Peter Gamma (Physiologist & Director) Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS)

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How to access a folder on an Android phone, a Linux phone or single board computer from a desktop PC without using a cloud?

Posted bypg@petergamma.org

Last Updated on April 3, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

Who wants to have his physiological data (for instance brain waves, ECG data etc.) in the cloud? Eventually How to Electronics from India for their remote IOT patient monitor? We can do without it.

But how to solve this problem? We did not find an easy solution for a cloud-free data exchange between a PC and a PinePhone or a Linux mini PC to this date.

  • We currently are evaluating solving this problem with Raspberry Pi SD cards and sticking them into the PC for data exchange
    .
  • Another option is a network shared folder. A topic we received support about from the Pine64 forum how to solve it:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=18080

  • we are very grateful for this support, but let go of the suggested solutions for the time being.

Now we saw NicoD’s SBCs video about running Armbian on a Orange Pi5 which is great:

  • In this video, he shows how he accesses a network folder from the Orange Pi5 running Armbian.
  • He installs samba file sharing to do this.
  • We currently do not use a server. Eventually it is worth to build one.
  • We previously started to build a Nextcloud sever consisting of a Raspberry Pi and a 2.5 inch hard disc to use it as a cloud-free option to share data between a PC, an Android phone or a Linux phone.
  • We where almost there, but then we have let go of it.
  • Eventually it is worth to search for these components where we have put those and do another try. – Then we make a real Nextcloud server out of it.

But is a mobile Raspberry Pi Nextcloud server the optimal way for a cloud free data exchange on the road from our Rasperry Pi zero W2 running Raspberry Pi OS to our Pi4 running Fedora?

  • No, it is not. This would require that we store our data on the mobile Nextcloud server, and we have the server always connected to our Raspberry Pi zero w2 for data access. But who does this?
  • The mobile Nextcloud server is great to have as a backup device, and we eventually will set it up sooner or later.
  • But until then, a SD card solution is still the easiest solution for our cloud free physiological data.
  • We started to build a NextCloud server from a Raspberry Pi 3 and a 2.5 inch hard disc drive.
  • The Raspberry Pi 3’s where on sale at Digitec Switzerland. We have now three of them.
  • We will eventually come back to this solution later to share if we where successful in solving our problem on this path or not.
  • In the video above, NicoD’s SBCs is searching for a Samba Share on his Orange Pi5 running Armbian.
  • He cannot find it.
  • He has to install additional software to do this.
  • After a reboot, NicoD’s SBCs is able to brows his network.
  • A mobile server is an additional device to carry around. But if we have hard disc’s for backing up our data, why not to attach them to a mobile server, to have an easy access to those from our Android phone, Linux phone, or Raspberry Pi?
  • Does someone have a more straightforward solution to solve this problem?
  • NicoD’s SBCs uses a Nano Pi NAS in the above example

NicoD’s SBC received Khadas boards from Khadas for free as review examples.

  • In the above video, NicoD’s SBCs shows Khadas VIM boards. He received Khadas boards from Khadas for free as a review examples.

NicoD’s SBCs says, this should not influence his opinion. We are very happy that NicoD’s SBCs shares this information with us and all other YouTube viewers. We often do not know, if YouTube reviewers received free device examples or not, since these reviewers do not share this information. NicoD’s SBCs is a raw model for others for doing this and a guiding star. And we thank NicoD’s SBCs for doing this. It is great that he does it.

Important notice

After we have thought about the different options how to solve the problem described in the title of this post, we think that the solutions which are described in the Pin64 forum are the best solutions for our problem:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=18080

But we first have to have a closer look at those and digest those. Who would expect, that folder sharing from a Pinephone to a desktop PC gives so much to write about it? But until we have digested this, we eventually will choose an SD card solution as described above.