Nautilus acting up

[Liam Proven]

On 5 December 2016 at 23:17, rikona <rikona at sonic.net> wrote:
> 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.

As I said. Version upgrades. Not patches, not updates, version
upgrades. When the version number of the distro release changes.

>> 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'?

Google it.

You need to explicitly set Nemo to control the desktop.

http://www.webupd8.org/2013/10/install-nemo-with-unity-patches-and.html

But if you do, when you update, you will have problems.

>> 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?

No. If they did, why bother having a PPA? Why bother maintaining it?
What would be the point?

*Think!*

The PPA has a newer version. The repos have the version from whatever
version of Cinnamon was current when that release of Ubuntu was
shipped.

>> 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...

AFAICT, doesn't matter. Either.

>> 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.

Not normally, AFAIK, no. Either you already had it there or you didn't
remove Nautilus' icon first.

>  I note that
> both filers are called "Files", but have different icons. :-) Why is
> Nemo called 'Files' instead of Nemo?

The underlying program was called Nautilus.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Nautilus

It was renamed "Files" in GNOME 3.6.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Files#History

GNOME 3 has been progressively removing features from Nautilus in an
effort to make it simpler -- including its name. The menu bar has been
reduced to a single menu, there are no tabs any more, and many other
features have gone.

Many people do not like this, including the Ubuntu maintainers.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/02/ubuntu-16-04-reverts-to-older-version-of-nautilus

The Cinnamon project forked it and added back the removed features,
plus new ones. The fork is called Nemo, who was the captain of the
submarine Nautilus in Jules Verne's novel /60,000 Leagues under the
Sea/.

https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/nemo

You could learn this yourself by Googling it. You should not need me
to do it for you. I am at work and this is not what I am paid for. :-(

> The filer Dolphin is called
> Dolphin,

Because it replaced the old KDE file manager, Konqueror. The name is
to distinguish it.

>> 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.

You are not rid of it. It is still managing your desktop unless you
have changed it. So if you click on a drive icon, you get Nautilus,
not Nemo.

Pick Help | About to find which you are running in a particular
window, or look for the changes in the menu bar, sidebar, etc.

> 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.

Press F2 to rename. Press Ctrl-A to "select all" if you want the file
extension as well. Press Ctrl-C to copy the name.

Go to the new file. Press F2 to edit. Press Ctrl-A to Select All if
you want to change the extension too. Press Ctrl-V to paste.

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

I don't know. I don't know exactly what you installed or how.

> 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.

And that is what I advised against. Mixing programs from Gtk 3-based
desktops is fine, so long as there are no conflicts -- e.g. Unity,
Cinnamon, GNOME 3.

Mixing Gtk2 ones as well will cause duplication, mismatched
appearances, etc. E.g. Xfce, Maté, LXDE.

Mixing KDE or Qt based apps as well will bring in a ton of extra
libraries and some interaction may not work as expected. E.g. I would
not expect it to be possible to set a KDE file manager as the desktop
manager for a GNOME-based desktop environment.

This is why I advise against it.

It should not break your system, but it can cause undesirable
behaviour and definitely will cause disk usage to rise sharply.

> Thanks for the help and suggestions.

That's OK, but please, try to find answers yourself with Google and
Wikipedia before asking?


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