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Welcome to the Slackware Documentation Project

Dropbox client

Info

The dropbox client grants a user access to the online Dropbox hosting services and allows for easy live synchronization with it. The client also runs in the background, and will notify (if it can) the user of changes to synchronized shared files.

For more information about Dropbox and to create an account, please visit http://www.dropbox.com

Installation

SlackBuild

This option is easy and more preferred as it creates a package that can be later managed by the Slackware package tools and can be installed system wide. The newer versions of the Dropbox client also self upgrades within the minor versions (2.X.Y will update patch versions Y but not update to a newer minor version X), so there is no need to get the most recent client.

The SlackBuild link is at: http://slackbuilds.org/result/?search=dropbox

Manual Installation

To install manually, you can either convert a pre-compiled DEB or RPM or compile from source a client called nautilus-dropbox. This is a wrapper for a few scripts and a framework which will in turn download a working client for you. This client is installed locally per user.

The download page is here: https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx

dropbox.py

Another option to control the Dropbox client via CLI is using the dropbox.py script form this link: https://www.dropbox.com/download?dl=packages/dropbox.py. After downloading you can either “run” it or even “install” it like so:

~# install -D -m 755 path_to_dropbox.py /usr/bin/dropbox

To see the script's options, please type:

~# ./dropbox.py --help

Starting the service for the first time is done like so:

~# ./dropbox.py start -i

This will download a local client for the current user.

Linking

In order to link a computer to the online service, the client will need to be registered with the online service using the user's account.

When the client links successfully, it will create a Dropbox folder in the user's home directory and will start downloading the current online view.

GUI

When starting the service for the first time, the client will try to start in X, and if it succeeds, the user will be prompt with a GUI dialog that will ask for a username and password.

On X desktop environments, the client will also create an auto-start link and will supply a system-tray icon that can indicate the current status (online/offline/synchronizing etc'). If it does not, simply link the dropbox.desktop file from /usr/share/applications to the appropriate place for the desktop environment, or create a link to run the service when the environment loads.

CLI

If the system has no X, it is still possible to link the client. Just run the service and wait for an output:

~/.dropbox-dist/# ./dropboxd

The service will start a login loop and on each linking failure (every few seconds) will ask to open a URL. Copy that URL and while the service is still trying to login, open the link with any browser (the browser does not even have to be on the same PC). Example:

~# lynx https://www.dropbox.com/cli_link?host_id=123XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX321

After registering on the page, the running service will become linked and will go back to the background.

Sources

 howtos:network_services:dropbox ()