Run Dropbox from command line only.

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mikeb
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Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

Run Dropbox from command line only.

#1 Post by mikeb »

Ok the forced updates from recent dropbox means your beloved client may no longer be accepted which could be a pain on an older system...or you simply don't want 138MB to sync one folder.

You can run from the command line easily circumventing some problems..eg QT5 dependancies, ram usage.

Assuming dropbox is in its usual place use in a terminal
DISPLAY=""; /root/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
Thats it...if it thinks there is no X it runs.
If its not linked to an account yet copy the link given to a browser and sign in and it will complete the process...that's it dropbox running .
The same line could be run from rc.local but then the display variable is not needed.

This may be repeating info from elsewhere on this forum but a search showed nothing.

The next part of this how to was going to show how to cut down the size of the package since the qt5 section was no longer needed and how to run it in older puppies but using the binary from an older package but if you make your happy install as soon as a new version appears it will forceably try to install and break your setup meaning you have to do it all over again... so not exactly practical unless all you want to do is register to get your free space ;)
The library code (the bit that does the work) is encoded python and in there is the version string that you would otherwise change to stop updating...way to go dropbox....

Hope thats useful anyway...reminds me of why I made a gui for a bash script... I think there is a python open source sync daemon around which at least might be more friendly.

mike

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