World: r3wp

Two flash drives? Never read about that

Primary is 4GB, the other 8GB. Linux wasn't offered as an option 
on this one without changing the primary to 8GB.

Syllable Desktop takes about 250 MB disk space:

http://web.syllable.org/pages/about.html#Desktop

I have physically dropped this computer while it was running a few 
times without it even noticing.

Yep, they're sturdy

On a regular EeePC, there's an SSD disk and an extra card slot, which 
are swapped by the BIOS during booting

I think that this is what mine is like.

I may have to just do a system restore and then redo my customizations 
and app removals, still stuck with XP. Annoying and slow, but this 
provides the greatest support and flexibility on this platform. I 
need my 802.11n and (for now) Hamachi.

Maybe the second SSD is on that second slot. In any case, this leads 
to weird drive swapping in the boot manager. The Syllable development 
build has a special installation entry that does that and disables 
USB 2, but there are some other omissions on the development build

Has anyone tried to get Remobo or NeoRouter working on Syllable? 
The Linux ports might work...

Never heard of those

They are virtual LAN projects. Like a full LAN instead of just a 
point-to-point connection. Like Hamachi.

I have many computers that I network together. All of these are using 
dynamic addresses, and most of them change physical locations often. 
Hamachi makes all of that go away - they seem like they're on the 
same switch with fixed IPs.

Remobo is closed source, so it couldn't be ported

Ah, Hamachi is LogMein. They're advertising on our sites all the 
time :-)

Hamachi only supports Windows well. Before they were bought by LogMeIn 
they were working on Mac and Linux versions, but not since then, 
and the old alphas use a different network protocol than modern Hamachi. 
This is why I've been looking for a decent replacement, but it is 
tough since there are no open-source equivalent projects.

Well, these projects sound like the OLPC software

Not really, since this provides an overlay network that gets past 
NAT and dynamic IPs. OpenVPN provides point-to-point or client-server 
networks, but not a full LAN.

The best seems to be NeoRouter, but I would need a stable always-on 
server with a reliable internet connection, and I don't have either, 
particularly not the reliable internet. NeoRouter gives you more 
flexibility (in theory), but requires you to provide your own login 
server instead of just using one from the provider like Hamachi.

NeoRouter could probably run on Syllable Server though, as it is 
a CLI app.

Yes. They'd have to port it to Syllable Desktop themselves, though, 
because it's also closed

I find it interesting that people could have had this ten years ago 
with Groove

I checked. Though in theory it would be possible to make something 
like NeoRouter in open source, the no-cost closed source products 
have taken all of the community will away. There are no decent open 
source projects that are even close to the Hamachi model afaik.

There have long been all sorts of open source projects in this direction, 
but they're very nerdy

I checked at least a dozen different projects, and none have come 
close to the same model. For that matter, Remobo and NeoRouter seem 
to be the only other closed-source products that come close.

Yeah, the feature sets aren't the same, because these new ones are 
very commercial

It's the named LAN mesh networking with NAT traversal features that 
the OS projects don't do. I need all of that.

Well, if you didn't use Groove ten years ago, I suppose you don't 
really need it :-)

You could also rid your life of complexity and go back to one computer 
:-)

Groove didn't do the same thing, afaik. It didn't do a full IP network 
that coukld be used by any app, completely agnostic of the VPN.

I actually switched to AltME at the time because Groove didn't come 
through with their Linux (and Mac) versions

Yeah, these new things are more outreaching, but the basic model 
is much the same

And going to one computer would add complexity, since many people 
are doing stuff at different locations :(

I thought you were talking about your own collection?

Me, my family, my friends, interstate (not international at the moment 
but it could be). Most of the computers are pretty much the laptop-at-the-cafe 
situation, completely mobile.

Well, I did cut many of those out to simplify my life :-)

For the most part, no cooperation from the local network admin - 
free wifi, work networks, etc.

People are the most important part of my life (says the tech guy) 
:)

Right, so get rid of all those computers

The people use them :)

That's their problem. I bet they're also insisting on running Windows...

If they were, I could continue to use Hamachi. Now there are an increasing 
number of OSX users, and the occasional Linux, with some Android 
users too (I can ignore the iPhone for now).

Well, then you need a thoroughly cross-platform system - so I'm standardising 
on REBOL 3

Which is why I've started learning Android development :)

I've been meaning to write my own Groove since way back when, so 
I'm not messing with any others, any more :-)

I looked at Groove. It really is a different thing from this.

Sure, so I wonder if I need that other thing :-)

Rewrite IOS ...

Something in that direction, yes