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Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

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Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#251

Post by djsumdog »

anderspitman wrote: post #133

For those interested in open source alternatives, syncthing, NextCloud (fork of ownCloud), and Seafile are some of the big names in this space, as others have mentioned. Personally I'm on syncthing. It's one of the best pieces of software I've ever used. My only complaint is it's not really instantaneous for me. In theory it works with inotify, but I've never quite been able to get it to work. I'm confident it will e…

I've been meaning to try git-annex as well. Anyone have any experience/opinions on it?

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#252

Post by djsumdog »

jploh wrote: post #236
anderspitman wrote: post #133

For those interested in open source alternatives, syncthing, NextCloud (fork of ownCloud), and Seafile are some of the big names in this space, as others have mentioned. Personally I'm on syncthing. It's one of the best pieces of software I've ever used. My only complaint is it's not really instantaneous for me. In theory it works with inotify, but I've never quite been able to get it to work. I'm confident it will e…

I used to use ownCloud. Just curious - why is it not in your list of alternatives? Did the project die?

I haven't run it, but previous HN threads often have comments of ownCloud randomly deleting files, along with other weird bugs.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#253

Post by arghwhat »

sp332 wrote: post #58
xigma wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, what do you believe is "the most popular distro"? Professionally, I have never seen a BTRFS deployment, nor any of the distros commonly at the top of Distrowatch (Manjaro, Mint, Elementary...). With the fragmentation of Linux, even the "most popular" distro may hold a tiny market share. The guys at dropbox probably know far more about their users than what is reflected in some arbitrary popularity co…

Ubuntu uses ext4 and the default is to ecryptfs the user's homedir. Edit: Actually I can't find that it was ever the default , but it was a pretty prominent option so I assume this decision is going to mess with a ton of customers.

I'd argue that the normal thing to do in the Ubuntu installer is full disk encryption, rather than homedir encryption.

Both are checkboxes, though, so one could select whichever they wanted. Full disk encryption is the most sensible one, though (better evil maid protection).

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#254

Post by fovc »

rcarmo wrote: post #39
shittyadmin wrote: post #8

It's not encrypted ext4, it's ecryptfs (which acts as a separate layer entirely, creating a virtual encrypted filesystem on top of ext4) - probably doesn't support some inotify feature or some extended attributes that aren't set correctly when used through ecryptfs. If instead you used dmcrypt and encrypted the whole device or partition you'd probably have no issue as it looks just like any other EXT4 FS to the syste…

Home directory encryption via ecryptfs is now the default in most Ubuntu variants, and it would be insane not to attempt to support it. That said, given that my Dropbox subscription just renewed (and that Linux is pretty much the only reason I'm still using it, since there is no OneDrive client I can rely on), I am really sad this seems to be a future direction for Dropbox.

What issues have you found with this Onedrive client[1]? I've been using it for over a year without any hiccups beyond the odd duplicate file

[1] https://skilion.github.io/onedrive/

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#255

Post by jchw »

I gave up on Dropbox. Linux was always a second class citizen, and it only ever seems to get worse.

If you are going to pay for something, Insync and Google Drive make a decent Dropbox alternative. I'll be honest, though, I simply stopped using syncing solutions like these, so I really don't know if there are now better options across platforms.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#256

Post by gpvos »

rcarmo wrote: post #39
shittyadmin wrote: post #8

It's not encrypted ext4, it's ecryptfs (which acts as a separate layer entirely, creating a virtual encrypted filesystem on top of ext4) - probably doesn't support some inotify feature or some extended attributes that aren't set correctly when used through ecryptfs. If instead you used dmcrypt and encrypted the whole device or partition you'd probably have no issue as it looks just like any other EXT4 FS to the syste…

Home directory encryption via ecryptfs is now the default in most Ubuntu variants, and it would be insane not to attempt to support it. That said, given that my Dropbox subscription just renewed (and that Linux is pretty much the only reason I'm still using it, since there is no OneDrive client I can rely on), I am really sad this seems to be a future direction for Dropbox.

You could use Nextcloud instead.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#257

Post by nlawalker »

Zak wrote: post #186
antoineMoPa wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you telling me that I could build a startup with 3 lines of bash? (EDIT: and a fancy easy windows version)

A great many successful tech companies can be described in terms of more consumer-friendly Unix tools. Slack has the better part of a billion dollars in funding for what's essentially resource-hungry IRC with pictures. Dropbox does little you couldn't accomplish with a server and rsync. What I'm really eager to see is git for everyone else.

>> git for everyone else

When you simplify and generalize git to the point where "everyone else" can use it, you get Apple's Time Machine and Windows' File History. I'm not that familiar with Time Machine, but if File History had a more visible interface that you could use to easily "checkpoint" individual documents or directories on demand, you'd pretty much be there.

Branching is too complicated for most people to work with and overkill for most scenarios.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#258

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

rcarmo wrote: post #39
shittyadmin wrote: post #8

It's not encrypted ext4, it's ecryptfs (which acts as a separate layer entirely, creating a virtual encrypted filesystem on top of ext4) - probably doesn't support some inotify feature or some extended attributes that aren't set correctly when used through ecryptfs. If instead you used dmcrypt and encrypted the whole device or partition you'd probably have no issue as it looks just like any other EXT4 FS to the syste…

Home directory encryption via ecryptfs is now the default in most Ubuntu variants, and it would be insane not to attempt to support it. That said, given that my Dropbox subscription just renewed (and that Linux is pretty much the only reason I'm still using it, since there is no OneDrive client I can rely on), I am really sad this seems to be a future direction for Dropbox.

Just put /home on a separate partition and please the BOFH gods.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#259

Post by russdill »

shittyadmin wrote: post #8

It's not encrypted ext4, it's ecryptfs (which acts as a separate layer entirely, creating a virtual encrypted filesystem on top of ext4) - probably doesn't support some inotify feature or some extended attributes that aren't set correctly when used through ecryptfs. If instead you used dmcrypt and encrypted the whole device or partition you'd probably have no issue as it looks just like any other EXT4 FS to the syste…

The backing files for your ecryptfs will still get synced though, correct?

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#260

Post by zaarn »

sp332 wrote: post #115
rcarmo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The option to encrypt your home folder is still there in Ubuntu 18.04 (which I set up only yesterday), and appears after you set up volumes upon initial user creation. It is (funnily enough) even possible to enable _both_ kinds of encryption simultaneously. I'd say that they don't use full-disk encryption _instead_ of home folder. They just prompt for it sooner (and it is not the same thing if you have a modestly old…

I just spun up an 18.04.1 install in a VM to check, and I don't see an option to encrypt the user's homedir during installation. Edit: It's listed under "Other base system changes since 16.04 LTS" https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BionicBeaver/ReleaseNotes

IIRC it does show if you use the advanced installer option (ie where you go manually through all steps).

Atleast the ubuntu server does that, though I wouldn't enable that either way since it's a pain to deal with from the outside.

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