
How long since Google said a Google Drive Linux client is coming? - zdw
https://abevoelker.github.io/how-long-since-google-said-a-google-drive-linux-client-is-coming/
======
timmytokyo
Forget Google Drive. Just run Nextcloud on your own VPS. I put mine on a
digitalocean VPS and it costs me $5 a month for ~20GB of storage.

Nextcloud has great sync clients for linux, iPhone and Windows. (It has
clients for Mac and Android too, although I've never used them.) And google
doesn't get access to my data or metadata.

[1] [https://nextcloud.com](https://nextcloud.com)

~~~
truncate
For $10 you can get Dropbox (2 TB) data, so I dunno if saving that $5 is worth
it in this case. You get the Linux client, and far more reliability in every
aspect.

I think, if I really would want to go setting up my own thing to save money,
setting/writing some service backed by object storage (AWS S3) would be
cheaper and reliable enough.

~~~
CameronNemo
Does Dropbox Linux client still support filesystems other than ext4?

[https://itsfoss.com/dropbox-linux-ext4-only/](https://itsfoss.com/dropbox-
linux-ext4-only/)

~~~
timmytokyo
The last-straw motivating reason I switched to nextcloud was because dropbox
decided they wouldn't let me sync my files to an ecryptfs file system. (I
believe they recanted on this policy a few months later.) I didn't like being
held hostage to their bad design decisions, so I left and found a solution
that worked better for me. Dropbox has also had some serious security
vulnerabilities [1], which left me feeling less than confident in their
ability to manage my personal data.

[1] [https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/21/dropbox-lets-
any...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/21/dropbox-lets-anyone-log-
in-as-anyone/)

~~~
pdmccormick
Thanks for the heads up, I see this confirmed at
[https://help.dropbox.com/installs-
integrations/desktop/syste...](https://help.dropbox.com/installs-
integrations/desktop/system-requirements#linux) under the list of supported
file systems on Linux (which is currently ext4, zfs and xfs on 64 bit systems,
eCryptFS backed by ext4, and btrfs).

------
mmahemoff
Google also promised a tool to migrate regular accounts to GSuite accounts on
Google Plus, since GSuite accounts weren't supported when Google Plus
launched. (What kind of lunatic company would support its paying customers? I
still can't leave Google Play reviews for the same reason).

I naievely kept using my regular account, even when GSuite accounts became
possible, because of course Google would deliver on this promise. Never
happened. Seven years later, Google Plus shut down.

------
01100011
[https://rclone.org/](https://rclone.org/) works great. Do we need Google to
write a client?

~~~
nichos
Pidgin used to work great with gtalk, then Google broke the standard. I guess
there's always a fear of that when using a third party client.

~~~
pmontra
Anything can happen. We're always at the mercy of the busines decisions of our
technology providers. In this case Google can keep the protocol stable and
stop supporting the client to the point it stops working after an update of
your distro. If you want to be nearly 100% safe you self host whatever the
price and the time you have to pour in. Personally I use Syncthing over my
home network.

------
diwu1989
Google has a private linux drive client. It's in use in Google Colab:
[https://colab.research.google.com/notebooks/io.ipynb](https://colab.research.google.com/notebooks/io.ipynb)

------
teleforce
On a related note and hopefully not off-topic, there's a OneDrive Linux client
written in D language [1],[2]:

[1]
[https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/](https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/)

[2]
[https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-365/onedrive-o...](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-365/onedrive-
on-linux/m-p/1318644)

~~~
drocer88
Any reason to use this over rclone? Do you have to use a web browser to get
the key?

~~~
teleforce
I've never used rclone but according to the OneDrive Client for Linux (OCL)
maintainer it does support OneDrive Personal, Business, Office365 and
Sharepoint including shared folders for Personal and Business. It also fully
supports Azure National Cloud Deployments.

To get the key you need to use the web browser to complete the set up.

------
askvictor
Interestingly, it does exist as a fuse driver, as can be seen in ChromeOS if
you try to open a file (say a PDF) from Drive in the browser, it shows a file
path of /media/fuse/.../ . Google have just chosen not to release it
publically.

~~~
ajphdiv
[https://github.com/dsoprea/GDriveFS](https://github.com/dsoprea/GDriveFS)

Fuse driver wrapper

------
blickentwapft
Saves them the trouble of canceling it.

~~~
beached_whale
This seems to be the lesson of Google. If you depend on the service, find
someone else and pay them. Too many services are decommissioned, and if they
are replaced it often is very different. Outside of search/email, it is a risk

~~~
harikb
For the record, Google drive is not being decommissioned.

~~~
beached_whale
The uncertainty is the problem. Until recently I had fairly slow broadband,
weeks to sync initially. Changing providers is often do it again, loose
history either way, or pay another provider per GB to do it.

The lack of official Linux client was the killer for me years ago, but prior
to fibre internet the uncertainty was a big issue too.

People want to plan around services like this remaining. Nothing is certain,
but the news quite often talks about Google dropping another service.

------
taldo
Supporting all the weird combinations of kernels and desktop environments and
such must be a pain. There was an (internal only) FUSE client, but, as a good
google3 binary, had a ton of internal stuff linked, and those can't get out of
corp desktop/laptops (might not even work, who knows).

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
This is actually not a hard problem at all. Slack, Steam, heck even Google
Chrome have no problems across various distros, and all have pretty good
toolbar icon support, notifications, etc.

~~~
harikb
None of them deal with trying to provide a file system interface right?

If you want to compare, compare to Dropbox.

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
What does that have to do with desktop environments?

------
JZL003
I also read somewhere (can't find the link now) that there is an internal
gDrive client used by google employees (maybe an (ex-)employee can comment)
but which was never released

~~~
iamcreasy
Is this[1] what you are referring to?

[1] [https://github.com/odeke-em/drive](https://github.com/odeke-em/drive)

~~~
JZL003
Yeah I think so

------
crawsome
You... don't want their clients, to be honest. I've seen some serious team-
breaking bugs all because someone's mouse slipped and a team folder was
dragged to a recycle bin.

------
throwaway2048
In the meantime you can use rclone, which is a fantastic tool for accessing
cloud storage/ftp/sftp/anything with a single tool, including the ability to
encrypt and cache data as well as mount volumes via FUSE.

[https://rclone.org/](https://rclone.org/)

one of my absolute top GOTO tools.

------
ashtonkem
The google drive OSX client is surprisingly lack luster, as it’s merely
mounted like a pseudo drive rather than even meeting the standard Dropbox met
years ago. Given that they won’t write a decent OSX client, I’m unsurprised
they haven’t followed through on their promises to an even less popular OS.

------
deeg
I gave up on waiting for Google and ended up using Syncthing on HN's
recommendation.

~~~
hiq
Syncthing is awesome. The next feature I hope they'll manage to get in is
"encrypted devices", to allow the use of VPS and other less-trusted devices
without losing much in terms of security.

I would be really uneasy to let a third-party have access to my files, when
there are such good alternatives.

------
buss
It won't ever come. I use InSync on ubuntu and it works exceptionally well. I
actually upgraded to the paid 200GB Google drive plan because I started using
Drive dramatically more once I installed InSync.

~~~
comperem
Insync is outstanding
([https://www.insynchq.com/](https://www.insynchq.com/)). It's better than the
native Google Backup and Sync and works in Linux with multiple desktop
variants. It also syncs MS OneDrive. One time purchase. It works great.

------
Lammy
This should be on infinite loop in an <audio> tag:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXksOtVbxo8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXksOtVbxo8)

------
ISL
Is a client even required? If Drive were to implement a sufficiently-secure
NFS connection, isn't that enough?

If I could NFS-mount Drive from within fstab, Google would earn even more of
my money.

~~~
1propionyl
> If I could <use standard protocol or API reliably>, Google would earn more
> of my money.

This is wishful thinking. Across their product line Google extends and abuses
common standards, or more frequently rolls their own parallel which dominates
by virtue of convenience and userbase.

Try using an organizational (GSuite) Google Calendar account from any app that
isn't Google Calendar, and it'll quickly become clear that this use-case
simply isn't optimized for. Simple things like sharing calendars with write
access don't work without finding a particular settings page that hasn't been
updated since 2009.

There is also no API for room reservation systems if an organization is using
Google Calendar for those that I can find.

And of course, need I mention the casualties of RSS compatible Reader and
XMPP/Jabber compatible GTalk?

The parallel to Microsoft's 90s EEE modus operandi is plainly evident. But
with Google, it even stretches into web standards. Google has shown little
interest in being a good citizen of an open protocol-based ecosystem, except
at first to get new users into the walls before they close the gates.

~~~
ISL
Without wishful thought, how can one make wishes?

Standards compliance is good for customers. What is good for customers is
ultimately good for the company.

------
jasonmar
What does the client need to do? Which would be more useful, desktop GUI or
command line? Would it be ok if the client runs on the jvm? Should it be
deployed as a systemd service?

------
every
Not sure if this qualifies but I have Debian on Chrome OS. For me Google Drive
is nothing but a symbolic link that I pass stuff back and forth on...

------
Normille
Ubuntu file manager has mounting of Google Drive built in. So I've not really
noticed the lack of a native client.

~~~
aembleton
How do you do that? When I go to File > Connect to Sever then Google Drive
isn't an option.

Is it somewhere else?

~~~
Normille
If you add your Google account in 'Settings > Online Accounts' then, in the
file manager sidebar right at the bottom, click 'Other Locations' and your
Google Drive should be listed there under the 'Networks' heading as
'<yourname>@gmail.com'.

 _[DISCLAIMER: I 'm 99% sure that was all that was involved. But I set up that
Linux box quite a while back. So apologies if I've forgotten a step and am
misleading people!]_

------
nabeards
I use odrive, works better than any native cloud client IMO. Connects to
Google Drive and many others.

------
harikb
What Google product managers meant to write was “We will release as soon as we
hit the year of the ‘Linux on the Desktop’”. I say, they are still waiting..

~~~
sukilot
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu

~~~
notRobot
Interesting! Clickable link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu)

------
mcs5280
rclone seems to work well enough with Drive for my purposes

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
rclone does work, and quite well, but it's not a _sync_ client; it lets you do
a one-off upload/download, or FUSE-mount, neither of which are quite the same
thing

~~~
ac29
You could use a systemd timer (or similar) to run sync once a minute or
something along those lines. Its not quite the same, but for most peoples
purposes itd probably be fine.

------
nautilus12
Wanna make one for pixel watch too

------
zmarty
Don't worry, the Windows one is pure garbage.

------
api
It was found written inside the kings chamber of the great pyramid?

