[PLUG] Compare folders?

[John Jason Jordan]

For some reason the cp command has let me down, at least when performed
with Nautilus.

I have a laptop where the /home folder contains 14.1 GB consisting of
65,247 items. Using Nautilus I dragged the entire thing to a folder on
my desktop. I have done this many times in the past without problem.
But this time after the copying finished I discovered that the folder
on the desktop contains only 43,650 items, consisting of 7.8 GB. WTF?

So to troubleshoot what is happening I need to figure out which files
from the laptop did not make it to the desktop. Hopefully, then I can
see a pattern which will shed light on what went wrong. I could compare
the folders manually, that is, if I don't mind spending the rest of my
life on the project. 

There must be a simple file compare utility that will work across two
computers connected by NFS. Any suggestions?