Dropbox's New Rules

[skjones007]

I received a message that my dropbox will cease to work soon with my LMDE installation (as I'm sure many did). What are folks using for a replacement? Or is there a work around that I'm unaware of?

[Pierre]

is your LMDE installed on either ext 3 partitions OR with ext 4 partitions ?.
- as Dropbox will only support Linux on ext4 partitions.

[wallyUSA]

I received a message that my dropbox will cease to work soon with my LMDE installation (as I'm sure many did). What are folks using for a replacement? Or is there a work around that I'm unaware of?

Can you give the details of the message?

[skjones007]

is your LMDE installed on either ext 3 partitions OR with ext 4 partitions ?.
- as Dropbox will only support Linux on ext4 partitions.

installed with the included calamares installer

[skjones007]

I received a message that my dropbox will cease to work soon with my LMDE installation (as I'm sure many did). What are folks using for a replacement? Or is there a work around that I'm unaware of?

Can you give the details of the message?

message below - installed LMDE with calamares installer - does it not install on an Ext4 partition?

A few months ago, we let you know that the Dropbox desktop system requirements were changing. On at least one of your computers, your Dropbox folder will stop syncing because it’s on a file system or partition that no longer meets the requirements.

How to fix
So your files can start syncing again, choose a new location for your Dropbox folder:
xxxxxxx-LMDE, Linux 4.9.0-8-amd64
Move Dropbox to an Ext4 drive

[wallyUSA]

Looks like the solution may be in the message:

"How to fix:
So your files can start syncing again, choose a new location for your Dropbox folder:
xxxxxxx-LMDE, Linux 4.9.0-8-amd64
Move Dropbox to an Ext4 drive"

Someone else will have to help with that.

Good luck!

[gm10]

message below - installed LMDE with calamares installer - does it not install on an Ext4 partition?

Check:

Code: Select all

lsblk -f

[skjones007]

Looks like the solution may be in the message:

"How to fix:
So your files can start syncing again, choose a new location for your Dropbox folder:
xxxxxxx-LMDE, Linux 4.9.0-8-amd64
Move Dropbox to an Ext4 drive"

Someone else will have to help with that.

Good luck!

maybe my queston should've been "does the calamares installer not format the drive as ext4 by default?".

[Pierre]

you most probably do get a choice about which format, to use,,
and it may not be defaulting to the ext4 format file system.

if your partition is not in the ext 4 format,, then you would have to re-format that partition to ext 4,,
and thus suffer an loss of any data on that partition, as well.

- unless there is a way of converting to ext 4, without any data loss, that is.

[DAMIEN1307]

i dont use dropbox myself but the article below might be of help to those of you who do and need to find the work around for ext4 etc...

https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/11/h ... -ext4.html

[axisofevil]

You can't trust a cloud provider to continue to provide a service.
I dropped Dropbox long before it decided to begin a Linux withdrawal.

Don't trust cloud services!

[coffee412]

You can't trust a cloud provider to continue to provide a service.
I dropped Dropbox long before it decided to begin a Linux withdrawal.

Don't trust cloud services!

I echo the same thing to a lot of people. I do not trust "The Cloud" anything. This is your data and it should be kept local at all costs. I know they make it really appealing but its just not right.

Besides, You dont know if they have been compromised or not. They are not going to announce "Oh, We got broke into" because its bad for business. If they did no one would use cloud services.

I run my own server and if I want to connect to it from the internet side of things I go thru OpenVPN. I think that is the safest approach. I have only one port open to the outside and its OpenVPN. I do the same for business clients that want to access things like their calendar or files from off site.

Never trust the cloud!

[redlined]

You can't trust a cloud provider to continue to provide a service.
I dropped Dropbox long before it decided to begin a Linux withdrawal.

Don't trust cloud services!

I echo the same thing to a lot of people. I do not trust "The Cloud" anything. This is your data and it should be kept local at all costs. I know they make it really appealing but its just not right.

Besides, You dont know if they have been compromised or not. They are not going to announce "Oh, We got broke into" because its bad for business. If they did no one would use cloud services.

I run my own server and if I want to connect to it from the internet side of things I go thru OpenVPN. I think that is the safest approach. I have only one port open to the outside and its OpenVPN. I do the same for business clients that want to access things like their calendar or files from off site.

Never trust the cloud!

I can agree with both quoted above, but I won't... the way to free yourself from FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) is to encrypt, and don't skimp, get your DiTs and DaRs encrypted, go all out!
besides Transport security/Data in transit (encrypting the path from start to finish, via DoH+https, vpn, ssh, etc) you also want to consider Data at Rest (which is what this issue now discussed is about, Cloud is the same [to me] all the emails i leave on my email provider server, as well all [personal] stuff i've uploaded or stored anywhere...

Options are simple, and sometimes even easy... Find the cloud service that you can either:
1) create and/or place an encrypted container on, then securely connect and fill that bad boy up!
or..
2) encrypt the files individually and store them.

(there may be many more methods to consider, however, I consider them outside the scope of this conversation)

Hope this helps!

(secret tip- use #1 preferred, #2 is more pita, but my chocolate cookie recipe encrypted with 8192b RSA back in 2000 is still safely attached to the message I gmailed self 14 years ago!:D)

[mike acker]

this is an interesting discussion

I found a good discussion here: What Dropbox dropping Linux support says (TechRepublic)

at some time or other most of us will encounter the need to transfer a sensitive file to another party. And that will require authentication, integrity, and security.

today, in too many cases, if you ask a party how they would like to secure a data transmission they'll just say "eMail it".

that's OK, but: how shall I encrypt the file? Do you use ZIP ? How about PGP ?

Your best option is likely to be FedEx, or -- M&D if it's not too far to drive. Or, if it's only a few pages you might fax it. this is a sorry state of affairs for the PC business -- which has been in common use for at least the last 20 years.

I've had much hope for Dropbox, in the past few years though, as Dropbox seems to enjoy good commonality of use: from smartphones, to desktops, there's a good chance it's available.

to send that sensitive file all you need to do is to create a folder for the file and then "invite" the remote party to join the folder. the invite goes by e/mail but the remote party will have to authenticate to his or her dropbox account to obtain access. the main weakpoint is the eMail invite

Dropbox can be accessed using a Web Page / browser interface and from there one can upload/download files. This can move the need for Linux file access to the browser and could help reduce the complexity of support.

There are eMail systems which advertise security -- but not everyone uses these. Protron mail comes to mind. There have also been phone apps that advertise end-to-end security -- WhatsApp, Signal.... maybe one of these can expand and become commonly used.

It's the "commonly used" aspect that is critical. Sooner or later most of us will be caught in that tough spot where we need to send a file via a secure process -- and the recipient has no clue how that might be done.

I've run into this myself on more than one occasion.

[bennieset]

The easiest thing to do - and some converters are doing this already - is to change the conversion to something like Ipoker or 888 instead of Stars format.

Were not adding support for new networks and do not provide support for the converters.