DropBox seamlessly syncs files between systems

DropBox is a new synchronization service that works seamlessly between Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X clients. With it, you have a specific directory that is synchronized between various systems linked to your account.

By dragging a file into this special DropBox directory, it will be automatically pushed to every other system's DropBox; remove a file and it will be removed from every system. This can be used to share documents, configuration files, photos, music, or anything else you want. Beyond synchronizing files between linked systems, you can also access files via the DropBox Web site.

For the Mac and Windows, installation is extremely straightforward. Download and install the client software, set up an account, and begin dragging files in your DropBox. For Linux, there are a few more steps, particularly if you are using an unsupported distribution. The DropBox Web site provides binary packages for Fedora Core 9 and Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04. It also provides the source tarball.

If you have a relatively recent RPM-based distribution, installing the FC9 rpms may work. On Mandriva Linux 2009, installing the FC9 rpms was very easy, with the exception of one macro that wasn't expanded, which caused a dependency issue. (The dependency is "libgnome >= %{gnome_version}", which does not "expand" on Mandriva Linux 2009.)

DropBox requires GLib 2.14 or higher, so it will work with any recent GNOME release. Since Mandriva Linux 2009 comes with GNOME 2.24, it is possible to use the binary RPM from FC9, with a little force:

# rpm -ivh nautilus-dropbox-0.4.1-1.fc9.x86_64.rpm

warning: nautilus-dropbox-0.4.1-1.fc9.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 
DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 3565780e

error: Failed dependencies:

       libgnome >= %{gnome_version} is needed by 
nautilus-dropbox-0.4.1-1.fc9.x86_64

# rpm -ivh nautilus-dropbox-0.4.1-1.fc9.x86_64.rpm --nodeps

warning: nautilus-dropbox-0.4.1-1.fc9.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 
DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 3565780e

Preparing...                
########################################### [100%]

   1:nautilus-dropbox       
########################################### [100%]

Make sure you try the install first without the –nodeps option to ensure all of the other dependencies are met. Yes, this is reminiscent of "dependency hell", but it does work quite well and means you don't have to build it from source and install a number of development packages just to compile it.

Once it is installed, be it via the binary packages or compiled from source, Nautilus needs to be restarted. This can be accomplished by executing:

$ killall nautilus

Once Nautilus restarts, the plugin that is the open source component of DropBox will start and ask whether your are new to DropBox (in which case you get to sign up), or an existing DropBox user (in which case you have to provide your authentication credentials). Regardless, it will download the closed-source component, then install it and begin to synchronize your DropBox folder.

The Nautilus component is what shows the various badges indicating file and directory status, in the Nautilus file manager. A blue synchronization symbol will appear when DropBox is synching files, a green check mark symbol will appear when files are synchronized.

Currently, the Nautilus client is the only frontend for DropBox on Linux, but provided Nautilus has launched, the dropboxd/i> daemon will be started. From that point, you can use the command-line or any other file management tool to manage files, albeit without having the status badges you would have in Nautilus.