I’ve been interested in setting up virtual drive on my Linux PCs. I have systems based on Kubuntu, Garuda Linux, KDE Neon & Pop!_OS.
For a long time now, I always thought it was impossible until I stumbled onto a reply that shows it can be enabled as an experimental feature. I did set it up before 2023, and never really thought about using it until very recently. However, I did set it up on my Mac Pro a while ago, and that’s how I found out about it.
So, just curious to know what’s working and what’s not working with the virtual drive on Linux.
However, I did set it up on my Mac Pro a while ago, and that’s how I found out about it.
Please note that the “VFS” on macOS (actually not a virtual file system but a file provider) is completely unrelated to the platform-specific implementations for Windows and Linux. They cannot be compared. Also, there was the “sort-of on-demand” experimental feature which worked with placeholder files to mimic the behavior of modern cloud storage integrations with traditional means (which again was something different).
I cannot tell much but a common Linux virtual files integration solution is a topic currently in discussion, also with other open source projects in connection with us. On Linux it is a bit more blurry though, because there are no canonical APIs or frameworks like on the other commercial platforms.
For anyone still landing here: we ended up building something for our own company. It is open source now, so here it is in case it helps.
**Wusel** — a Nextcloud virtual filesystem in Rust, mounted over FUSE. Everything on the server shows up instantly, a file’s content is fetched when you open it, and you pin what you want kept offline. Compared with a plain WebDAV mount you get a local cache with a budget, per-file status emblems in the file manager, and offline pinning; compared with selective sync you do not have to decide in advance what you might need.
GitHub - itbh-at/wusel: Wusel - Nextcloud, woven into your desktop. · GitHub — Apache-2.0
Disclosure: we are the company behind it. Current scope, honestly: Linux and Nextcloud only, desktop integration is GNOME/Nautilus, and there is a ready-made Fedora RPM — other distributions build from source for now. Tested nightly against Nextcloud 34, 33 and 32.
Feedback and bug reports are welcome.