Slashdot Mirror
Dropbox Is Dropping Support For All Linux File Systems Except Unencrypted Ext4 (dropboxforum.com)
New submitter rokahasch writes: Starting today, August 10th, most users of the Dropbox desktop app on Linux have been receiving notifications that their Dropbox will stop syncing starting November. Over at the Dropbox forums, Dropbox have declared that the only Linux filesystem supported for storage of the Dropbox sync folder starting the 7th of November will be on a clean ext4 file system. This basically means Dropbox drops Linux support completely, as almost all Linux distributions have other file systems as their standard installation defaults nowadays
-- not to mention encryption running on top of even an ext4 file system, which won't qualify as a clean ext4 file system for Dropbox (such as eCryptfs which is the default in, for example, Ubuntu for encrypted home folders).
The thread is trending heavily on Dropbox' forums with the forum's most views since the thread started earlier today. The cries from a large amount of Linux users have so far remained unanswered from Dropbox, with most users finding the explanation given for this change unconvincing. The explanation given so far is that Dropbox requires a file system with support for Extended attributes/Xattrs. Extended attributes however are supported by all major Linux/Posix complaint file systems. Dropbox has, up until today, supported Linux platforms since their services began back in 2007. A number of users have taken to Twitter to protest the move. Twitter user troyvoy88 tweets: "Well, you just let the shitstorm loose @Dropbox dropping support for some linux FS like XFS and BTRFS. No way in hell im going to reformat my @fedora #development station and removing encryption no way!"
Another user by the name of daltux wrote: "It will be time to say goodbye then, @Dropbox. I won't store any personal files on an unencrypted partition."
The thread is trending heavily on Dropbox' forums with the forum's most views since the thread started earlier today. The cries from a large amount of Linux users have so far remained unanswered from Dropbox, with most users finding the explanation given for this change unconvincing. The explanation given so far is that Dropbox requires a file system with support for Extended attributes/Xattrs. Extended attributes however are supported by all major Linux/Posix complaint file systems. Dropbox has, up until today, supported Linux platforms since their services began back in 2007. A number of users have taken to Twitter to protest the move. Twitter user troyvoy88 tweets: "Well, you just let the shitstorm loose @Dropbox dropping support for some linux FS like XFS and BTRFS. No way in hell im going to reformat my @fedora #development station and removing encryption no way!"
Another user by the name of daltux wrote: "It will be time to say goodbye then, @Dropbox. I won't store any personal files on an unencrypted partition."
I'm glad I never listened to people who told me what I was "supposed" to do. Obedience is for sheep.
ecryptfs was dropped from the Ubuntu installer and deprecated in 18.04 LTS in favor of full disk or manually using fscrypt (work is ongoing to make this easier) - because it does have various issues.
See this bug for more: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubu...
It still has access to the unencrypted files once an encrypted filesystem is unlocked, so what's the difference?
dd if=/dev/zero of=StupidDropbox.fs bs=4096 count=
mke2fs -t ext4 StupidDropbox.fs
mkdir StupidDropbox
mount StupidDropbox.fs StupidDropbox
SpiderOak are discontinuing their warrant canary, which some are speculating that it means their canary is dead & they have been compromised.
They are also offering a short-term unlimited backup plan (which expires today). The close timing of that & the canary announcement is a little interesting. I was literally about to sign up to move away from Dropbox when I heard the warrant canary thing and it was confusing/disturbing enough to make me hold off.