Wish Dropbox had ARM Support

Story: Python creator Guido van Rossum joins DropboxTotal Replies: 11
Author Content
Jeff91

Dec 11, 2012
3:42 PM EDT
Alas with all my recent devices becoming ARM dropbox is becoming more and more uselss because they refuse to support any sort of Linux arm. Which is a shame - because it is really pretty good software.

~Jeff
DrGeoffrey

Dec 11, 2012
6:23 PM EDT
If Dropbox cannot see the handwriting on the wall, they will be come as irrelevant as MS is becoming.
Steven_Rosenber

Dec 11, 2012
7:28 PM EDT
Dropbox makes such a big deal out of its Python base being easy to recompile on various platforms that you'd think a build for Linux ARM would be easy to do.

But given the very few consumer devices out there that run Linux ARM on the desktop, I don't see it happening until that situation changes.
Jeff91

Dec 11, 2012
8:44 PM EDT
Yep Steven. Over a year ago there was a thread on the Dropbox forums asking for ARM Linux support with over 10k posts... Shame they don't listen to user feedback.

~Jeff
DiBosco

Dec 12, 2012
6:22 AM EDT
Unless I'm missing something, it does support ARM. It runs on my Galaxy Note and Galaxy S3, both of which are ARM based.
CFWhitman

Dec 12, 2012
9:40 AM EDT
Dropbox on Android is running on the Dalvik virtual machine, not directly on ARM. It doesn't help people who have a Raspberry Pi, a Genesi Smartbook, an old Nokia N900, an OpenPandora, etc. running Linux.
Jeff91

Dec 12, 2012
10:07 AM EDT
Android is just a giant Java machine.

Whenever I say Linux ARM I mean real Linux operating systems.

~Jeff
DiBosco

Dec 12, 2012
11:41 AM EDT
Fair enough. I must say I was under the impression you could write non-Java apps on Android as well though. Qt is being tested on it now AFAIK.

One of the few areas where Jobs was right was keeping Java away from iOS. It really is bonkers relying so much on a virtual machine for such low spec hardware.
Jeff91

Dec 12, 2012
12:54 PM EDT
How do you know what goes on inside iOS DiBosco? You find some source code the rest of us haven't seen yet?

~Jeff
CFWhitman

Dec 12, 2012
1:02 PM EDT
Quoting:One of the few areas where Jobs was right was keeping Java away from iOS. It really is bonkers relying so much on a virtual machine for such low spec hardware.
You make a good point about the overhead involved in a virtual machine.

On the other hand there is a very specific reason why Android (Windows RT as well now) uses a virtual machine. Using Dalvik makes it so that there exist ARM based devices, MIPS based devices, and x86 based devices that all run the same Android apps.

Of course, if the virtual machine solved everything, then Intel wouldn't have created Houdini for their x86 based Android devices, but there is a purpose behind it.
DiBosco

Dec 13, 2012
10:07 AM EDT
Jeff, I have no idea exactly what goes on inside iOS; I do know developers use objective C to write apps, not Java. I don't need iOS source code to know this seems like a better way than Java from a speed point of view. Even allowing for the fact that Android Java is [so I have read] not as slow as on a desktop.
Steven_Rosenber

Dec 13, 2012
1:52 PM EDT
if ARM starts to gain any kind of traction in the desktop-computing space, I expect Dropbox to build for it.

This is another case where open-source solutions can be way quicker off the mark.

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