As I mentioned before, I decided to jump ship from Ubuntu Linux on my Microsoft SurfaceBook. What did I jump into? Manjaro Linux. While I had always liked Manjaro Linux, there were always a few things that sent me back into the indifferent arms of Ubuntu.

One challenge that was always a bit tough to overcome is accessing encrypted files stored in Google Drive. There’s nothing special about the files, except that I wanted to be able to access them with certain encryption software running local on my computer. But how to access Google Drive’s Backup and Sync rather than just one-time download, use and remove?

To accomplish that on Manjaro Linux, there appear to be three solutions. Those include the following:

• Odrive-bin: This is a no-cost solution that syncs your entire Google Drive to your computer. Hmm…probably not going to use this one since I don’t have that much space on my Surfacebook. I did install it but stopped it during sync.
• InSync ($29.99): This seemed like the go-to solution and I had already been giving myself pep-talks about paying the price. Unfortunately, in spite of my best efforts (30 minutes of google searches and trying to install it a deb file on Manjaro), I couldn’t get it going. Just as I was about to leave it for another time, I stumbled on the third solution.
• OverDrive ($4.99): This solution intrigued me since it offered the exact functionality you get with Google’s Backup and Sync solution. The price was perfect, too.

In no time, I had downloaded and installed the Arch/Manjaro Linux version (they also had Ubuntu, Raspbian, Fedora solutions as well). In a blink of an eye, I was accessing my encrypted files and working with them. Fantastic!

Let’s hope everything continues well and it doesn’t turn into “over grieve.” 😉