SOLVED: bit of difficulty getting Dropbox to autostart

griennehornette · posted: 2011-05-10 17:12

First of all, antiX 11 is fantastic! I broke my system a couple of weeks ago - not bad timing, considering antiX and MEPIS were poised for final releases - and limped-along with liveCD stuff until I could download and install antix 11.

It is more than worth the wait. In fact, I installed a large new HDD after breaking my old system, and partitioned it with many partitions, thinking it would be fun to have multiple boot options such as MEPIS and Puppy and maybe a distro-of-the-month partition.

All those partitions sit empty. antix 11 is doing it all, and I have felt no inclination to install anything else.

Now, on to my question: about Dropbox. It's a bit of a pain-in-the-body-part-of-choice to install. This thread partly worked:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2542&hilit=dropbox install

Dropbox did not, however, load-up after I rebooted. Nor does it show-up when I use the quickie launcher in LXDE. Usually I can type the first letter or two, and a list of options comes up. I can type dropbox in full, and the launcher doesn't appear to see it.

Oh, to clarify, I'm putzing around with LXDE rather than IceWM. Perhaps that's my problem...

I tried following instructions I found somewhere online, re: building a .desktop file. Built a little file, and saved it both to /usr/share/applications and ~/.config/autostart. No dice.

My next step will be checking ownership and permission stuff; a nemesis of mine which has often caused me grief. Mostly because my understanding of it is sketchy, and my approach to setting permissions is very patchwork. I'm at work now, so I'll check permissions tonight when I get home.

I thought I'd post, in case my post rings any bells for anyone, re: other possible culprits.

Anyhoo, 'tis certainly a minor inconvenience. Overall, I'm thrilled with the new antiX!

griennehornette
aka Chris

buttcoffee · posted: 2011-05-10 22:11

I'm confused, is dropbox installed? Here's where you can get the deb package for it instead of compiling it.
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://blog.tuinslak.org/2011/02/dropbox-debian/"
linktext was:"https://blog.tuinslak.org/2011/02/dropbox-debian/"
====================================
It's from the linux int debian edition and it worked on my computer, so maybe it will install on yours.

I don't know anything about lxde, but this looks like the way to autostart on app on lxde

forgot to add the other link
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://wiki.linuxwall.info/doku.php/en:ressources:astuces:lxde_debian_autostart"
linktext was:"http://wiki.linuxwall.info/doku.php/en: ... _autostart"
====================================

griennehornette · posted: 2011-05-12 11:49

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes, dropbox is installed; it's just not autostarting. The second link you provided was interesting, and gave me some good information on .desktop files.

A weird thing happens with the dropbox.desktop file I created. Initially, the file looks like this:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
Exec=/home/griennehornette/.dropbox-dist/dropbox
Name=Dropbox
Icon=/home/griennehornette/.dropbox-dist/icons/emblems/emblem-dropbox-app.svg

After I save the file, and then click on it to start Dropbox, I notice that the file is changed to this:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
Exec=$/home/griennehornette/.dropbox-dist/dropbox
Name=Dropbox
Icon=$HOME/home/griennehornette/.dropbox-dist/icons/emblems/emblem-dropbox-app.svg

Where'd the $ come from in the"Exec" line?
Where'd the $HOME come from in the"Icon" line?

After these changes, I can no longer click on dropbox.desktop to start it. I get an error message telling me that $/home/griennehornette/.dropbox-dist/dropbox does not exist.

Now, the second link you provided buttcoffee (har! great name!) gets into stuff like XDG_CONFIG_HOME which is more than a bit over my head; but perhaps is the critter adding dollar signs and stuff to my file... (?)

griennehornette

griennehornette · posted: 2011-05-13 00:11

Yee frickin' haw!

I do believe I have done it. At least, the little Dropbox icon loaded in my right-hand panel by itself when I just logged-out and back in.

The dramatic story:

I noticed the stuff in the post above. I spent more time than my employer would probably be pleased with, googling $HOME and related things at work today. Fascinating, but ultimately unnecessary stuff. I still don't know why dropbox.desktop gets re-written with dollar signs, etc. But at this point, I'm happy to be ignorant.

I saw some advice on a forum post somewhere, suggesting a look-see at other .desktop files on one's own system. This indicated to me that the .desktop files on my system did not need to specify long directory names in the Exec line. My primitive linux knowledge was enough to know that meant the applications had to be on the"PATH."

Had to google PATH again, to recall how to find it and stuff. Then checked the directories on my PATH. Sho'nuff dropbox was nowhere to be seen. Simply copying the dropbox executable file from /home/griennehornette/.dist-dropbox to one of the directories on the PATH did not work.

So I tried creating a symbolic link from the PATH to the file in /home/griennehornette/.dist-dropbox. Then I edited the dropbox.desktop file in the autostart directory; with Exec=dropbox. Logged-out and back in, and I have the little blue box beside the clock in my panel.

When I did a full reboot however, no little blue box. Realized the old version of dropbox.desktop was still lurking in /usr/share/applications. Deleted it, re-edited dropbox.desktop in my /home directory, rebooted, and voila - the cheerful little blue box.

As they say in some part of Britain (at least on TV, which is as close as I've ever been):
Noice!

GH

dolphin_oracle · posted: 2011-05-14 18:40

They way I ended up autostarting dropbox was to issue the command line command from my flux autostart menu.