After installing the beta of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala this evening, I tried to install Dropbox using the 9.04 deb, with very little luck indeed! The magical Dropbox team haven’t yet released a deb for 9.10, which is understandable as it has only just gone beta! So I got to work to find a way to install Dropbox on the Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala beta. You can either wait until a deb is released, or be brave and give my guide a go!
First, you need to download the Dropbox 9.04 Source code from the bottom of the download page.
Secondly, you should right-click on the file that you have just downloaded and click “Extract Here“.
Thirdly, navigate to System > Administration > Software Sources and select the “Other Sources” tab. In the box below you need to check “http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu karmic partner“. Click “Close” and then in the dialogue box that appears, select “Reload“.
Wait for the download to complete and then open a Terminal window by going to Applications > Accessories and clicking “Terminal”.
Now enter the following command into the Terminal window:
sudo apt-get install libnautilus-extension-dev libnotify-dev python-docutils
Hit enter and wait for a few seconds, then type Y and hit enter again to agree to download and install the 80mb(ish) files. Once this is complete you have just installed the dependencies we will use to compile our own Dropbox deb. Woah! Calm down! I know I said “compile” but do not fret! I will hold your hand along the way!
Right, now that you are over the initial scare of compiling we shall continue by navigating to where you have just downloaded the file via the Terminal. Presumably, you downloaded the file to a Downloads folder within your home folder. Therefore, we need to type the following in the Terminal to navigate to the correct location:
cd Downloads/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1/
This means change directory (cd) to the folder to “/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1/” inside of Downloads. If you extracted “nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1″ onto the Desktop you would write the command cd /Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1/
Once inside the correct folder we will begin to compile the source code. Enter the following commands one at a time in the Terminal:
./configure
make
sudo make install
The terminal will ask for your password so that it can perform these tasks as root. Enter your password and hit enter.
Note: Don’t worry, you aren’t supposed to see any characters as you type your password in a Terminal 
Well done! You had compiled and installed the Dropbox installer. Now just log out and then log back in again, navigate to “Applications > Internet > Dropbox” and click OK to download and install the Dropbox daemon. Then just enter your details & happy Dropboxing!
If you have any problems with this, please feel free to leave a comment below!
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4 Responses
You wrote:
cd /Downloads/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1/
You probably meant:
cd ~/Downloads/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1/
Or:
cd Downloads/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1/
(if we can assume that we are already in the home directory)
“see any characters a you type” should be “… as you type”.
Hey Chris,
You are right! I have made the appropriate adjustments to the post.
Thanks for taking the time to point them out!
Here is a referral!
https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTg0NDAxOQ
Thanks!