Dropbox Brings Back Support For ZFS, XFS, Btrfs And eCryptFS On Linux (linuxuprising.com) 69
Speaking of Dropbox, the online storage cloud service has enabled support for ZFS and XFS on 64-bit Linux systems, and eCryptFS and Btrfs on all Linux systems. The move comes after it recently pulled support for all file storage systems on Linux except Ext4. From a report: Dropbox stopped supporting folder syncing to drives with filesystems it deemed "uncommon", which on Linux meant anything but Ext4, upsetting quite a few users. The reason cited for this was that "a supported file system is required as Dropbox relies on extended attributes (X-attrs) to identify files in the Dropbox folder and keep them in sync", which doesn't really make sense since there are many filesystems that support xattr (extended attributes) on Linux. After this change was announced, various workarounds started to appear online, including one that I posted on Linux Uprising. There was even a new unofficial, open source Dropbox client developed for this reason (which is also much lighter than the official client by the way). But this didn't last long though, as last week, the Dropbox 77.3.127 beta changelog says that Dropbox has added back support for ZFS (on 64-bit systems only), XFS (on 64bit systems only), Btrfs and eCryptFS.
Let's review. (Score:4, Interesting)
Dropbox...
1. ...is more expensive than most of its competitors. ...does not offer a middle tier paid storage option. ...is, shortly, going to be forcing a bloated file manager app on their customers. ...limits free accounts to three devices. ...only supports ext4 on Linux.
2.
3.
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5.
And they only address one of those items.
Okay, good luck with that.
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6. the free tier sucks more than competitors.
Why would I use Dropbox with only 2 GB while Google offers 15 GB?
Re:Let's review. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I use Dropbox with only 2 GB while Google offers 15 GB?
...because Google Drive does not support block-level sync (e.g. if you make a 1 byte change to your 4GB file, it will update your cloud account by uploading the whole 4GB file again).
I'm in the process of moving away from Dropbox myself, so I'm no apologist, but this is a Dropbox advantage over some competitors. I'm evaluating Pcloud now, which also offers block-level sync.
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It could be a good argument if I could store that 4 GB file on Dropbox to begin with, but it's limited to 2 GB.
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I've gotten so many free offers over the years that my DB free account has about 9GB of storage, but maybe they don't do those bonuses any more. The sticking point for me is not storage, but number of computers you can connect to one account. They limited it to 3, which is a deal-breaker for me. So I can't add any more, but at least they didn't boot off existing ones... my account page says "you are using 26 of your 3 connections".
Re:Let's review. (Score:4, Interesting)
My "fix" for the "3-system" limit on free accounts, is that since I also run a NextCloud install on a hosted KVM virtual server, for the family, I include my primary dropbox folder on the NextCloud and then if I need to access the DB folder from another machine besides the 3 I'm allowed (main home machine, main laptop and phone), I simply install the nextcloud client instead of the the DB client and get full sync of my db folder via nextcloud. As for the "free offers" I did enough of them early on, to get nearly 6Gb of DB space, and of course, my nextcloud install has 70Gb allocated to nextcloud, for the family to fill up...
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I used to do that too, for about a week until suddenly my account was "over limit" on some transaction type and blocked. I had the same issue when trying to get Google Drive tied to my Nextcloud instance. It seems any free tier file storage system has set their limits so low that within a few days of configuring my Nextcloud instance to talk to it, I get blocked. So now I don't bother. My Nextcloud instance is up to 120GB shared between a dozen people and I can expand it as needed.
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pCloud seems to be a good choice. I switched to it a few weeks ago.
Loving the ability to mount the whole space as a FUSE mount, plus the normal sync options.
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...because Google Drive does not support block-level sync (e.g. if you make a 1 byte change to your 4GB file, it will update your cloud account by uploading the whole 4GB file again).
Sounds like a good reason to put a delta-based VFS on top of it...?
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I also evaluated pcloud. I was almost happy with it until I tried to edit a text file in my notes directory from my phone.
It turns out the Android client doesn't allow editing. That's a show-stopper for me. Probably good for syncing media files (like music or movies). My personal use-case is taking notes & syncing them.
No bidi sync with Google Drive on Linux (Score:2)
Why would I use Dropbox with only 2 GB while Google offers 15 GB?
The Dropbox client can run on desktop Linux. The Google Drive desktop client does not, instead running only on Windows and macOS. A popular third-party client for Google Drive runs on desktop Linux, but it lacks bidirectional sync. From rclone's FAQ [rclone.org]:
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I am sure there are still alternatives with more storage and a linux client. Pcloud, mega, etc.
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They need to offer actual filesystem mounts, not simple file sync. Even with the "only sync when I use" option, it's inefficient.
Surprise unmounting when net connection drops (Score:4, Interesting)
Relying on "actual filesystem mounts" can cause problems when your computer moves out of Wi-Fi range. You had better hope that all your applications are written to gracefully handle surprise unmounting and write your saved changes somewhere else. In my experience on a laptop with intermittent connection, sync works better than mount. Change my mind ;-)
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Would a user who is not the superuser be able to mount and unmount shared folders? A sync paradigm does not require root. And what error would the file system return to a process that attempts to open a file that has not been cached or which has experienced a change conflict?
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1. ...is more expensive than most of its competitors. It is a recognized name, you pay more for that because if you have to give your boss options if he knows the name he will be more apt to pick it.
2. ...does not offer a middle tier paid storage option. Being in the middle sucks. Either you are a small nimble company, or a big controlling Goliath. being Middle Tier means you are too big to be nimble, and too small to have market control. If you are in the Middle, when you pick a product you need to choose
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True. It's not like Dropbox is a monopoly. If someone doesn't like their policies, they can go with one of those competitors.
Which, incidentally, I did. I moved to one of their competitors who offers a paid middle tier.
If Dropbox offered a middle tier, would I have just gone with that?
Probably.
If I ever need an upper tier, am I going to switch back to Dropbox?
Probably not.
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"...is, shortly, going to be forcing a bloated file manager app on their customers." Please quantify bloat
It is much slower than the interface I use now, regardless of the actual speed of the computer. The interface is slower, and ordinary operations take more UI effort. In other words, having to use an application to place a file in the Dropbox filesystem will always be slower and more bloated than just using the terminal and/or my native file manager.
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2. ...does not offer a middle tier paid storage option. Being in the middle sucks
I think you're misunderstanding the issue. Take a look at individual storage plans.
There's nothing covering the gap between the 2 GB free and 2 TB for $10USD/mo. How about selling something in between that order of magnitude? That's what their competition does, and that's why I use their competition.
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5. ...only supports ext4 on Linux.
For the longest time, their competitors didn't even support Linux at all!
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why does it matter what filesystem is running on the system?
Bi- and multi-directional file sync programs rely on extended attributes to track the sync state of each file, and FAT32 is one of several well-known file systems that does not provide extended attributes.
This is an application level service, does it really need snapshotting?
Dropbox stores, on its servers, what could be thought of as a snapshot of the current state of a folder. The client needs some way to store how the copy of the file on your device corresponds to the copy of the file last seen on Dropbox so that it knows how to sync the changes.
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1) I use the personal home free version, so that's no problem.
2) (Not my particular use case).
3) I've heard this is coming, and when it does, I absolutely kick Dropbox to the curb. I don't need my service to "get in the way" like that.
4) Three devices is fine with me.
5) Also under Linux, the dropbox command-line tool has been completely broken for years. It can only be interacted with through Dropbox. So to get a sharable link, I have to use their already too-heavy website interface, when there's no technic
Not only missing xattrs but also broken xattrs (Score:2)
(Obviously, if it failed only if xattrs couldn't be used, then this would never have become a story in the first place.)
Stop me if I'm giving Dropbox too much credit, but I imagine Dropbox restricted the file systems because the engineers couldn't prove at the time that xattrs on those file systems worked as they expected. So they rolled it out to the most common file system first and then expanded it to other file systems supporting xattrs after extensive testing.
Re:Huh (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to pull the file system every fixed period of time, and just check last modified date and size with the previous version, then you don't need to. However if you want to only backup when there is a real change, and do it as soon as possible, then you need to access the filesystem deeper features.
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No you don't, at least on Linux. inotify has been a thing for many years now. You don't even need to poll anymore, just setup a watch on the files/dirs you want, and wait for events to come in. You don't need elevated privileges to do it either, it works with regular filesystem privs.
Restating the multidirectional folder sync problem (Score:2)
Consider the problem of bi- or multi-directional synchronization of a folder of files among multiple users on multiple desktop operating systems, with full access to files while each user's device is offline, and offline changes propagating automatically to other users once the device on which the file was changed reconnects. How would you solve this problem better than Dropbox?
Or are you claiming that there is no use case for "multi-directional synchronization of a folder of files" in the first place?
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First, how easy is it for a non-technical user to gain working understanding of Git? Second, Git is optimized for use with source code of computer programs and their manuals, which largely consists of ASCII or UTF-8 encoded text files in the tens or hundreds of kilobytes, and isn't that good at handling binary files in the tens of megabytes or larger without the extra Git LFS layer. Or did you have in mind a version control system other than Git?
No ReiserFS? (Score:4, Funny)
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Dude that joke is so old, his parole board even groaned at it...
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I've heard some people were killing to get that added to the list ...
Give it up man, that joke is how old? Oh god ... 13 years. Am I that much older already?
Re: No ReiserFS? (Score:2)
I saw Reiser once give a talk at a linuxconf. He was so boring half the audience chew though their wrists and died from bleeding.
If I have to use your app to use your service... (Score:1)
If I have to use your app to use your service, that tells me (without exception) that the app is intended to work against me, and it also usually indicates that the service isn't competitive.
Notice how nobody ever has these kinds of problems with sftp. Notice how pirates never have to worry about ads or malware, whereas proprietary streaming users are always bitching about something
Services and apps never go together. If you've found a good service, it will have many apps that work with it. If you found a g
What app for multidirectional sftp? (Score:2)
Notice how nobody ever has these kinds of problems with sftp.
I'm looking for something to replace Dropbox on my next project. What application do you use for automatic multidirectional sync of files in a folder among several devices using sftp protocol?
Notice how pirates never have to worry about ads or malware, whereas proprietary streaming users are always bitching about something
The pirates instead worry about domain name seizures and six-figure copyright infringement lawsuits against individuals (e.g. Sony v. Tenenbaum and Capitol v. Thomas).
What Level? (Score:2)
The article - ok, the summary - mentions "Dropbox 77.3.127 beta".
I have to use Dropbox to interface with some clients and the level I have installed is 77.4.131. Under Linux.
The ext4 restriction was a total PITA so this will make a difference to me.
Too late (Score:2)
I used Dropbox for years, and was quite happy with them. So much so that I had a paid account.
When they crippled their Linux support, I had no choice but to cancel. Migrated to my own installation of OwnCloud.
Won't be going back.
OK, I'll use it again (Score:2)
I kept the client around and clicked "Quit" on the "unsupported fs" dialog box at every boot hoping it will show up in their statistics.
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Stoopid ignoramous (Score:2)
Still sucks (Score:2)
Not a very good cloud option either.
Go back to Dropbox? (Score:2)
Go back to Dropbox? It is too late. I have moved on and have no interest in repeating the mistake of relying on Dropbox for anything.