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How Dropbox ended my search for seamless sync on Linux

45 points by apu 18y ago

apu 18y ago
Congrats to the Dropbox team for garnering such a glowing review on such a prominent tech site!
dnaquin 18y ago
Cheers. Dropboxers.
jamesbritt 18y ago
"On Linux, the parts of the Dropbox client software visible to the end user are implemented as an open source plugin for GNOME's Nautilus file manager." If you are on KDE and do not care to use Nautilus (I prefer Konqueror myself) then this is not so attractive. Perhaps in time ...
- tuukkah 18y ago
  As they put it themselves: "Perhaps maybe write your own command line interface, or a KDE interface."
Dobbs 18y ago
I find the idea of dropbox amazing but I don't think I can bring myself to use it. I realized some time ago that I was moving into a world that I didn't like. I was closing my self off from my data, my services, and turning myself over to the control of others. See http://autonomo.us/ http://autonomo.us/ for a blog from this point of view. (Not my own.) What I would love is to have an open-source dropbox like tool that can be installed on my own personal webserver. Maybe thats a project to consider working on. If my skills extend that far. Edit: Clarified autonomo.us and fixed a spelling error.
- quaismojo 18y ago
  What I would love is to have an open-source dropbox like tool that can be installed on my own personal webserver its called "git". its trivial to set up a syncing service using any dvcs
  - Hexstream 18y ago
    He mentioned trying this approach and not being satisfied: "The sweet penguin juice roaring through my veins commanded me to adopt a needlessly arcane solution, so I started putting all of my article drafts into a private Bazaar repository on my personal web server. Real men use distributed version control systems for everything, right? It was unnecessarily excessive and got cumbersome quickly."
- drm237 18y ago
  I know what you mean by this but with dropbox you maintain a copy of your files on every computer so I'm not sure I agree that you're handing over control. That said, I think they could sell a copy of their software (server and client) to companies and make a killing.
- rudyfink 18y ago
  I decided, at the end of the day, that I liked efficiency more than I liked control. I really enjoy control and doing it myself, but I only have so many hours in a day. I should direct those hours to ends where I am either more productive and competitive or personally satisfied.
  - pmjordan 18y ago
    Control is one thing. As far as I can tell, although files are encrypted, DropBox have the encryption keys, which means the encryption isn't particularly effective for protecting my files. I realise that this is necessary for the web frontend to work. I'd consider using a DropBox-like service with solid encryption all the way through and no (or only a partial) web frontend, but in its current form, I'm not touching it.
- netcan 18y ago
  Dropbox is easy. It can be used by people that will never use the words 'my' & 'server' in a sentence. If you need to download it & install it on your own personal webserver, the tool is no longer dropbox-like. I'm not saying that what you are asking for is unreasonable, it just has very little to do with this.
btw0 18y ago
I repeat, Dropbox is not what I want unless it provides a command that mounts the dropbox somewhere in my filesystem, no nautilus at all.
aidanf 18y ago
"seamless sync on Linux" I wonder if he's tried unison. I've used it for years to keep several mac and linux boxes in sync. It works beautifully and it's open-source. http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
PStamatiou 18y ago
Directed towards dropbox devs: any chance of letting users specify their own S3 account? I'm a control-freak like that. Sorry if this has been addressed somewhere else, I'm out of the loop. -Paul from dinner with 3 of you in SF 4 months ago at that chinese place that only took cash..

45 points by apu 18y ago

apu 18y ago

Congrats to the Dropbox team for garnering such a glowing review on such a prominent tech site!

dnaquin 18y ago

Cheers. Dropboxers.

jamesbritt 18y ago

"On Linux, the parts of the Dropbox client software visible to the end user are implemented as an open source plugin for GNOME's Nautilus file manager." If you are on KDE and do not care to use Nautilus (I prefer Konqueror myself) then this is not so attractive. Perhaps in time ...

tuukkah 18y ago
As they put it themselves: "Perhaps maybe write your own command line interface, or a KDE interface."

Dobbs 18y ago

I find the idea of dropbox amazing but I don't think I can bring myself to use it. I realized some time ago that I was moving into a world that I didn't like. I was closing my self off from my data, my services, and turning myself over to the control of others. See http://autonomo.us/ http://autonomo.us/ for a blog from this point of view. (Not my own.) What I would love is to have an open-source dropbox like tool that can be installed on my own personal webserver. Maybe thats a project to consider working on. If my skills extend that far. Edit: Clarified autonomo.us and fixed a spelling error.

quaismojo 18y ago
What I would love is to have an open-source dropbox like tool that can be installed on my own personal webserver its called "git". its trivial to set up a syncing service using any dvcs
- Hexstream 18y ago
  He mentioned trying this approach and not being satisfied: "The sweet penguin juice roaring through my veins commanded me to adopt a needlessly arcane solution, so I started putting all of my article drafts into a private Bazaar repository on my personal web server. Real men use distributed version control systems for everything, right? It was unnecessarily excessive and got cumbersome quickly."
drm237 18y ago
I know what you mean by this but with dropbox you maintain a copy of your files on every computer so I'm not sure I agree that you're handing over control. That said, I think they could sell a copy of their software (server and client) to companies and make a killing.
rudyfink 18y ago
I decided, at the end of the day, that I liked efficiency more than I liked control. I really enjoy control and doing it myself, but I only have so many hours in a day. I should direct those hours to ends where I am either more productive and competitive or personally satisfied.
- pmjordan 18y ago
  Control is one thing. As far as I can tell, although files are encrypted, DropBox have the encryption keys, which means the encryption isn't particularly effective for protecting my files. I realise that this is necessary for the web frontend to work. I'd consider using a DropBox-like service with solid encryption all the way through and no (or only a partial) web frontend, but in its current form, I'm not touching it.
netcan 18y ago
Dropbox is easy. It can be used by people that will never use the words 'my' & 'server' in a sentence. If you need to download it & install it on your own personal webserver, the tool is no longer dropbox-like. I'm not saying that what you are asking for is unreasonable, it just has very little to do with this.

btw0 18y ago

I repeat, Dropbox is not what I want unless it provides a command that mounts the dropbox somewhere in my filesystem, no nautilus at all.

aidanf 18y ago

"seamless sync on Linux" I wonder if he's tried unison. I've used it for years to keep several mac and linux boxes in sync. It works beautifully and it's open-source. http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

PStamatiou 18y ago

Directed towards dropbox devs: any chance of letting users specify their own S3 account? I'm a control-freak like that. Sorry if this has been addressed somewhere else, I'm out of the loop. -Paul from dinner with 3 of you in SF 4 months ago at that chinese place that only took cash..