How To Mount Google Drive on Linux

Posted on Jul 15, 2013 by Eric Ma In Linux

Google Drive is nice cloud storage which provide document editing features. However, it does not yet provide a Linux client. I find a good third party tool that works with Google Drive on Linux very well: google-drive-ocamlfuse.

The website of google-drive-ocamlfuse provides easy to follow instructions to install it. In this tutorial, we show a more convenient method using opam.

Table of Contents

Install opam

If you have not installed opam, you need to install opam first.

Install google-drive-ocamlfuse via opam

You may need to install some packages on your system. On Fedora, you may need to at least install:

# yum install sqlite-devel fuse-devel libcurl-devel zlib-devel m4

opam will automatically resolve dependencies and install the needed packages:

$ opam install google-drive-ocamlfuse

Configure google-drive-ocamlfuse

You need to run google-drive-ocamlfuse without parameters and it will request authorization:

$ google-drive-ocamlfuse

This command will create the default application directory (~/.gdfuse/default), containing the configuration file config and start a web browser to obtain authorization to access your Google Drive.

Mounting Google Drive

After configured google-drive-ocamlfuse, you can mount the file system:

$ google-drive-ocamlfuse mountpoint

You need to be patient and it may take some time to load your files.

Eric Ma

Eric is a systems guy. Eric is interested in building high-performance and scalable distributed systems and related technologies. The views or opinions expressed here are solely Eric's own and do not necessarily represent those of any third parties.

View all posts by Eric Ma

13 comments

kindnation says:

Sep 16, 2013 at 7:11 pm

Thank you for the write up on how to install google-drive-ocamlfuse. After I installed opam, I try to run the opam install google-drive-ocamlfuse, but it is breaking on the install of sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.4.

I am getting error:

Package sqlite3 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `sqlite3.pc’
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable

No package ‘sqlite3′ found

E: Failure(“Command ”/root/.opam/4.00.1/bin/ocamlbuild’ lib/libsqlite3_stubs.a lib/dllsqlite3_stubs.so lib/sqlite3.cma lib/sqlite3.cmxa lib/sqlite3.a lib/sqlite3.cmxs -tag debug’ terminated with error code 2″)

Can you advise?

Reply
1. Zhiqiang Ma says:
  
  Sep 16, 2013 at 9:19 pm
  
  I tried it again on my system (Fedora 19 x86-64). After installing several needed packages, it works for me:
  
  # yum install sqlite-devel fuse-devel libcurl-devel zlib-devel
  
  `opam` needs some headers from the Linux system. Hope this can helps you. You may need to install more packages it `opam` reports it.
  
  Reply
  1. Matthew Clark says:
    
    Oct 18, 2013 at 8:53 am
    
    Along with the dependencies listed above I also needed to install m4 on my Fedora 19 x86-64 system
    
    #yum install m4
    
    One of the opam dependencies needed it (ocamlfind).
    
    Reply
    1. Zhiqiang Ma says:
      
      Oct 19, 2013 at 8:27 am
      
      Thanks for sharing the information.
      
      Reply
Alex Rodrigues says:

Jan 20, 2014 at 8:55 pm

Thanks for the tutorial. In the momento of the apply the command: $ opam install google-drive-ocamlfuse, i receive a error message: The former state can be restored with opam switch import -f “/home/kingars/.opam/4.01.0/backup/state-20140020125053.export”

‘opam install google-drive-ocamlfuse’ failed.

Reply
1. Eric Zhiqiang Ma says:
  
  Jan 22, 2014 at 9:48 am
  
  Hi Alex,
  
  The google-drive-ocamlfuse requires some packages installed on your system: http://www.fclose.com/4687/mounting-google-drive-on-linux/#comment-1046451862
  
  Missing these packages possibly makes the compilation fail.
  
  Reply
Nestor Waldyd says:

Nov 6, 2014 at 9:24 am

Hello,

The following was prompted on Fedora 19:

[waldyd@localhost-live ~]$ opam install google-drive-ocamlfuse
The following actions will be performed:
– install cryptokit.1.9 [required by gapi-ocaml]
– install camlp4.4.02.1+system [required by extlib]
– install sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7 [required by google-drive-ocamlfuse]
– install ocamlnet.3.7.6 [required by gapi-ocaml]
– install extlib.1.6.1 [required by gapi-ocaml]
– install gapi-ocaml.0.2.6 [required by google-drive-ocamlfuse]
– install google-drive-ocamlfuse.0.5.10
=== 7 to install ===
Do you want to continue ? [Y/n] Y

=-=- Synchronizing package archives -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

=-=- Installing packages =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Copying ~/.opam/repo/default/packages/camlp4/camlp4.4.02.1+system/files/install to ~/.opam/system/build/camlp4.4.02.1+system/
Copying ~/.opam/repo/default/packages/camlp4/camlp4.4.02.1+system/files/check-camlp4.sh to ~/.opam/system/build/camlp4.4.02.1+system/
Building camlp4.4.02.1+system:
sh ./check-camlp4.sh
[ERROR] The compilation of camlp4.4.02.1+system failed.
Removing camlp4.4.02.1+system.
Nothing to do.
Building cryptokit.1.9:
make
make install
[ERROR] The compilation of cryptokit.1.9 failed.
Removing cryptokit.1.9.
ocamlfind remove cryptokit
Building sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7:
ocaml setup.ml -configure –prefix /home/waldyd/.opam/system
ocaml setup.ml -build
ocaml setup.ml -install
[ERROR] The compilation of sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7 failed.
Removing sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7.
ocamlfind remove sqlite3

#=== ERROR while installing camlp4.4.02.1+system ==============================#
# opam-version 1.2.0
# os linux
# command sh ./check-camlp4.sh
# path /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/camlp4.4.02.1+system
# compiler system (4.02.1)
# exit-code 1
# env-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/camlp4.4.02.1+system/camlp4-14957-e7966f.env
# stdout-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/camlp4.4.02.1+system/camlp4-14957-e7966f.out
# stderr-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/camlp4.4.02.1+system/camlp4-14957-e7966f.err
### stdout ###
# …[truncated]
# 4.02 by switching to a local installation via `opam switch 4.02.1`.
#
# Here are some installation instructions for camlp4 if you obtained OCaml
# via the OPAM binary packages:
#
# http://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=home%3Aocaml&package=ocaml
#
# * Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install camlp4-extra
# * RHEL/CentOS/Fedora: sudo yum install ocaml-camlp4
#
### stderr ###
# ./check-camlp4.sh: line 3: camlp4orf: command not found

#=== ERROR while installing cryptokit.1.9 =====================================#
# opam-version 1.2.0
# os linux
# command make
# path /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/cryptokit.1.9
# compiler system (4.02.1)
# exit-code 2
# env-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/cryptokit.1.9/cryptokit-14968-d2d111.env
# stdout-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/cryptokit.1.9/cryptokit-14968-d2d111.out
# stderr-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/cryptokit.1.9/cryptokit-14968-d2d111.err
### stdout ###
# ocaml setup.ml -configure
### stderr ###
# …[truncated]
# Use Bytes.set instead.
# File “/home/gildor/programmation/oasis/src/oasis/OASISFindlib.ml”, line 256, characters 6-24:
# Warning 3: deprecated: Lazy.lazy_from_fun
# Use Lazy.from_fun instead.
# W: Field ‘ocamldoc’ is not set
# W: Not_found
# W: Not_found
# E: Cannot find external tool ‘ocamldoc’
# E: Failure(“1 configuration error”)
# make: *** [setup.data] Error 1

#=== ERROR while installing sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7 ===============================#
# opam-version 1.2.0
# os linux
# command ocaml setup.ml -configure –prefix /home/waldyd/.opam/system
# path /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7
# compiler system (4.02.1)
# exit-code 1
# env-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7/sqlite3-ocaml-14995-ad8886.env
# stdout-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7/sqlite3-ocaml-14995-ad8886.out
# stderr-file /home/waldyd/.opam/system/build/sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7/sqlite3-ocaml-14995-ad8886.err
### stderr ###
# …[truncated]
# File “setup.ml”, line 247, characters 8-26:
# Warning 3: deprecated: String.set
# Use Bytes.set instead.
# File “setup.ml”, line 2502, characters 6-24:
# Warning 3: deprecated: Lazy.lazy_from_fun
# Use Lazy.from_fun instead.
# W: Field ‘ocamldoc’ is not set
# W: Not_found
# E: Cannot find external tool ‘ocamldoc’
# E: Failure(“1 configuration error”)

=-=- Error report -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The following failed
– install camlp4.4.02.1+system
– install cryptokit.1.9
– install sqlite3-ocaml.2.0.7
Due to the errors, the following have been cancelled
– install extlib.1.6.1
– install gapi-ocaml.0.2.6
– install ocamlnet.3.7.6
– install google-drive-ocamlfuse.0.5.10
[waldyd@localhost-live ~]$ sudo yum install ocaml-camlp4
Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
Package ocaml-camlp4-4.02.1-3.1.i686 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do

Reply
Cihan Ispanoglu says:

Dec 25, 2014 at 5:27 pm

wrote a small mount GUI to mount and unmount.
Hope you find it usefull.

http://cihanispanoglu.blogspot.com.tr/2014/12/google-drive-mount-gui-for-linux.html

Reply
Matias Colli says:

Feb 15, 2015 at 1:30 am

Please, post this article for Debian distribution instead Fedora ;-)
Matias Colli
UNIX/Linux SysAdmin

Reply
1. Eric Zhiqiang Ma says:
  
  Feb 16, 2015 at 10:06 am
  
  I happened to be using Fedora when I wrote this post. The main method on Debian should be similar but needs some Debian-specific configuration. We always welcome contributions if you would like to write a post for Debian.
  
  Reply
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Asif Ali Rizvan says:

Sep 25, 2015 at 8:15 am

thanks got it working in fedora 22 x86_64

Reply
1. Eric Zhiqiang Ma says:
  
  Sep 25, 2015 at 12:25 pm
  
  Great to know the method works for Fedora 22!
  
  Reply

Eric Ma

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