PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Canonical announced the file services for Ubuntu One has been discontinued.  Your data is available for download until the end of July – if you haven’t taken action already, you need to do so now in order to ensure you have a copy of all your data.

In order to make it easy for you to retrieve all of your content, Ubuntu has released a new feature that lets you download all your content at once. The website https://one.ubuntu.com/ has been updated with instructions on how to conveniently download all your files.

In addition, you still can use Mover.io’s offer to transfer your data to another cloud provider for free. And the Ubuntu One web interface is available for you to download individual files.

https://mover.io/connectors/ubuntu-one/

The previously announced option of downloading your files as a zip file is producing unreliable results for a small number of users and therefore that option has been removed. If you already retrieved your files as a zip file, Ubuntu encourages you to check for the validity of the zip file contents. If there are problems with that file, please use one of the options above to retrieve a complete copy of your data.

Remember that you will have until 31st July 2014 to collect all of your content. After that date, all remaining content will be deleted.

The Ubuntu One team

NOTE: To remove the annoying “Ubuntu One is closing down soon” pop ups, you can remove Ubuntu one with the following terminal command (I used this and it worked fine):

sudo apt-get autoremove –purge python-ubuntuone-storageprotocol

Just make sure it doesnt try to remove “ubuntu-desktop” Alternatively, if you dont trust the command line, Go into the Software Center and search for “python-ubuntuone-storageprotocol” and uninstall that.

Now that Ubuntu One is shutting down we continue to look for other alternatives. There is Grive which syncs your Google Drive files and there is Dropbox… both work fine. Grive is limited and Dropbox is expensive.

There is another option you might consider. Insync is probably the most powerful Google Drive client available. Insync extends Drive’s web functionality to your desktop by integrating tightly with Windows, Mac and Linux so you can get work done. Pricing is very affordable. Best yet you can try it out for free for 15 days. Insync supports a variety of linux distributions. Go to their website to download your appropriate install file. For Ubuntu users you will want the 32 bit or 64 bit DEB.

https://www.insynchq.com/

Here are some Insync features: Linux support, multiple Google accounts, convert Google Docs to Office, built-in sharing without a browser, support for external & network drives, recent changes feed, desktop notifications, right-click share, on-demand shared files syncing, selective sync all folders + files folders you own, name your own folder, revert read-only files, *awesome* support.

Setup is easy. Just install the DEB file and when you start Insync for the first time it will walk you through connecting your Google Drive account. Once installed you will have an Insync indicator on your top panel as seen in the photo above. Clicking it shows you the options available which is far more then what Grive-tools can do.

Dropbox is a quality alternative to Ubuntu One which will be disappearing soon. Dropbox works well in Ubuntu and is easy to set up by downloading a DEB file and installing it. The integration and file syncing across computers and devices is perfect. Dropbox ONLY offers 2.5GB for free and charges $99 USD per year for 100GB of space. I wont go into too much detail here since most computer users know about Dropbox, but it is one of the top options instead of Ubuntu One.

https://www.dropbox.com/install

Dropbox is what I currently use (as well as Ubuntu One), but I am looking at other options that work just as good. Look for another article soon covering other alternatives to Ubuntu One.

With the recent announcement that Ubuntu One is shutting down its services, its time to find some alternatives.

Google Drive offers 15GB of free storage. Not bad. If you need more room, Google charges only $2 per month for 100GB of storage space. If you dont mind the intrusive nature of Google, this is a cheap possibility. Unfortunately there is no native client in Ubuntu/linux for Google Drive. However…

There is a command line tool called “grive” and thanks to thefanclub a great app called grive-tools was created as a GUI for grive.

Grive-tools works great on Ubuntu 12.10 or newer and Linux Mint 14 or newer. As you can see in the screenshot above, there is a nice Google Drive indicator.

To install grive-tools, input these two commands into a terminal…

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thefanclub/grive-tools
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install grive grive-tools

If you need to install it on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, its a bit tricky (I could not get it to work) using these instructions HERE.

Grive-tools for Google Drive is basic but it gets the job done. Check out our next couple of articles for more options to Ubuntu One. if you are looking for something with more features that supports Google Drive, give Insync a try. I really like it so far!

Cloud storage has been all the rage for a while now. Ubuntu One offers 5GB of free storage. It works beautifully on newer versions of Ubuntu like 12.04 and 12.10, but not so well on older versions forcing me to look for an alternative.

Cloud storage apps like Dropbox and and SpiderOak work well and have Ubuntu clients, but only offer 2GB of free space. Google Drive offers 5GB of storage yet oddly it has no linux client. It can be made to work with a 3rd party app, but not so simple to get going. Ubuntu One and Dropbox are probably the easiest choices for Ubuntu users who want an absolutely hassle free “just works” client where you dont need a lot of storage space.

In comes Wuala with a full 5GB of free space. Wuala is a secure storage space that allows for storing, syncing, sharing and publishing and works everywhere… Linux, Windows, Mac, and on mobile devices.

Wuala works great on all versions of Ubuntu and has a simple indicator app for the panel (as with all images in our articles, click the image above to see it larger). From the image you can see the Waula client in the left box which gives you a huge array of preferences and the ability to see the upload % of all your files. The right box in the photo above shows Waula “drive” in Nautilus. The panel applet shows if there are any file transfers going on and mousing over the indicator shows the up/down speeds. You can also pause syncing from the indicator.

Waula can be added to your startup apps so it works more like U1 or Dropbox (which autostart on login). Go to your “startup applications > add” and then for the app name type in “wuala” and for command also type in “wuala”.

You can get Wuala for free here (I get some extra storage if you try it out)…

http://www.wuala.com/

One of my fave artists, Ziggy Marley just released his new album TODAY and there it is already in the Ubuntu One Music Store.

His brother Stephen Marley released his CD a month ago…

While not everyone is a reggae music fan like I am, it showcases some of the great artists available in the Ubuntu One Music Store. Ive downloaded great stuff from Brigitte Bardot, Kitty Davis, Louis Armstrong, America, The Eagles, Kermit Ruffins and more.

(begin natty rant) Ive experienced more than my share of problems with Ubuntu Natty Narwhal 11.04 since its release at the end of April. I made a decision to go back to 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. I am in need of getting things done (for once) and just want my Ubuntu to work without problems, which was virtually impossible with Natty. (end natty rant)

That said, one of the glaring issues Ive always had with 10.10 Maverick was UbuntuOne never quite working right. It would time out, disconnect, never reconnect, etc. I basically never got U1 to work properly, spending countless hours reading the Ubuntu Forums and chatting with the U1 team in IRC. My ONLY problem Ive ever had with 10.10 was UbuntuOne and I was set on fixing it.

One program that DID work great in 11.04 was UbuntuOne. It was flawless. it was everything I ever dreamed of in an auto syncing file cloud world. Pure bliss, and the 11.04 U1 control panel rocked. So I set to get it working in 10.10. Could it be done? YUP and I am an extremely happy camper now.

Its pretty simple so lets get to it…

1 – You need to install the UbuntuOne “Nightlies” PPA

To do this, go to “System > Administration > Software Sources”. If its not listed there, then go to “Applications > Ubuntu Software Center” and click the “edit” tab and then click on Software Sources.

Enter your password when it asks. After the Software Sources opens up, click the second tab marked “Other Software”. Click the “add’ button. Paste this in… ppa:ubuntuone/nightlies and then click “add source”. Click close and then click reload when it asks.

2 – Run a system update

“System > Administration > Update Manager” and it should install anything new or needed for UbuntuOne from the PPA you just added. Great job if you have made it this far

3 – Last Step, The Control Panel

Open up a terminal “Applications > Accessories > Terminal” (or you could also press CTRL + ALT + T) and paste in sudo apt-get install ubuntuone-control-panel and that should install the new UbuntuOne control panel which you can find once installed in “System > Preferences”. Thats it! Ubuntu One finally works great (and fast) in 10.10 Maverick Meerkat!

Hope this helps.