This guide details the installation of the desktop app kDrive Infomaniak on a computer with a Linux operating system. It will then allow you to synchronize your computer files with kDrive.

Preamble

• On this OS, some kDrive features are not available, such as the Lite Sync option or the right-click context menu.
• The kDrive app is officially supported by Infomaniak only on the following systems:
  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (and later)
  • Desktop environments: GNOME or KDE
• The application may work on other Linux distributions or with other desktop environments; however, Infomaniak provides no support for installing or running the application outside of the configurations mentioned above.

Installing kDrive on Linux

Prerequisites

• Download the desktop app kDrive for Linux (file of type .AppImage)
• Fuse2 (required to run a appimage):
  • Since version 23.04 (and later) of Ubuntu, after double-clicking on the AppImage file, nothing will happen.
  • The latest versions of Ubuntu indeed use a "too" recent version of FUSE (the "Filesystem in User Space" interface on which AppImages rely to work) for which AppImages are not designed.
  • AppImages need FUSE v2 to work: sudo apt install libfuse2
• D-Bus
• Gnome-keyring or kwallet (in principle already present on your machine except with some light distributions)

Then:

1. Place the file in a folder named for example "Applications".
2. Right-click on the file and choose Permissions.
3. Check the box "Allow executing file as a program."

To ensure kDrive runs on startup, add the file to “Startup Application Preferences” or similar.

Known issues and solutions

Synchronization stuck or "Inotify watches" error

If synchronization appears to be stuck (e.g., step 1/10) or if the logs indicate the error Out of memory or limit number of inotify watches reached!, this means the system limit for monitoring folders has been reached.

• Check the current limit: cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches
• Increase the limit: to double the value (e.g., change to 131072), run: 
  echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=131072 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf 
  Then apply with: sudo sysctl -p

App crashes on startup (AppArmor / Wayland)

On some versions of Ubuntu (24.04+) or Debian, the AppArmor security feature may block the login window from opening.

• AppArmor Solution: install the utilities: sudo apt install apparmor-utils. Then create the profile for kDrive: sudo aa-autodep /path/to/your/kDrive.AppImage and restart the service: sudo service apparmor restart.
• Wayland Conflict: if the app crashes specifically under Wayland, try forcing the use of X11 by launching the app via the terminal with the command: 
  export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb && ./kDrive.AppImage

Icon or window display issues

• Invisible Icon (Gnome): install the AppIndicator Support extension; note that the Dash to Panel extension is known to make app menus invisible and is not recommended.
• Unable to open the summary window: ensure that the libraries libfuse2 and libdbus-1-dev are installed on your system.
• KDE Wayland: if the interface does not display correctly, add these lines to your ~/.config/kdeglobals file: [QtQuickRendererSettings] RenderLoop=basic SceneGraphBackend=opengl

Error saving credentials (Keychain)

If kDrive prompts for your credentials on every startup or indicates an error Failed to save authentication info to keychain:

• Ensure that a password manager (Gnome Keyring or KWallet) is installed and unlocked.
• Check that the D-Bus service org.freedesktop.secrets is configured. If you are using KWallet, the file /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.secrets.service must contain: [D-BUS Service]\nName=org.freedesktop.secrets\nExec=/usr/bin/kwalletd5

Using AppImageLauncher

If you are using AppImageLauncher and the integration fails, make sure to use a version equal to or higher than 3.0.0 (beta 2) to support the kDrive file compression format.

Debugging in case of persistent crash

If the application crashes without an error message, you can generate a report for analysis by extracting the last lines of the system log: \xa0
journalctl -r -n 1000 > kdrive_syslog.txt