How to Update Dropbox to the Latest Experimental Build Using dbupdate [HOWTO]

It’s great to have the Dropbox installed on your Ubuntu machine, but what if you want to keep it on the cutting edge?  It’s possible to visit the Dropbox forums and check for the latest experimental builds everyday, but that gets very tedious and annoying.  Thankfully, Dustin B. over at the Dropbox forums wrote a script/application, titled dbupdate, that automatically downloads the latest experimental build.

How to install dbupdate.

There are a few different options on how to use this script.

Option 1: Download the dbupdate script and run it as a bash script.

Note: the below code corresponds to version 2.10 of the dbupdate script and will not work with future releases.  I recommend installing dbupdate via the repository (see option 3 below).

Run the following code in Terminal.

1.  Download the script.

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1108539/dbupdate/dbupdate0.2.10

2.  Make the script executable.

chmod +x dbupdate0.2.10

3.  Run the script and check is there is a Dropbox update.

./dbupdate0.2.10 -c

4.  Run the script and upgrade Dropbox.

./dbupdate0.2.10 -u

Optional: The script can also be installed via the script by running the following code.

sudo ./dbupdate0.2.10 -i0

Option 2: Download and install the deb files.

Note: the below code corresponds to version 2.10 of the dbupdate-bin deb file and version 2.5 of the debupdate deb file and will not work with future releases.  I recommend installing dbupdate via the repository (see option 3 below).

Run the following code in Terminal.

1.  Download the deb files.

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1108539/dbupdate/dbupdate-0.2.5.deb && wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1108539/dbupdate/dbupdate-bin-0.2.10.deb

Alternative: Download the deb files over at the Dropbox forums.

2.  Install the dependencies.

sudo apt-get -y --force-yes install libnotify-bin

3.  Install the deb files.

sudo dpkg -i dbupdate-bin-0.2.10.deb
sudo dpkg -i dbupdate-0.2.5.deb

4. Cleanup the deb files.

rm dbupdate-0.2.5.deb && rm dbupdate-bin-0.2.10.deb

5.  Proceed to Update Dropbox section below.

Option 3 (recommended): Install via the repository.

The advantage to using the repository is that the most recent version of dbupdate is installed and dbupdate is automatically updated when a new version is released.

Run the following code in Terminal.

1.  Add the dbupdate repository.

echo "deb http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1108539/dbupdate ./ #dbupdate" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dbupdate.list

2.  Add the dbupdate public key.

wget --quiet http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1108539/db.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

3.  Update the repository.

sudo apt-get update

4.  Install dbupdate

sudo apt-get -y --force-yes install dbupdate

5.  Proceed to Update Dropbox section below.

Update Dropbox

It’s very easy to update Dropbox using dbupdate.

Run the following code in Terminal.

1.  Check if there is a Dropbox update.

dbupdate -c

2.  Update dbupdate

dbupdate -u

To see a list of all of the supported dbupdate command options.

man dbupdate

or

dbupdate -h

Below is a little video of dbupdate in action.

Note:  The video is a little out of date so the commands shown in the video may not work with the current version of dbupdate.

One of the latest updates to Dropbox is the introduction of custom status icons.  A future HOWTO post will outline how to download and install custom status icons.

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