Comment by williamsss
1 day ago
Thanks for the feedback! Agreed Git can be used to sync your notes. Its a great solution for those comfortable putting their notes into a Git repo like Github. I wasn't comfortable with that however.
Currently vetting a way to sync my database files with my markdown files on my laptop, so it functions similar to Obsidian. I enjoy Vim too much to work constrained to Directus' markdown editor!
It's not just git. You have the plugins available for S3, couchdb, FTP, MongoDB, cloud drives, rsync, syncthing, and probably every other storage/protocol in the world. And they're all available for free in obsidian.
Common ways to sync Obsidian are through cloud tools (Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.), SyncThing Fork or Git.
I'd recommend you to look into SyncThing Fork or a similar tool if you never want your notes to leave your own server.
I wrote about ways to sync Obsidian here: https://bryanhogan.com/blog/how-to-sync-obsidian
Git is decentralised. You can sync between laptop and phone directly, no third party server required.
To be clear, GitHub is centralized, but Git is not. You can sync between laptop and phone directly with Git -- no third party server required.
No one said anything about GitHub… git is perfectly fine for this use case and 100% private.
What about git makes you uncomfortable?
I saw that you didn’t want to use a 3rd party provider, but why not stick a git repo on your VPS (which you are trusting with your data today) and use that to coordinate syncs between your client devices?
Made a comment in the thread explaining this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44023090
I expect my PKMS to evolve and wouldn't rule out a self-hosted Git server if I find it's a better option long term.
Thanks for the reply. I do agree with sibling comment from tasuki that I think you’re missing the simpler solution of plain git repos to solve “owning your own data in a future-proof manner”.
If you’re not trying to coordinate work among multiple people, and aren’t trying to enforce a single source of truth with code, you don’t _need_ “git server” software. You just need a git repository (folder & file structure) in a location that you consider to be your source of truth.
I’m not trying to convince you to change it now, especially if you’re happy with what you have, but I would suggest reading some (or all) of https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2
I think the first ~4 subsections of chapter 4 cover what I & tasuki were suggesting could be sufficient for you. If you’re the type of engineer to read through the code of your data storage layer, I think you’d find Chapter 10 (Git Internals) interesting, because it can demystify git. I enjoyed the whole book.
As with any engineering project, I see lots of questions about your choices, and I applaud you for sticking around. I would make very different decisions than you, based on your stated priorities, but that’s okay.
> wouldn't rule out a self-hosted Git server
I don't think you really get it. Git is distributed. There's no need for "a git server". You already have a machine on which you host the SQL database, you can just use that as yet another git remote.
You only really need SSH access on a box to use it as a git remote - no server needed.
I learnt this quite late and was not obvious to me so hope it's helpful for you too.
The odd part here is why take it to 100%+ when you can just build a plugin on Obsidian rather than re-building the whole thing? Seems a bit extreme.
In 20 years will that plugin work? I doubt it.
You can’t even compile stuff from 20 years ago without some extensive archeological efforts. I doubt this is your largest problem by then.
3 replies →
In 20 years you might be dead.
Directus is not eternal either. They are OSS, but you can't support it yourself forever. For a such a long run this looks like a controversial choice for me.
your ai will straight up write you the plugin if it hadnt already done that seamlessly when you requested it render your file.
This is why I didn't like Obsidian, half the plugins I tried didn't work despite them being in the top 20 downloaded ones. Meanwhile I'll use like 15 year old emacs plugins that haven't been updated in like 5 years and they'll work fine (I think org-diary or something along those lines was what I tried).
Some people just enjoy the process, and you'll always learn something new