On 2012-05-19, at 4:09 AM, Dr Andrew C Aitchison wrote:

> On Fri, 18 May 2012, Christopher Tooley wrote:
> 
>> Dropbox works fantastically with Scientific Linux,
>> and it's been around for a while now.
> 
> Which SL and which DropBox implementation are you using ?

[root@<computer> ~]# cat /<NotRootUserHomeDir>/.dropbox-dist/VERSION && echo "" && cat /etc/redhat-release 
1.2.52
Scientific Linux release 6.0 (Carbon)

So, it's a slightly older version (OS and DB)

> The packages I've tried either on SL5 didn't install
> or run daemons as root - which I consider totally unacceptable
> on a multi-user system.

I assume you've tried these instructions?
https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx

Maybe they've changed since the last time? Dropbox is pretty active with their development.

> "Selective Sync" - which appears to be new since I looked at
> DropBox - may be the answer, but there used to be a requirement
> that you kept as much free disk space on your computer as your
> DropBox account had. That is a major issue when the DropBox
> default quota is larger than the default quota we give our users.

Ah.  I am unsure if this requirement has changed.

-Chris