Nautilus acting up

[rikona]

Hello Liam,

Monday, December 5, 2016, 1:46:31 AM, Liam wrote:

> On 5 December 2016 at 06:51, rikona <rikona at sonic.net> wrote:
>> When I minimize Nautilus, it essentially disappears. Usually, when
>> something is minimized, a small white triangle appears next to the
>> icon for that program, and when multiple instances are minimized there
>> is a triangle for each instance.

> You misunderstand how the launcher works.

> The white triangles are for each window the program is currently
> showing. 1 window, 1 triangle; 2 windows, 2 triangles, etc.

> It has nothing to do with maximised/minimised status.

I realize that - I was just describing the behavior in some detail,
trying to make the situation as clear as possible.

>> Nautilus is missing some features I like so I added dolphin as an
>> alternate file manager.

> I suggest you stick to a closer relative for better integration. I
> recommend Nemo, the Nautilus-based file manager from Mint's Cinnamon
> environment. It is Nautilus with added features, and it can take
> over the desktop as well if you wish. Note, though, that this causes
> problems when upgrading from one version of Ubuntu to the next.

Do you mean 12.04 to 16.04, for example, or is it also a problem with
the security etc updates one does regularly? I stick with the LTS
versions.

>> I'm not particularly happy with Nautilus, but some reading suggests
>> that Nautilus also has control over part of the desktop function
>> and can't be eliminated. I'm considering using Nemo as a Nautilus
>> replacement but that seems to be associated with the cinnamon
>> desktop, which I presume will be installed with Nemo.

> No. You have not done enough reading or not understood.

Only read a small bit - not enough to learn all the details. :-)

> You can install the current Nemo from a PPA and have it control your
> desktop.

Does this happen 'automatically' or do you need to do additional
things to get 'control'?

> Or you can run the snapshot in the Ubuntu repositories.

How does this differ from the PPA? Don't they both install the same
Nemo?

> That's what I do now as I got tired of fixing Nemo every 6 months
> when upgrading.

I'm assuming you meant the Ubuntu repositories...

> Remove the Files icon from the launcher.

> Run Nemo.

Did that.

> Right-click its icon, pick "lock to launcher".

The only choice was 'unlock', which I didn't do - it seems that it was
already put on the launcher following installation/run. I note that
both filers are called "Files", but have different icons. :-) Why is
Nemo called 'Files' instead of Nemo? The filer Dolphin is called
Dolphin, which is good since it has the same icon as Nautilus and
without the name one can't tell them apart. :-).

> Then when you want a filer window, click that icon. Very simple.

Indeed. Thanks for the suggestion! Nemo seems to be working properly
with respect to the icon and alt tab. I don't know what happened with
Nautilus, but I'm glad to be rid of it.

Nemo does NOT insist on opening the target drag/drop folder, as did
Nautilus, BUT it does take a long time to complete the operation, so
it seems that some underlying operations are still taking a lot of
time. Copying a few files into a very large folder [~50,000 files] is
MUCH faster between 2 instances of Dolphin.

Also, I still can't copy a filename in Nemo and paste it to other
places. That works with Dolphin, but still not with Nemo.

Does your Nemo have the above problems, or is it just my box?

>> Is it likely the addition of yet another desktop will introduce a
>> new set of problems in Ubuntu?

> It's possible and it will waste space.

I'm assuming the snapshot did not install another desktop.

>> I already have some KDE programs installed, which probably brought
>> in a lot of the additional KDE components.

> Yes, and I have advised against this already.

I really understand that re the desktop. I had to reinstall Ubuntu
from scratch to get rid of the KDE desktop that screwed up the works.
But I have installed some KDE pgms, like Dolphin, that are working
better than their Ubuntu counterparts, like Nautilus or Nemo.

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

-- 

 rikona