My other computer is your computer. Interesting idea but imagine how slow all computation becomes when the OS has barely anything on disk. It's unbelievably faster to fetch resources from the disk than over the internet.
Discussion
But you must know this so maybe I'm missing something here?
This idea is likely infeasible if using windows, would probably need an OS built for it. I heard that Fedi bitcoin-supported OS is underway, maybe that could be interoperable here.
The idea would be to download new merkle branches when the tree updates, after switching devices (laptop to desktop, for example). If you change any files on one device, you could compute the new tree and upload the new branches to the relay without reuploading the whole OS. The slowest part may be creating a merkle tree of hundreds of gigabytes.
Our Scionic merkle trees are labeled so users will know how many new branches there are if they have the new root. Easy enough to send the new merkle root directly to the new device too, so the new device knows which root to ask the relays for.
To clarify, files are still on-disk — they’re just synced via the relay so it’s like 1 operating system and set of files on multiple devices.
Right, good clarification. Just out of curiosity, would the metadata needed for synchronisation of files reveal anything about the files publicly, similar to the case of DMs on Nostr?
I guess relays could share with others if you updated your tree, so it could be similar.
The time it takes to turn your OS into a tree is far too long though lol… maybe in the future when consumer hardware is faster, then it may likely be possible.