Following is a screenshot of the problem.

Screenshot on “Authentication is needed to run /usr/bin/dropbox as the super use”

Fixing this problem is easy. Find where your dropbox executable is using the following command.

which dropbox

In my case it is /bin/dropbox. Open the file as root using a text editor. Then find the following lines.

PARENT_DIR = os.path.expanduser("/var/lib/dropbox")
DROPBOXD_PATH = "%s/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd" % PARENT_DIR

You’ll notice that DROPBOXD_PATH is incorrect due to PARENT_DIR pointing to an invalid dropbox installation location. Now all you have to is to point PARENT_DIR to the correct place. Since my dropbox installation is in ~/.dropbox-dist/ and I am the only user in the system using dropbox, I edited the entry as follows. Edit the entry as it suits for you.

PARENT_DIR = os.path.expanduser("~")

Now save the file and try running the dropbox start -i using your user account (not root). It will work without any problems.