC. Many, many solutions exist for this simple task, yet I have always in the past resorted to sending a file by e-mail. Frustrated by the plethora of solutions — Samba, Warpinator, SSH, FTP — on many occasions I have completely given up and just sent the file via e-mail. Why bother?

The Apple ecosystem has the beautiful Airdrop. Beautiful when it works; not so pretty when it fails, and this used to fail a lot for me back in the day. There were interrupted transfers, lost files and a few times, refused connections; all things I have also experienced with the aforementioned Linux tools as well. Couple that with Airdrop being Apple-only, it was a lost cause from the very start.

I’ve recently taken to using NFS to connect my Linux machines together. In all my years, NFS has (so far) proven to be the most reliable thing I’ve ever used. Once setup — and setting it up is very easy — it works flawlessly.

Now, with my Linux desktop and laptop talking to each other, I’ve tried to throw my Android phone into the pool but it’s a no-go. NFS is not possible on a non-rooted Android device. There are likely ways to work around this but again, why bother? So I’ve resorted to using a FTP app just to be able to pull files off my phone from another machine without the need for a USB cable. The experience with this is similar to using NFS; you type in the phone’s network address in the file manager and you can browse the files from the remote machine. This one too, so far, has been reliable enough for my occasional use. But, when I’m away from my LAN… you’ve guessed it! I send files by e-mail.

That brings me back to how much I hate networking. It is not so simple to enable a two-way communication link between two devices. I really wish there existed a universal protocol for file transfer from any device to any other device which actually works as reliably as sending an attachment via e-mail to yourself. It really needs to be that easy.