Friendly Tech Ninja Linux how-to's for beginners

Howto: Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta

UPDATE:Ubuntu 9.10 has been released and so has an official .deb install file for Dropbox, updated Howto HERE.

UPDATE: I reposted this guide seeing as there's no need for it here: Howto: Compile Dropbox from Source on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

As of yet the dropbox team haven't released a .deb file for Ubuntu 9.10 (32/64 bit), I'm sure they'll release one by the time 9.10 is released, but I can't wait that long. So what we're basically going to do here is compile it from source, it's not all that scary...

Step 1

Download the source files from here www.getdropbox.com/downloading and unzip it (right click and "Extract Here").

Note: If you don't have a dropbox account sign-up for one here

Step 2

We now need to install the dependencies in order to build our install files from source.
Open up your Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install libnautilus-extension-dev libnotify-dev python-docutils

Follow the prompts and it should a a few minutes to download and install everything.

Step 3

Navigate to where you created your /nautilus-dropbox folder (it'll probably have a version number after it) in the Terminal, in my case:

cd /Downloads/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1/

Step 4

Once inside type the following commands into your Terminal:

./configure
make
sudo make install


Run each command one after another, they'll run for just a couple of seconds each.

Step 5

After installing it simply log out and log back into your system, navigate to Applications → Internet → Dropbox, click “OK” and it'll download and install the daemon and then prompt you for your dropbox details.

As you can see it's a pretty easy install and it's been working great for me!

If you have any questions, comments or tips, please leave a comment below.

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