The GNOME project has taken some very important steps towards proper integration of Google Drive straight into the operating system, and it looks like we’re going to be able to use it in just a few months.
The GNOME devs have kept this under wraps, but the fact that Google Drive will be available by default is quite a big step. To be clear, they are not developing a client for Google Driver, they are integrating the function straight into GNOME, which in some ways is even better.
Google Drive is just one of the multiple storage solutions that don’t have their own clients, like Dropbox, for example. For some weird reason, Google doesn’t want to give Linux users their client. There have been a couple of open-source alternatives, but they haven’t been maintained for a long time. There is at least one very good commercial solution, but it’s not all that popular on Linux, as you might imagine.
Google Drive to be integrated via Online Accounts
When users connect their Online Accounts to Google, the folder will then appear in the Favorites, and users will be able to access it more easily, and it will be available from other apps as well.
“GNOME 3.18 is going to be another milestone in our journey to bring various online services closer to the desktop, but this is one that took us six years to reach. You can now access your Google Drive through your favourite GNOME applications, and the usual GIO APIs Thibault Saunier started working on this way back in 2009 as a Google Summer of Code project. I picked it up a year ago, and after a few hiccups along the way and some head scratching – more on that later – it is finally here for you to enjoy,” wrote developer Debarshi Ray.
You can either wait for the release of Fedora 23 to check out the new feature or you can try the latest GNOME packages right now, although they are still in Beta.
Via Softpedia