Dropbox will again support filesystems beyond ext4
The cloud storage service Dropbox dropped Linux support for all filesystems except ext4 back in 2018. The latest 77.3.127 beta version of their client lists support for a variety of other commonly used Linux filesystems - but there is no mention of nfs or ntfs.
Exactly why the Dropbox Linux client needs special filesystem support at all is unclear, Nextcloud and similar open source software does not care what underlying filesystem is used. Dropbox does and it will, as of now, only accept shared folders on ext4 filesystems.
An announcement for a new 77.3.127 beta build in their forums mentions that the release:
- "Add support for zfs (on 64-bit systems only), eCryptFS, xfs (on 64-bit systems only), and btrfs filesystems in Linux."
- "Show the amount of space saved by Smarter Smart Sync on the Sync Tab in Preferences."
- "Fix issue that was preventing "Open Dropbox Folder" from working on Ubuntu 19.04."
- "Fix issue where sync status labels are stuck at "Starting…" after Dropbox has restarted even though sync is working."
There's also some Windows-specific changes.
The beta Linux Dropbox installer can be acquired using a link on that forum announcement page. The tar.gz unpacks into a hidden .dropbox-dist/ folder and it appears to only contain the daemon part.
The new beta does not support shared filesystems on nfs and there is also no ntfs support. This limits it's usefulness for everyone in dual Linux/Windows environments. But it's something.
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