Dropbox 1.0 was released a few days ago.
As you may recall, dropbox is a “cloud storage” service with 2 GB of free storage which you can expand (for free) by referring dropbox to your friends, or by paying a monthly fee.
There is no new client package available. The version 1.0.10 is an update to the closed-source daemon process. New features are: selective sync (you can exclude certain subdirectories in your main dropbox from synchronizing with the server) and the sync process can be paused if you need that. There are supposedly speed enhancements but I have not witnessed those yet. I am always amazed at the speed at which the server sync works anyway.
So, how do you update the Dropbox daemon to version 1.0.10 if you cannot download a newer client package?
The steps are really simple: stop dropbox, remove the daemon’s directory entirely, and start dropbox again:
$ dropbox stop
Stopping Dropbox…Done
$ dropbox status
Dropbox isn’t running!
$ rm -r ~/.dropbox-dist/
$ dropbox start -i
Starting Dropbox…Done
The dropbox client will ask you if it can download the daemon again, and if you click OK, it will do so (which will not take long at all). After the download dialog disappears, check your dropbox icon in the system tray – it will show version “1.0.10” and the “Pause syncing” will be clearly visible in the right-mouseclick popup menu.
My dropbox client packages for Slackware: http://slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/dropbox-client/ .
Make sure you get a version of my dropbox-client package that is at least 0.6.7. If you have a Slackware without Gnome (and thus without the nautilus file manager) you also have to overwrite an older version of the script “/usr/bin/nautilus” which is installed by my dropbox-client package, with the newer version “/usr/bin/nautilus.new”. That script contains a compatibility fix for the new dropbox daemon. If you forget this, you will notice that clicking the dropbox icon will not start a file manager, and if you ran dropbox start -i” from the commandline you will see the error “xdg-open: unexpected option ‘–no-desktop’“.
If you want to try a dropbox account yourself, please use this referral link to create and start using it. In that case, both you and I will receive an additional 500 MB of storage for free on top of the standard 2 GB: http://db.tt/Rv5417bY
Have fun! Eric
Thanks!
This is cool, and I wish I had your referral before I signed-up for Dropbox when 1.0 was announced (if I can delete my account I’ll re-create through your referral).
But I have a question regarding the “client”. It’s a Nautilus plug-in right? If I’m not using Nautilus (lets say I’m using Thunar, or something more esoteric) then there’s no client right?
So do I absolutely need to have a client to use Dropbox? Or is just the daemon enough?
Thanks!
@schultzter –
No, you do not need to have a client per se. There are installation instructions on the Dropbox forum on how to operate it from the commandline: http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/TextBasedLinuxInstall . Perfect for servers.
Eric
I have updated the main post with information about an updated dropbox-client package. That contains a fix to make the “open dropbox folder” menu work again. Packages for version 0.6.7 of the client are being uploaded to my repository.
Eric
Just to say thanks for the referral, I set up a Dropbox account to share files within my desktop, laptop and android phone (the client for android is in the market).
Regards.
just updated my installation at work following your instructions. Thanks!
hope to see ownCloud soon wiping this away though, at least for personal usage 🙂
@LoneStar –
Well, I have already installed Owncloud on my server at home. It is nice, but it’s still in its infancy of course. Dropbox offers a lot more features right now.
But I can see what Owncloud will grow into. If it integrates itself with the KDE desktop (which it is meant to do at some stage) you will have a killer app!
Eric
Thanks for sharing. This really works.
Just a question. Where can I find that script ““/usr/bin/nautilus.new” that should fix the issue with xdg-open in Slackware without Gnome?
Thanks.
@Ijanda –
The nautilus.new script is contained inside the dropbox-client package. If you install the package, the script gets installed as “/usr/bin/nautilus” unless there already is a file with that name on your computer in which case it will be dropped into your filesystem as “/usr/bin/nautilus.new”.
Eric