I've been doing this exact setup for over a year now. I sync between three computers: office desktop, home desktop, and laptop (all three computers run Ubuntu 12.04). I'm very happy with this setup, although there have been problems.
The major benefit is that I don't have to remember to commit and push my changes before switching from one computer to another. When I'm leaving work, I'm often in a hurry; when I get home, all of my work comes with me. Same thing applies to travelling with my laptop.
The major problem is that Dropbox occasionally fails. Because I have come to rely heavily upon this setup, a failure causes significant pain. In my experience, Dropbox has failed in 2 ways.
1. I make some changes on computer A. Dropbox screws up when syncing the change to computer B. When I switch to computer B, I discover that the repository on computer B is messed up (HEAD has been updated, but not the working tree; or the local repository is messed up so that 'git status' fails; or something else bizarre). In this situation I must switch back to computer A, move the 'good' repository outside of Dropbox, wait for Dropbox sync to complete, move the repository back into Dropbox, wait for sync to complete, then finally switch back to computer B and wait for Dropbox sync to complete. You can imagine how this process would be extra painful when it requires you to commute back and forth between home and office for each step.
2. I make some changes on computer A. Dropbox has silently stopped syncing the repository on computer A. When I switch to computer B, I discover that none of the changes made on computer A have synced. In this situation, restarting Computer A usually causes the Dropbox sync to resume. Troubleshooting this situation follows a similar course to situation 1.
I have communicated with Dropbox support extensively about Situation 2, and I believe that it is related to the '10,000 folder limit' for Dropbox on Linux. See the section "Monitoring more than 10000 folders" on this page:
Git uses a very large number of folders (usually around 1500) for each repository. This does not play well with Dropbox on Linux. When Situation 2 occurs, Dropbox gives every indication that it is working correctly; files that are not syncing show the "green checkmark", and the Dropbox tray icon shows "All files up to date". Troubleshooting Situation 2 was a thoroughly enraging experience.
A good precaution is to push your personal working branch to GitHub (or your remote repository of choice) as a backup when using this setup. Treat this remote branch as disposable; if you rebase your working branch, you can just delete the remote branch and push your rebased branch (`git push origin :my-working-branch`, `git push origin my-working-branch`).
So, there have been some serious issues, but altogether I am very happy with my setup. I like the flexibility of not having to commit and push changes when I'm switching from one computer to another, and in general I feel the daily benefits have outweighed the occasional problems.
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The major benefit is that I don't have to remember to commit and push my changes before switching from one computer to another. When I'm leaving work, I'm often in a hurry; when I get home, all of my work comes with me. Same thing applies to travelling with my laptop.
The major problem is that Dropbox occasionally fails. Because I have come to rely heavily upon this setup, a failure causes significant pain. In my experience, Dropbox has failed in 2 ways.
1. I make some changes on computer A. Dropbox screws up when syncing the change to computer B. When I switch to computer B, I discover that the repository on computer B is messed up (HEAD has been updated, but not the working tree; or the local repository is messed up so that 'git status' fails; or something else bizarre). In this situation I must switch back to computer A, move the 'good' repository outside of Dropbox, wait for Dropbox sync to complete, move the repository back into Dropbox, wait for sync to complete, then finally switch back to computer B and wait for Dropbox sync to complete. You can imagine how this process would be extra painful when it requires you to commute back and forth between home and office for each step.
2. I make some changes on computer A. Dropbox has silently stopped syncing the repository on computer A. When I switch to computer B, I discover that none of the changes made on computer A have synced. In this situation, restarting Computer A usually causes the Dropbox sync to resume. Troubleshooting this situation follows a similar course to situation 1.
I have communicated with Dropbox support extensively about Situation 2, and I believe that it is related to the '10,000 folder limit' for Dropbox on Linux. See the section "Monitoring more than 10000 folders" on this page:
https://www.dropbox.com/help/145/en
Git uses a very large number of folders (usually around 1500) for each repository. This does not play well with Dropbox on Linux. When Situation 2 occurs, Dropbox gives every indication that it is working correctly; files that are not syncing show the "green checkmark", and the Dropbox tray icon shows "All files up to date". Troubleshooting Situation 2 was a thoroughly enraging experience.
A good precaution is to push your personal working branch to GitHub (or your remote repository of choice) as a backup when using this setup. Treat this remote branch as disposable; if you rebase your working branch, you can just delete the remote branch and push your rebased branch (`git push origin :my-working-branch`, `git push origin my-working-branch`).
So, there have been some serious issues, but altogether I am very happy with my setup. I like the flexibility of not having to commit and push changes when I'm switching from one computer to another, and in general I feel the daily benefits have outweighed the occasional problems.