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Can anyone quickly explain the technical difference between these two methods?

  • Going to Places -> Connect to Server and select SSH (in GNOME)
  • Using sshfs in terminal

This probably boils down to GVFS (using FUSE) vs. FUSE "directly" (if this is a reasonable comparison). FUSE I somewhat understand what is, but GVFS is a bit cryptic.

Both have advantages and disadvantages for me. The former allows easy access to the GUI and you get the opportunity to create a bookmark, but sends you to the root folder of the remote file system (unless you specify otherwise) and mounts in ~/.gvfs/sftp on ... / which an be a bit cumbersome if you want to enter through local terminal. The latter must be done via the terminal (as far as I know) but you can choose which folder you want to "jump into" and one can choose for yourself where this will be mounted on your local filesystem.

One thing that I find very annoying is that Vim/Gvim destroys permissions on files upon writing if I use GVFS. E.g. if a file permissions has 644, this is set to 600 after Vim/Gvim has edited it. I've seen various bug reports from 2008 on this but I still experience it.

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    Maybe you could be a bit more specific about what you want to know ? Because you already cite major differences in your question...
    – gentledevil
    Mar 28, 2011 at 20:54
  • This is a guess, but you are really asking: How can I have a cross between Connect to Server/SSH and commandline sshfs where I retain the GUIness of the former and customizability of where and what to mount of the latter. If I'm right, pls amend your question and maybe we can help...
    – DrSAR
    Apr 7, 2011 at 21:05

1 Answer 1

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Well gnome network connections are gvfs only, not fuse at all. They have no mount points. In order to save and load files from them you need to use a program that supports the GIO calls, which sucks for programmers and means they don't work for KDE apps.

The fuse filesystem on the other hand has an actual mount point, so it's easy to see where the files are and it obays normal UNIX logic for saving and loading files. Any application can save and load from the filenames.

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    That's not true at all. Yes it shouldn't have to be via GIO, but it is still accessible on the filesystem natively. Usually all the GVFS mounts are exposed at ~/.gvfs~.
    – Matt Joiner
    Jul 8, 2012 at 11:22
  • Yes, but the general rule of thumb is that if it's been hidden, it's not intended to be used normally. If the developers intended .gvfs to be used, they should have done a better job of standardising the location on FreeDesktop.org
    – Martin Owens -doctormo-
    Jul 11, 2012 at 11:17

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