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cepstralspike's avatar
cepstralspike
Helpful | Level 6
4 years ago

Ubuntu 20.04 install to alternate folder (not in home directory).

Trying to  make "Dropbox" folder land in  alternate folder (not in home directory). I tried several methods but was unsuccessful. I've done it on windows 10 without trouble. I got it to  work on Ubuntu 18.04 a while back. But can't seem to make it happen on 20.04. I have 2 hard drives on my laptop. I don't want to use my home directory. Has anyone out there that has done this? Thanks.

  • Здравко's avatar
    Здравко
    4 years ago

    Aha... I see. Your problem is a GUI problem actually.

    Dropbox has lot of troubles related to taskbar icon. Seems like some inconsistent/bad coding practice, making code unstable. There are lot of signals related to different "symptoms" of missing or inconsistent icon/menus showing. Your description is just a possible issue from bunch of such.

    You can try workaround the icon issue (to some extent, at least) by using alternative way of launching the application. First make sure your application isn't running. Check status using following command:

    dropbox status

    If need, shut the application down using:

    dropbox stop

    Check again the status, to be sure.

    After that, run Dropbox application anew using following command:

    dbus-launch dropbox start

    Wait for a minute to see if the icon appears and access to menu and Preferences exists. 🧐 On success, will be able move your folder. 😉

    You can use above command by default for Dropbox launch, if you want. Just a small change in the Dropbox' desktop file is needed. Run following command, in such a case:

    sudo sed -i "s/Exec=dropbox start -i/Exec=dbus-launch dropbox start/" /usr/share/applications/dropbox.desktop

     Hope this helps.

  • Здравко's avatar
    Здравко
    Legendary | Level 20

    Hi cepstralspike,

    Is the "Move..." button missing from "Sync" tab on "Dropbox Preferences"? 🧐 What actually doesn't work? Can you post a screenshot of missing things, if any?

    • cepstralspike's avatar
      cepstralspike
      Helpful | Level 6

      I don't an icon to open that would let me access a "preferences" dialog. I was hoping to avoid a full sync and send my files to the correct hard drive on the first sync.

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