Recently, Dropbox announced a new notice to all users – they’re ditching the support of all the file systems except a few ones for each platform. Learn about installing Dropbox on your Linux system.

File system support ends!

There are a number of file systems floating all around – FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, ZFS, ext3, ext4, XFS and many more. Each of them comes up with their own facilities and handicaps.

Dropbox announced that starting from November 2018, their Dropbox client won’t support other file systems except ext4 (for Linux), NTFS (for Windows) and HFS+ or APFS (for Mac). The Dropbox client will only sync the files of the Dropbox folder if the folder exists only on these file systems.

You can find out all about the change on this forum post.

Why the change?

If you’re using the Dropbox client, you already know its power of syncing. You put your files in the Dropbox folder and forget about it. It stays in the cloud for the rest of its life unless you dump it to the trash.

The process Dropbox syncs the file relies heavily on the extended attributes (X-attrs) for identifying files in the Dropbox folder and sync them. Only the most common file systems are reliable enough to ensure the availability of the X-attrs. Thus, the syncing process can become more stable and consistent experience for the users.

The community response

Of course, this decision is pretty rough for a lot of people. There are obviously a number of other file systems that also support the X-attrs but Dropbox won’t support them anymore. For example, the XFS is the default file system for RHEL (Redhat Enterprise Linux) and it supports the X-attrs. However, starting from November this year, Dropbox client won’t accept it.

Dropbox system requirement updated

As the change is announced, Dropbox has also updated their official document of system requirements.

What to do now

All those affected ones have to simply change the file system of their drives to make sure the compatibility with Dropbox. At least, a separate partition for Dropbox folder, maybe?

Well, that’s up to you.

The post Dropbox Supported File System Will Shrink Soon! appeared first on Linux Windows and android Tutorials.

Let’s take a look on installing Dropbox client on Linux.

• Ubuntu/Debian

For installing Dropbox on Ubuntu, you have a really easy option. Download the official DEB package of Dropbox client from Dropbox Linux downloads page. I’ve downloaded and saved the file in “~/Downloads” directory.

cd ~/Downloads

Now, run the following commands for successfully installing the software on Ubuntu.

sudo dpkg -i dropbox_2015.10.28_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -f

• Fedora/OpenSUSE

Dropbox also provides an installable RPM package on the official site. There are 2 architectures available – 32-bit and 64-bit. As of now, most of the Linux distros support 64-bit only. The 32-bit option is for those running the older versions of Linux distros.

After downloading the appropriate one according to your OS architecture, run the following command(s).

cd ~/Downloads

# Fedora
sudo dnf install nautilus-dropbox-2015.10.28-1.fedora.x86_64.rpm

# OpenSUSE
sudo dnf install nautilus-dropbox-2015.10.28-1.fedora.x86_64.rpm

• Arch Linux

Arch is a major Linux family and Dropbox is also available on the platform. For enjoying Dropbox on Arch Linux and its derivatives, you have to build it. Thankfully, you can download the source from Arch AUR repository. You need Git for the task. Learn how to install Git.

Run the following commands:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/dropbox.git
cd dropbox

makepkg -si

If any dependency fails to install, you have to manually install it. Then, run the installation process again. Recommended for running fresh building by downloading the source freshly.

• Other distros

If your distro isn’t listed, you have to build and install the software from source. Dropbox provides a nice detailed tutorial on installing Dropbox from the source code.

After installation is complete, time to enjoy the awesome software.

If you run the program for the first time, it’ll download the entire software. Be patient as it may take quite a few minutes.

Once everything is alrigtht, the syncing process will begin. You can manage what to sync or sync everything on your account from the option.

If you wish to sync file(s) or folder(s) with your Dropbox account, you have to put those on “/home/username/Dropbox”.

Enjoy!

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