Monday, 8 October 2018

Mounting your Google Drive as a file system on OpenSUSE Linux (42.3)


Mounting your Google Drive as a file system on OpenSUSE Linux (42.3)

I know I've talked about this in the past and some of you have been using it for a long time as well, but I never really felt like it was the best solution. I kept hoping something better would come along, or Google themselves would stop being dicks and release a proper, official Google Drive Client for Linux. Alas neither has happened and the OCAML solution isn't that bad actually. So here it is.
If you're not using OpenSUSE, oh well, you'll have to figure out the install part for yourself, but the setting up and running should be similar.

For OpenSUSE 42.3 users, just do as follows, for users of other OpenSUSE releases, you can go to the repo link in your browser, hit up (parent dir) and move into the folder for your version and copy the repo link and substitute that into the following.

Step 1 - Open a root shell
Step 2 - type
zypper ar https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/inescid:/grid/openSUSE_Leap_42.3/home:inescid:grid.repo
Step 3 - type
zypper in google-drive-ocamlfuse
Answer "a" when asked about trusting the repo.
Step 4 - leave root shell, go to regular user shell
Step 5 - Make a directory to mount your Google Drive on, eg.
mkdir ~/G-Drive
Step 6 - Run the application
google-drive-ocamlfuse
Step 7 - Authorize the application
step 6 should have caused a browser window to pop up and taken you to your Google Login page. Login, pick your google account with the G-Drive you want to mount, and follow the directions to allow the ocaml client to access your G-Drive.
Step 8 - Be patient.
Wait until the following message appears in the terminal window under the command you typed in step 6.
"Access token retrieved correctly."
Step 9 - Mount your G Drive by typing
google-drive-ocamlfuse ~/G-Drive
Step 10 - Test / Enjoy
Either type ls ~/G-Drive or open it in your file manager