Install Dropbox on Kubuntu KDE (Without Nautilus)
I recently installed Kubuntu 9.10 to have a look at the latest that KDE has to offer in the Ubuntu arena. I have to say, I find it very polished and far less buggy than previous releases that I’ve used! If you haven’t tried KDE recently, I invite you to give it a try. In this article I’ll outline how to install Dropbox on KDE (Kubuntu) without using the packages, or requiring the GNOME dependencies that are required for Nautilus integration.
Installation
Because we’ll be installing Dropbox manually, outside of the package management system, the first thing you’ll need to do is download the binary for your running architecture. I’ve included direct download links to the 32bit and 64bit releases below:
After you’ve downloaded the .tar.gz file, unpack it and move its contents to your home folder. Assuming your default Download location is your ~/Downloads folder, do the following to unpack and move the dropbox files:
tar xf dropbox-lnx*.tar.gz
mv .dropbox-dist/ ~/
Lastly, assuming you want Dropbox to autostart when you login, you’ll want to create a symlink to your Autostart folder. You can do this using the command:
ln -s ~/.dropbox-dist/dropdoxd ~/.kde/Autostart/
Launch Dropbox
At this point you can either logout and log back in to have Dropbox launch, or manually launch by issuing the command:
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
You should be prompted to enter your account information, and you’re set!
Getting Dropbox
If you don’t have a Dropbox account, I’d invite you to check it out. It’s a very, very useful tool for sharing files and doing off-site backups. If the program is still in place, you’ll get a 250M storage bonus for using this link.
Thank you very much for this!
I have been using Ubuntu for about a year now, and have just recently been trying to get used to Kubuntu, because I really like the KDE4 Plasma Desktop. But, Seems there is some sort of problem every time I go to get something Gnome or Nautilus dependant, such as dropbox.
The first time I tried to install it using the nautilus-dropbox package from the site (like I ususlly do: add the key, repos, apt-get install nautilus-dropbox), it installed fine, but never ran, adding about 20 kdesudo error messages every time I login and it tired to start.
Your instructions were quick and painless and now it’s working like a charm! (except i dont get those blue and green status icons on the folders with the kde icon theme)
My only question, is where did you find the links to those packages. every link i see on the site is a different flavor of the nautilus packages.
One of the most useful page ever found.
THANK YOU
Thanks for the tutorial. There’s a typo in it however
Instead of
ln -s ~/.dropbox-dist/dropdoxd ~/.kde/Autostart/
You should use
ln -s ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd ~/.kde/Autostart/
Thanks for the info, Christer, but these instructions may now be unnecessary. I’m running Kubuntu 10.04 and just installed the 64-bit Ubuntu package provided by Dropbox. It installs a Nautilus plugin that’s useless in KDE, but the package doesn’t have any other GNOME dependencies that I can see. It’s certainly not pulling in Nautilus!
Overall, this is really good news for the KDE community.
Short and precise info. Thank you.
Now I can use Dropbox also with Kubuntu 10.04
Download for key of Linux
but why not use Kdropbox?
Kdropbox either didn’t exist, or I wasn’t aware of it when I published this article.
Thanks for the tip and referral link. 250+
Thanks a lot – worked a treat with Kubuntu 10.10
Fix this please!
I know this article is fairly old but it was returned as the top item in a Google search for “dropbox kde” so I thought I might pass along some info.
The startup doesn’t work for me as I receive the following error message:
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module “canberra-gtk-module”: libcanberra-gtk-module.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
I have to execute the ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd command from a terminal in order for Dropbox to run.
I have no idea how to fix the problem though. :/