Zynthian tweens, or Zynthian clone

Wapata · October 7, 2025, 7:27pm

Hi there !

If I have now a big touchscreen, but i also want to keep a portable device. How hard is it to synchronize two Zynthian, to share the same files, mostly Snapshots* I guess. Is there a cool tool for that ?

*Snapshots should be the only thing to synchronize I presume, they will recall configuration of each chain including its processors. The material (screen, soundcard, or even screenless) can be different without to much problems… I presume.

Just an idea to play music while traveling

riban · October 7, 2025, 7:50pm

You can backup and restore with webconf.

Wapata · October 7, 2025, 7:56pm

So I was not wrong, it is as simple as that ?

Good. As it is also wifi hotspot, one just need 1 computer and 2 Zynthian then. Cool cool cool.

core.east · October 10, 2025, 6:54am

I forgot to do exactly that before leaving home a couple of weeks ago.

I have been thinking about some cloud-sync possibilities, I’m not to familiar with cloud services, but i do run an Yuno-Host instance with Nextcloud, which works quite all right between laptop (linux), stationary(win) and cellphone(android). I would surely like to incorporate my two Zynthians in that system, i have one wall mounted at home and the 5.1 Kit for travel. I know there is something called WebDav but i’m unsure how it works. But the Nextcloud environment should be able to sync with any server that has available WebDav drives.

Questions:
Has someone here done something towards autosync/cloudsync with Zynthian?
Is it possible in a simple way to incorporate some kind of web-drive functionality in Zynthianos?

Regards,

jofemodo · October 10, 2025, 8:11am

Perhaps we could implement a sync service that can be configured to use several backends:

webDAV
SFTP
Google Drive
Others?

Ideas? Volunteers?

jofemodo · October 10, 2025, 8:18am

Well, indeed i could evaluate how to offer a “limited storage” associated with forum accounts. This would open some opportunity doors that we should talk about. Discourse is a super-powerful tool that we could use in many ways. Imagine sharing captures or snapshots directly from zynthian-UI. You could, for instance, share all your snapshots, or just a given subdir.
Of course, all this would be ALWAYS optional (disabled by default!) and user configurable. Think about it.

Regards

core.east · October 10, 2025, 9:07am

That would be really appreciated

Sorry, i lack the skills. I really would like to get into the insides of Z, but it seems that it has not happened yet.

riban · October 10, 2025, 1:24pm

github.com/zynthian/zynthian-issue-tracking

Ability to sync data with online storage for backup

opened 07:31AM - 30 Mar 21 UTC

riban-bw

**Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.** If I create …some data, e.g. recording, snapshot, etc. I must manually download using webconf then backup to a suitable location. It may be advantageous to integrate Zynthian with an online storage provider to allow simpler or even automated backup of data. **Describe the solution you'd like** Ability to link Zynthian with an online storage provider, e.g. dropbox. Ability to sync data from Zynthian to online storage provide by one button sync (in UI and / or webconf). Ability to schedule automatic sync at predetermined time or after configurable trigger event. **Describe alternatives you've considered** Manual download and backup. **Additional context** I have looked at the dropbox python integration which looks quite good. Configuration is a bit of a faff. I envisage a webconf mechanism to link the Zynthian with a Dropbox account. This may have a wizard that steps the user through each stage: - Create a drobox account - Log in to dropbox developer page - Add a _Zynthian_ application - Enter the key - Enter the secret - Navigate to authorisation page - Enter authorisation code There would also be a tickbox configuration allowing selection of what gets synchronised. It may be good to have a browser like interface showing what is on each side allowing manual copy in each direction. There would be a time entry and tickbox allowing scheduling of automated backup.

I opened this ticket a few years ago and did some investigation. A challenge is choosing a storage platform that is accessible to everyone that won’t change our disappear.

jofemodo · October 10, 2025, 1:29pm

I would offer the more “standard mechanisms”:

SFTP (for the privacy-picky but techy users)
Google Drive (for the average, less techy users)

and i would like to explore the possibility of offering a small storage associated with the zynthian forum accounts. The last would open the door for sharing with the community in a very easy and interesting way.

Regards

core.east · October 10, 2025, 9:27pm

Google drive would be easy for me to use i guess. I’m in the process of not using G Drive, but all ready i have realized that i will be “forced” to use it to some extent as an intermediate cloud service for other applications.

pau · October 10, 2025, 10:22pm

Though the idea seems sexy, we would be getting into muddy warters. I personally dislike all embedded the call home mechanisms and, somehow, this would be quite similar.

If we want users to share anything, just use impersonal mechanisms like mail, it’s quite easy to set a way to process them automatically and get the job done

You could argue that it is not a call home in any way…. well, we’d be getting information that we should not.

Excuse me if I seem overzealous

riban · October 11, 2025, 5:57am

That is a matter of implementation. I would like to see a way of enabling the ability to backup and restore elements of my configuration and media, integrated with remote storage. It would be disabled until a user configured and enabled it. The “home” to call would be where the user decides, Google, own server, no where…

My use case is that I am switching between engineering, composition, performance and noodling and want a background mechanism that will deal with backups so that I don’t have another context to switch my (ever diminishing) thoughts to.

jofemodo · October 11, 2025, 9:42am

As i told above:

Note the “disabled by default”. If this is implemented, the user would have to explicitly enable the functionality and configure credentials or API key. Nobody should be worried about privacy nor security regarding this. We are not talking about collecting metrics from centralized servers .

Regards

Kirtai · October 11, 2025, 12:40pm

A possible first step could be to put all the things that need synced in one place.

Wapata · October 13, 2025, 11:18am

This is crazy incredible .

It need two option : automatic and manual upload. I like to make tests, make a mess, but don’t want multiple device to be impacted by that.

How many files or folder are actively modified during a standard sessions do you thing ?

ticktok · October 14, 2025, 4:43pm

I would personally use Syncthing if both devices are going to be on the same network(or VPNed to the same network). You can pair devices, define folders you want synced, and then it will keep the two devices in sync as long as they can see each other on the network.

I would probably only sync one “sync" folder, and then symlinks of all the folders you want to sync into that folder. Just from a personal organizational manner.

I currently donthis to keep game emulation save files and my obsidian journal synced between my phone, desktop, and steamdeck.

It also operates similar to zynthian in that it runs headless and is configured from a web page it serves.