The main cloud services don’t even work natively (GoogleDrive, OneDrive, iCloud) basically the only mainstream choice is Dropbox. I tried to use Google Drive in Mint, and it’s a pain to get it to work, and usually it stops working after computer restarts.
Someone has a recommendation about how to handle these services?
I keep seeing this question pop up. “Why doesn’t [closed/proprietary technology] work well in Linux?”
This question should be asked at whoever makes said technology. You are their client, why don’t they support your operating system?
That responsibility should not fall on the shoulders of the thankless volunteers that do their best to create an awesome OS.
Alternatively you can buy one of the commercial distributions and become a client. Then you can ask your supplier why don’t they support that technology.
Case in point, Mega.nz offers a native GUI client for Linux and went out of their way to also make a full command line client.
Support those services that don’t treat you like ass, y’know?I agree! But it’s surprising that even Google doesn’t have a native app for Drive. There’s one for android, but not for Linux? I’m guessing it all boils down to number of users, but still…
Google literally owns Android tho.
Not exactly
Yeah yeah, AOSP and all that. Despite, Android is made primarily by Google to push Google products and most apps depend on Google services. For all intents and purposes, Android is a first party OS for Google.
For personal use, i use FreeFileSync.
Really awesome, works like a charm.
If you want cloud storage I’d recommend Nextcloud as a service (I’m not affiliated with them, just a customer)
Works like a charm. You can even install plugins. Also, there are other companies that provide hosting so there is no vendor-lock-in.
Can’t recommend Nextcloud enough. I also recommend checking out self-hosting! It’s ridiculously easy to setup with the example docker-compose files they have in their git repo. If you have a NAS or a machine at home, you can basically create your own online storage that’s completely private.
I have a raspberry pi 2, would this handle Nextcloud? Any recommendations for a hard drive to use with it please?
Being 32 bit, it’s getting a bit old for using it with modern software. But maybe take a look at this and give it a try:
https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-install-nextcloudpi/126308
NextcloudPi is a fairly low-maintenance version of NC, the only way I’d recommend installing it besides as a docker image. Straight installing NC is a recipe for disaster, it’s notoriously bad at updating that way.
Whatever you do, don’t use the builtin web updater inside NC to update nextcloud itself. Their app updater is fine, but the actual Nextcloud web updater is utter dogshit and will break things.
Thank you 😃
You can use rclone
I second that.
With the additional advantage that rclone has modules like crypt and join, which allows you to keep your data encrypted no matter which cloud you use, gaining more cloud space by joining clouds, etc.
rclone
rclone bisync, even it’s not good in production, I been using it for 1.5 years, just need to check the log regularly… I just hope this function become stable enough to be on mainstream, then almost all cloud storage works well on it…
I didn’t know this option. Will certainly give it a look.
Just make sure, that you have logs for it, and check before sync. because sometimes in bisync, you can lost your file… but I already manage it by excluding a lot of .swp, ~.lock., and other temp files… Mostly temp files is there cause of broken bisync, and when resync, the file that suppose to be synced, deleted…
Google drive integrates simply into the file manager on Gnome for cloud storage. It doesn’t do offline file-sync between devices, however.
The Microsoft and Apple products don’t support Linux because… Microsoft and Apple.
Google drive also works great on kde
I managed to get one drive working on linux, able to mount it onto the filesystem using rclone.
Yes, it’s often possible to get unsupported services working, but it’s rarely simple and it’s prone to breakage over time with changes to the system as well as to the service. I do not recommend it to anyone seeking a simple solution and I will not do it for someone I need to support.
Does it work offline? Last time I tried it only works when you are online
No, the Google Drive implementation is just for cloud storage. It doesn’t do offline file-sync. I’ll update my earlier comment.
I sick of seeing Google Drive recommended as an alternative to dropbox. (Because I am looking for an alternative to dropbox and so far nothing has feature parity with it and the features I value.) If an app forces me to be logged in to a graphical environment locally on Linux then it has already failed to understand why people use *nix. Google Drive doesn’t keep offline copies and it doesn’t work on CLI. So basically useless on my server. If the files aren’t natively and transparently accesible as a local filesystem while they are synced to the cloud, it’s not a viable Linux Dropbox alternative. I want my files on my machine and a copy on the cloud, not the other way round.
I have not and do not recommend it. I simply responded to the claim that it doesn’t work, because it does. OP has something else going on that’s causing Google Drive problems.
I use both Dropbox and Mega and recommend either for someone seeking a simple cloud-sync solution.
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Rclone is awesome. Mega and PCloud got native clients that works great. Nextcloud is an alternative.
Nextcloud works great! Includes integrations with GNOME and KDE including taskbar icons etc. and you can pay a service to host Nextcloud for you if you’d prefer that to selfhosting.
I have a self-hosted Nextcloud and my Nextcloud account connected via GNOME as an Online Account. It integrates seamlessly with Calendar, gives me a webdav mount for my files etc. I don’t have any issues. I have not added any Google accounts, and definitely no Microsoft accounts. I don’t use public clouds for private stuff.
I have a self-hosted Nextcloud and my Nextcloud account connected via GNOME as an Online Account.
The self-hosted bit is the problem. I have yet to find a Nextcloud provider that offers the service truly ready to go. The ones I found try to make it somewhat easy by offering Install buttons in web interfaces but if you have absolutely no clue about such things, even that is a hurdle to overcome.
Here is the official list of nextcloud providers that do the setup and maintenance for you: https://github.com/nextcloud/providers#providers
Considering that the list includes providers I’ve had first hand experience with and those are not ready to use: No.
rclone for cloud backup
Syncthing is pretty good. I’ve got a raspberry pi running it on my local network with an old usb hard drive I had kicking around and it works great
Just to be clear, Syncthing is not cloud storage but file syncing. It can be used in a similar way but it does have different strengths and weaknesses.
MEGA is an optiom, rclone is the option. Supports next to anything.
Still waiting for rclone to support megainn Debian. Then it’ll be perfect.
rsync/ rclone just works! Have not tried rsync with cloud yet, I use rclone for encrypted backups. Most cloud services are supported including google drive.
Use pCloud.
Life time subscriptions, it’s so cheap.
idrive package is cheaper, if you talk cheapnest…
The linux client worst fine, eventhough I rarely use it.
I haven’t had any issues with pCloud’s linux client either, although it is definitely not as quick to sync as Dropbox. It might take 30 seconds to pick up changes instead of 3. Something about block-level change tracking I think.
For command line sync to the cloud you can use rclone. It’s FOSS and works with many different cloud providers.
For a constant sync experience you can use insync. It’s closed source and requires a license though, but works reasonably well.
Sorry for the lack of direct links since I’m on the phone.
You don’t need insync - most people just automate
rclone synccommands using whatever task scheduler their system runs by default (cronjobs or systemd units, typically). For those who prefer a GUI, KDE has a Scheduled Tasks app.On Android, you can use Round Sync which is a wrapper around rclone and can import the same configs.
Most people I know who use Linux wouldn’t trust Cloud services cause that’s just storing your stuff on somebody else machine. You can self hosted service like Next cloud on a raspberry pi or just get comfortable with networking enough to setup VPN and ssh into your home computer from the net to get your stuff.
A huge part of disaster recovery is storing things in separate geographic locations. That’s not easily don’t with self hosting. If all my stuff is on a file server at my house and my house burns down then I’ve lost all my files.
While this is true, you can have a remote backup service that isn’t the type of cloud storage the OP seems to want (that is, which isn’t designed for editing individual files on the fly on the remote server, or synchronizing between devices). They’re similar, but not the same.
I’m mostly talking about the “somebody else’s computer” part in the comment I replied to. I don’t think it’s very feasible. I think self hosting stuff from home is awesome and think it’s a culture more folks should check out, but to really have a proper backup of files they need to be stored in multiple different physical locations and that’s not something that’s cost effective for most folks. What you’re talking about is still “someone else’s computer” so not different from the comment above.
A hard drive in a bank vault is separated enough that nothing short of a nuke will destroy every copy of your data at the same time.
Have fun going to the bank every time you want to sync.
Multiple backup drives. Rotate every week or two. It’s not hard.
@JackbyDev @besbin my personal solution for this is an encrypted 16tb external storage drive I keep in my car. A copy of my server drive is made once a week. not perfect solution but doesn’t require much effort on my part
I walk through the woods on one side of my house, there is a shovel behind some trees I’ve marked. Then I go back to my house, down the other side of my property until I get to the river. Then I dig in the river bank until I get to a plastic bag. Double wrapped of course.
Inside the plastic bag?.. a collection of 1gb USB thumb drives and a note pad.
In the note pad?.. an index cataloguing what is backed up on each thumb drive.
I guess it depends where you live, but I’d be worried about heat/freezing.
@ebits21 yes this is true I mean I live in the UK so we don’t get extremes neither way, but maybe during winter I should keep the drive at my partners place
Where do you keep your car?
@JackbyDev in a parking space on the other side of the road from my house, not far but deals with the whole house fire problem
Just sanity checking 👍
Well the thing is, I’m still not comfortable in opening up an attack surface like that. I would much rather pay for someone else to do that. Preferably someone who really knows what they are doing and keeps an eye on the constantly evolving security environment. There’s a bunch of other stuff happening in my life, so finding the time to play server admin isn’t that easy right now.
There are many professional Nextcloud holsters, for example: https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share
Thanks for the link. Recently, I’ve been looking into nextcloud providers, but somehow I missed this company.
If you need the online storage (or whatever self hosted service) just for yourself (and maybe some few people), it’s very simple to set up a Wireguard instance. My server doesn’t even show open ports to the outside world, but with Wireguard I can access my git, wiki, etc in my home LAN.
I haven’t really tried any of the second tier Solutions like Tailscale. But when you have more users or a more complex environment, that could help.Still, sharing stuff with “outsiders” would still be tricky, I guess - at least I haven’t found a solution…
Uh what? Lots of Linux users also use cloud services.
Pretty easy to use something like Cryptomator with almost any service and maintain privacy.
Self hosting can be great; it can also be a pain.
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Yeah, that works as intended, what I meant is to have offline files, (full on sync folders) not only the virtual disc mounted. I work with lots of scripts (MATLAB) and the speed is significantly slower for virtual files.
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