Dropbox Is Dropping Support For All Linux File Systems Except Unencrypted Ext4 (dropboxforum.com) 258
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."
If you care enough to encrypt a volume... (Score:5, Insightful)
why would you trust a cloud storage provider to keep a copy of it?
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Because the copy is encrypted? That was sort of the whole point.
Re:If you care enough to encrypt a volume... (Score:5, Informative)
The normal setup is encryption after partition. Meaning dropbox is operating on the unencrypted data. Sure dropbox may re-encrypt on their end (and probably in flight too). But that whole thing is encryption on their terms (Dropbox) not yours. Meaning as strong as they like it, and key-management as they like it.
All the linux encrypted volume stuff is meaningless to the files stored on the Dropbox Cloud.
That said, this decision my Dropbox is troublesome. They have a really good cross-platform product that syncs better than most of the existing solutions. I don't think this a wise decision.
A current (paid) Dropbox user, watching carefully...
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Because people steal laptops all the time. They also steal USB keys with data you may be compelled to share with workmates.
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Because people steal laptops all the time.
I don't use a laptop to store anything important. I have a big tower system unit for that; it weighs about 15 kg, and I don't think a house burglar will bother with it. Anway I have removable media for back-up.
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Agreed. I mostly just use it to share media files between machines. I use it for mildly sensitive materials, but nothing for which I would feel compelled to encrypt on my own local machine.
Re:If you care enough to encrypt a volume... (Score:4, Informative)
why would you trust a cloud storage provider to keep a copy of it?
Because the odds of someone directly hacking my account at dropbox and sucking my data out are lower than the odds of one of the many hotel staff who walk into my room unannounced lifting my laptop. It's like when someone asks why I have an encrypted external drive that auto-decrypts when connected to my computer without a password: The odds of the drive going missing without the computer are higher than the odds of losing both + the computer unlock password.
Security isn't an on or off thing. It's a sliding scale of risk profiles and associated mittigations.
First thought... (Score:3)
First thought was appeasement of the TLAs (NSA/FBI/CIA and their British/Chinese/Russian equivalents). But that makes no sense either since Dropbox itself has the files and they're not encrypted with a key known only to the user.
Laziness, I guess?
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Maybe Dropbox itself wants to do something sinister with your data ...
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Interesting)
eCryptfs is deprecated... (Score:5, Interesting)
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... [launchpad.net]
I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't dropbox sync a userland application? Why does it care about the underlying FS?
It doesn't. Someone at Dropbox basically did this.
select fstype, isencrypted, count(1) from dropboxusers where ispaying='Y' and ostype='linux' group by fstype, isencrypted
And the answer was overwhelmingly the configuration they are moving to.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't dropbox sync a userland application? Why does it care about the underlying FS?
Dropbox likes to worm its way into the operating system and get access it doesn’t need - I can only speculate that the sleazeballs are doing something behind the scenes with that access in an attempt to furtively monetize their users’ data.
I stopped using Dropbox on OS X when they got caught adding themselves into the system-wide accessibility permissions table without asking. Thing is, the service works just fine without that (I did it for a couple weeks, until I got tired of denying Dropbox’s repeated requests to “fix” my system). So why are they asking for it - can’t be for any reason the end user would want.
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And by random coincidence a former US Secretary of State came on as a board member.
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Dropbox sync depends on behaviors of extended attributes, some of which I imagine are implementation-defined.
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Yes, but ext4 is kind of broken in the EA department with a 4KB limit on them. Other then that, most file systems that support EAs are similar in support or more extended, eg file forks on Mac and streams on NTFS which don't have the usual 64KB limit.
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That is what they say, but why would that be the case? it makes no sense ...
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I saw mention somewhere, ages ago, that they wanted to present files which are not actually downloaded. So maybe they do need to mess with the filesystem.
Can't use the app? (Score:2)
Re:Can't use the app? (Score:5, Informative)
Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
...does the Dropbox App even care about the low level details of the file system? Shouldn't they all look the same to it from an API perspective?
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The same reason Gnome has its own virtual filesystem and systemd has a built in DNS server.
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Re:One word.... (Score:4, Informative)
Why can't they? They were up until now.
Re:One word.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Do you think every application you use handles filesystem encryption itself?
You're the one who, clearly, does not understand.
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Of course it can. Once the data is mounted without encryption, applications that access it (via the mount point) care nothing for filesystem, raid, or encryption details. With some exceptions like extended attributes and other non-standardized features, which an application like Dropbox doesn't need.
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My text editor doesn't give a shit what filesystem I'm using. There's no real reason Dropbox should, either;
Your text editor isn't in the business of presenting files to users in a way that is not traditional to the system itself. Your text editor doesn't notify the user via the file explorer that files are currently in a certain state (open, locked, awaiting sync, experienced sync errors, etc). Your text editor also isn't in the cloud storage business, a business that is moving more and more to actual cloud operation rather than being a glorified copy of rsync. Your text editor is not presenting phantom files to
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In summary, your text editor works with text. Dropbox works with files on a very fundamental level. It stands to reason that they need to care about the underlying filesystem.
Dropbox reads and writes files using the same filesystem drivers as every other application. It reads and modifies file attributes through those drivers, as well. Anything it does at the filesystem level can be achieved with the mv, rm, cat, chmod, touch, and mkfifo commands.
there's actual technical reasons why a program like Dropbox needs to understand the abilities of the underlying filesystem and not treat it as a dumb pipe via some API.
No, not really. Look at OwnCloud's sync app as an example of how all of the things DropBox does can be done on any filesystem, on any OS, treating the filesystem as a dumb pipe via some API. Including notifying users via their file brow
Open source the client (Score:5, Insightful)
They should open source their linux client then. I bet this boils down to them thinking that it cost them more money to maintain the client then the number customers they will lose by not having it. I know for me their linux support was one of the reason why I have been a long time user.
Anyone know of a good way to automatically sync photos taken on Android and Apple phones to my NAS at home? At this point that's about the only super handy feature from Dropbox that I use.
Re:Open source the client (Score:5, Insightful)
They should open source their linux client then. I bet this boils down to them thinking that it cost them more money to maintain the client then the number customers they will lose by not having it.
Or it boils down to National Security Letters telling them that someone wants access to the unencrypted data, on a file system that doesn't do automatic wiping.
Re:Open source the client (Score:5, Informative)
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Trust me, not making sense never stopped the U.S. Government — particularly in the current administration.
Why uses Dropbox? (Score:3, Insightful)
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What Linux user uses drop box?
A Linux user whose client happens to use Windows.
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My ex was a member of a chorus that uploaded their practice tapes to dropbox for distro/sync. A desktop shortcut on Fedora made this trivial for her to access.
What's wrong with that use case from your perspective? Did you forget we're trying to grow the userbase?
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Using dropbox doesnt mean you have to put your banking details and passwords on it. I personally use dropbox to transfer files to relatives and business contacts with self destructing links. Incredibly useful!
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I know right! Personally I use OneDrive!
Ext4 not standard any more? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought ext4 was still pretty much standard.
Why does a synchronisation system even concern itself with filesystems?
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ext4 is not the end all of filesystems. ZFS and btrfs has far more capabilities. zfs for now being the more mature of the two. Plus, you have distributed filesystems such as CephFS. There is also XFS. These filesystems have many great features so there are reasons some people would use them.
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Right around the time people were starting to consider BTRFS stable enough to use, I gave it a real try. Hosted my home partition on it, and maybe some others. It was a dumpster fire. Applications that had had no performance problems started hanging for thirty seconds at a time. I've never heard of such latency.
That was a few years ago. How is it now, on a system with just one hard disk?
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Why does a synchronisation system even concern itself with filesystems?
Because of what it is trying to become. Dropbox has stopped being a glorified rsync a long time ago and is actively chasing OneDrive for feature parity. Things like presenting additional information to users about the status of the files, or presenting phantom files to users downloaded on demand. There's lots of reasons why syncing tools would care about the underlying filesystem.
Same reason why you can't run OneDrive on a FAT32 system half the features wouldn't work since they depend on additional features
So much wrong (Score:2, Informative)
First, don't store your data with dropbox. It's not encrypted.
Second, why would dropbox care if the underlying volume is encrypted if the ext4 fs supports their extended attrs? Clearly this is BS.
Third, don't use fucking cloud storage providers that don't allow you control over the encryption of the storage, or with 0 encryption like dropbox.
Cryptomator (Score:2)
Dropbox is just a crutch for bad OSes. (Score:2, Informative)
Dropbox just re-creating functionality, built into Linux/Unix. Badly.
We have sshfs mounts, One-click "cloud" solutions, dynamic dns clients, etc, available in our package managers. And <$5 rentable web hosting. Hell, put a Linux "cloud server" image onto a microSD card, stick it in a Rasperry Pi, add a USB disk, enable dynamic DNS, and you haer your own Dropbox. With blackjack and hookers.
Dropbox was always a solution for a problem that never existed under Linux/Unix in the first place. (Excluding Ubunu-
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put a Linux "cloud server" image onto a microSD card, stick it in a Rasperry Pi, add a USB disk, enable dynamic DNS, and you haer your own Dropbox.
Dynamic DNS won't help you if your home network is behind a carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT) [wikipedia.org] operated by your Internet service provider.
Dropbox was always a solution for a problem that never existed under Linux/Unix in the first place.
Such as not all of your collaborators who use Windows or macOS for other reasons necessarily being willing to install "Linux/Unix" into a virtual machine through which to access your shared folder.
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Some people will move to be within the service area of a non-garbage ISP. Most won't.
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The ownCloudSync system lets you always have your latest files wherever you are. Just specify one or more folders on the local machine and a server to synchronize to. You can configure more computers to synchronize to the same server and any change to the files on one computer will silently and reliably flow across to every other.
Dolphin ownCloud is an extension that integrates the ownCloud web service with the Plasma Desktop (KDE).
FUSE? (Score:2)
I wonder if it's possible to mount a virtual ext4 filesystem for your Dropbox folder using FUSE. So, even if you have an encrypted home folder, you can have an unencrypted filesystem mounted inside of it.
One word, fellas (Score:5, Informative)
Backblaze B2.
Or SpiderOak.
Re:One word, fellas (Score:4, Interesting)
SpiderOak are discontinuing their warrant canary [spideroak.com], which some are speculating [schneier.com] 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.
zvols. (Score:5, Insightful)
zfs create -V 10G tank/ext4
mkfs.ext4
mount
Plus you get snapshots, zfs-send, and all the other goodies that come with it.
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Given that's about as many command line steps required to set up a mirror on AWS, what's the point?
At the point you are treating Dropbox as a hostile agent, why are you even bothering? There's quite literally hundreds of options for doing the same thing Dropbox does, from Google Drive to setting up your own instance of ownCloud.
Filesystem within a filesystem... (Score:5, Interesting)
dd if=/dev/zero of=StupidDropbox.fs bs=4096 count=
mke2fs -t ext4 StupidDropbox.fs
mkdir StupidDropbox
mount StupidDropbox.fs StupidDropbox
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Continuing...
dd if=/dev/urandom of=StupidDropbox/crypt.fs bs=4096 count=
mk-foo-fs -t foofs StupidDropbox/crypt.fs # Where foo is your favorite encrypted filesystem
mkdir StupidDropbox/encrypted
mount StupidDropbox/crypt.fs StupidDropbox/encrypted
Make sure your encryption keys are NOT stored anywhere near the dropbox partition. Dropbox will only sync the inner filesystem when it is unmounted.
But I've found the Dropbox sync'ing mechanism is quite clever and runs fast. (This might imply a security hole if an
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Aha! So the key is in RAM. Thanks for the clue
Are you demented? Are you saying it's actually better to have the key stored on a file system? Because, at the end, it all ends up in RAM anyways. It HAS to remain in RAM for the encryption to work.
I said “fuck them” long ago (Score:2)
Fuck them.
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Where does it say that?
Good (Score:2)
now people will wake up and move to mega
Client side encryption (Score:2)
I don't know why they're doing this but as a separate yet related question:
Who would put anything sensitive into Dropbox, Google Drive... without encrypting it first?
Even if you have the "I use Linux but I have to share files with Windows / MacOS clients" scenario it's still perfectly feasible to use a TrueCrypt (or VeraCrypt) container to hold your files (from experience, it's better to use a lot of smaller ones rather than a big container as it's likely that any change will involve transferring the whole
can't see what you have (Score:2)
I guess they want to see what you are storing and gather more information about you. cannot do it if it is encrypted.
Alternative (Score:2)
If you want encryption and Dropbox on Linux, you can make a separate partition for the Dropbox folder that remains unencrypted. On that partition, store only files encrypted with a Fuse solution like encfs. When you need to edit, change stuff, mount the encfs partition in your regular home directory.
This prevents you from sharing stuff over Dropbox, though if you are sharing stuff, you might as well just keep the shared stuff unencrypted on the separate partition.
All Right! This Calls For A Slashdot Poll (Score:2)
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 i happens I do have Dropbox on an ext4 partition - but I didn't think that made me a freak.
The gauntlet has been thrown down! We need a poll to survey /. readers for the file system they have on their Linux machine (you "other people" don't get to vote on this).
Encryption is not the issue... (Score:2)
This is an odd decision, given the high-quality Linux support that Dropbox has provided until now.
One question I want to ask: why would encrypting be an issue? Why would you bother to encrypt your files on your disk, if you upload them unencrypted to a cloud service outside your control? I have a lot of stuff in Dropbox, but I do encryption the other way around: Anything sensitive is in an encrypted folder (EncFS) inside my Dropbox folder. That folder is decrypted locally using Cryptkeeper or some equivalen
I just migrated and closed the account (Score:2)
Encryption costs them (Score:2)
The reason they want to avoid encrypted files is to avoid the issues around dedup and encrypted files.
The reason their service is so cheap is that they can use dedup very extensively, especially when people are storing the same documents.
This is way harder to do with encrypted files.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
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Get a smarter spouse?
Though an email client's a client and a browser's a browser. If she has a problem doing so in Linux, how would a Mac be much different.
Re:Who uses Linux anyway? (Score:5, Funny)
Litmus test to tell whether or not Linux is a viable desktop OS:
Me, on phone: "Hey wife, can you log into my laptop and email me a file?" ... :/
Wife: Mmmm
I can understand, I mean the process in Linux would be:
1. Turn on computer.
2. Enter password at login prompt.
3. Open mail client.
4. Open new email compose window.
5. Add attachment.
6. Address email.
7. Click Send
Meanwhile, it's so much different in macOS. You have to:
1. Turn on computer.
2. Enter password at login prompt.
3. Open mail client.
4. Open new email compose window.
5. Add attachment.
6. Address email.
7. Click Send
Bonus: You can have the exact same email client on both platforms -- Thunderbird. Making the process identical even in detailed "here's how you move a mouse" level directions.
Re:Who uses Linux anyway? (Score:5, Funny)
On windows it' s so much easier. You have to:
1. Turn on computer.
2. Enter password at login prompt.
3. Open mail client.
4. Wait for unscheduled system update.
5. Wait for system reboot.
6. Enter password at login prompt.
7. Open mail client.
8. Click refuse opt-in to store mail in the cloud.
9. Open new email compose window.
10. Add attachment.
11. Click refuse ad to install mail checker app.
12. Address email.
13. Wait for unscheduled system update.
14. Wait for system reboot.
16. Enter password at login prompt.
17. Open mail client.
18. Open saved draft.
19. Click Send
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You also forgot click "attach a separate copy" instead of "share via one drive."
Re:Who uses Linux anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your wife knows your credentials? Man, your security's shit.
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Obvious troll is obvious. "Two decades", sure buddy.
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This is like forcing yourself to drive a car with a slushbox because your wife never learned to operate a manual gearbox. If you are basing your choice of OS on the ability (or inability) of another person to use it once every few years then maybe what you need is to make it easy to get into VNC. Then all your wife has to do is turn the machine on, and maybe log in for you. After that, it's yours to handle, rather than staging the Zoolander "the files are in the computer" scene a few times a decade.
Re: Who uses Linux anyway? (Score:2)
Alexa, please send email attachment to Bobby.
Done.
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Alexa, please send email attachment to Bobby.
Done.
Alexa silently sends email and attachments to Amazon.
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You have to understand he's talking two decades ago. MIME was cutting edge!
Groovy, man.
P.S. Not only your wife shouldn't know your password, even if she knew it, your computer's default keyboard layout should be set to something she doesn't know how to type in.
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Put it this way—if my wife must know my computer password, effectively letting her masquerade as me, she has trust issues, not me. Even between spouses, pretending to be other person (signing documents in their name, etc.) can constitute criminal fraud.
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I trust my wife and we do various things to each other, yet we still don't wear each other's used underwear
You are missing a lot.
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I have been using Linux on the Desktop since the mid '90s.
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It is common knowledge that the man of whom you speak is a poser with no traction whatsover in the community.
Re:Dropbox decided on their target market (Score:4, Funny)
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I may be fat and sweaty, but I'm closely-shaven!
Re: Dropbox decided on their target market (Score:4, Funny)
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One reason to lease hosting for file sync instead of maintaining an rsync server at home is that your home Internet access plan might not have a dedicated IPv4 address that allows incoming connections to your rsync server.
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might not have a dedicated IPv4 address
Sounds like you already have a solution on mind. One that comes with 18446744073709551616 or possibly even 1208925819614629174706176 dedicated addresses. And even if your ISP sucks balls, you can always get a tunnel.
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While I generally agree with your point, running Windows in no way guarantees that the software you use won't end up unsupported. I've had to upgrade software many times to accompany a newer version of Windows. In a few cases, I was unable to do so because that software was no longer in production.
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I usually ignore AC, but seeing you kind of agree with him I decided to reply.
With built in spyware Windows now have and the new DaaS push, I will gladly keep using a "non-mainstream OS". No wonder Dropbox is dropping Linux, Linux has no included spyware enabled that dropbox can leverage
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The year 2005 is calling, asking you to return its opinion.
Windows is so great that all 500 super computers run it? Oh ... wait ....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Linux is no better in 2018. Flashier, but no better. It's great on servers, wonderful on embedded devices, but it's a hopeless desktop machine.
There are people at my work who use Linux on their laptops. Guess what happens when they try to extend their monitor onto a projector? Guess which machines crash when they come out of sleep? Or wake up, but with the audio broken?
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I made a serious attempt recently to give Linux another shot. I'd acquired a machine from work, on which I planned to install Ubuntu, and use for audio and video work. In particular, I wanted to produce some radio on it, and use it for a while in a video installation work.
Ubuntu installed just fine, and appeared to work pretty well. I thought I'd give Steam a try, since my kids love video games, and they were keen to see how well it would work. Steam installed, but neither my login, nor any of my kids, cou
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Thanks for sharing!
Can you leave your nerd badge on the table when you leave?
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Start a competing service! What's their business model? I'm thinking they don't get a lot of revenue from people running Linux...
But presumably you would only need to install 5% of the equipment and have only 5% of the support calls - probably far less calls for help as they are Linux users.
You know, there is a convenince shop near me. I'm pretty sure they have less than 5% of the World trade in groceries, yet somehow they make a business out of it.
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Linux is used by a lot of people who other people ask for computer advice, both professionally and personally. I think they'll find the bad will costs them a lot more than maintaining support would've.
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This is what I've been using to synchronize my projects folder across four computers (one being a roaming laptop and one being a file server with undelete). I think my folder size is on the order of 50G now and it's still working pretty decently. Occasionally it gets a little confused because OSX's filesystem is case insensitive by default, but it's never lost my data. I love this software.