Nautilus acting up

[rikona]

Hello Liam,

Friday, December 9, 2016, 9:42:38 AM, Liam wrote:

> On 9 December 2016 at 06:02, rikona <rikona at sonic.net> wrote:

>> Let's remember the sequence of events. Originally I was having a
>> problem with Nautilus and wanted to see if it could be fixed. At that
>> point in time I had never even heard of Nemo, and was not thinking of
>> replacing Nautilus, so I would never have used the above search line.

> Conceded. :-)

> OK, then, an alternative search command for someone having untraceable
> problems with Nautilus:

> "replacement file manager for unity"

> I just tried that and it worked rather nicely. Nemo is link #5, for
> instance -- one of the pages I already suggested.

> The first 2 links have 5 then 4 alternatives -- and I think the 4 are
> a subset of the 5. Worth a look.

>> Nautilus was "disappearing" when minimized, which is what I mentioned
>> in my original email.

> Yes, I recall. This sounds like a serious problem, incidentally.

Perhaps. Colin thinks it is closing - the symptoms support that idea.
Any idea why it is closing? And yes, I was extremely careful to click
the right spot. :-)

> I'm wondering if it is something not directly related since you go
> on to say that Nemo is having problems too.

The problems are completely different, though.

> E.g. filesystem corrupton -- if you have not already, I would boot a
> live DVD or USB and do an ``fsck -f'' on all your Linux partitions.

> You can get any Linux to do this on the root partition by creating a
> magic file then rebooting.

> The file is called ``forcefsck'' and it goes in the root directory.

> So do this:

> ``sudo touch /forcefsck''

> This creates an empty file called ``forcefsck'' in the root directory.

> Then reboot -- e.g. type ``sudo shutdown -r now'' immediately after
> the prior command.

> That does a clean shutdown, reboots, checks the / partition and
> repairs it if necessary, then comes back up as normal.

OK - thanks - I'll try that.

> Other potential problems -- "illegal" filenames that Linux can't
> handle or display. Strikes me as very unlikely but it's possible.

Is there a way to check for that? Back a bit I did run into perhaps a
similar problem when copying some music files in foreign languages.
Didn't cause anything to crash, just didn't copy them - and I couldn't
rename them either [forget how I finally resolved that].

>> And, as mentioned again below, cut/paste does NOT work in Nautilus.

> Can you copy a filename and paste it into some other app, e.g. Gedit?

I did a few shut down/reboot cycles in trying the 16.04 DVD as Colin
suggested, and something has changed. My current bootup now comes up
with a number of inactive icons on the desktop [can't click, move,
etc] in addition to the active ones, and the active ones are in
different locations than they were. Nothing extra shows up in
"desktop" - just the active ones, as I would expect. Not sure where
the extra artwork came from, not sure how to get rid of it.

AND - it seems I can now paste into gedit in addition to kate - hmmmm.
When I click on a folder icon on the desktop I get Nemo, not Nautilus.
The launcher folder icons still give me Nautilus. The launcher text
files are all grayed-out backups, though [txt~], not the main files.

> Can you select a filename then alt-tab to Gedit and middle-click to
> paste directly?

No. gedit does not show up with alt tab.

>> Let's again consider the sequence of learning. When I first found out
>> about Nemo, cinnamon was a tasty brown powder that I sometimes
>> sprinkle on oatmeal. Initially, I did not know there was a cinnamon
>> desktop. That was part of the learning sequence, and would definitely
>> not have been the first search phrase that I would've used. I think
>> you underestimate how much your extensive knowledge and experience
>> influences your choice of search terms. Your first search lines seem
>> to be very much influenced by knowledge that noncomputer people may
>> not have initially. They may learn that after minutes to hours of
>> searching and study, and that may be what is necessary to find the
>> correct solution.

> It's how you get the knowledge, though.

> E.g. I started Googling

> "what is the name of the gnome file manager" and Google suggested a
> more complete question for which the first hit explained about
> Nautilus/files.

> You don't need the foreknowledge, although yes, it certainly helps.
> You just need to formulate the right questions.

Google may be a bit better than Startpage with text questions.

>> If it was it was well hidden. It did not show up in launcher or any
>> search for runnable programs, did not run from the CLI, and was not
>> listed as installed in "software", which also offered to install it,
>> which I eventually did in 3 above.

> I can't see how else it could happen than removing a pinned
> (icon-locked-to-launcher) app then reinstalling it.

>> If it was not installed, which I believe is the case, and the
>> installation in 3 above was the first installation, would that
>> normally produce a locked icon, which is what I observed?

> No.

> But of course the Nautilus/Files icon _is_ normally pinned to the Launcher.

As a test, I just installed pluma, a text editor. It gives me an icon
in the left bar. rt-clk on that icon gives me only an unlock option.
This seems to be the same as the nemo install, no?

>> K3B is great. I still use optical disks to bring photos to the local
>> store for printing, and as an off-site archive of important files.
>> Much too small for any more backups though...

> Fai enough.

>> OK - sounds like the 'why' is rather vague... :-)

> Yes, well, I am not all that confident in the decision-making process
> of the GNOME steering committee. See my most recent tech blog post.

> (How to find that is left as an exercise for the reader, as the saying goes.)

>> VERY NICE overview - thanks! Your depth of knowledge is impressive...

> You're welcome, and thank you.

> I would say "that's why they pay me the big bucks", but they don't.

Yeah - I know how THAT works... :-))

>> I know, I know. I've also used this seemingly forever. Any idea why
>> it's NOT working? One thought I had - is it possible that the copied
>> information is stored in different places/ways by different
>> programs/desktops and are not compatible with the subsequent paste?

> No. The X.11 clipboard is global, as far as I know.

Copy/paste seems to have changed; not sure what the entire situation
is yet but maybe that is at least partially working. Minimize and alt
tab still don't work, though - it disappears.

> So is the select/middle-click one but separate.

>> That may be good advice at the current time. My last experience was
>> with 12.04. I installed LOTS of programs, KDE and otherwise, did a
>> fair amount of customizing, and everything ran together amazingly
>> well. My expectation was that 16.04 would be even better in this
>> respect, but it is, unfortunately, turning out to be significantly
>> worse.

> Hmm. That's not good. I'd have hoped it'd improve too, but
> increasingly, the different desktop environments are going their own
> ways.

I hear you on that, and agree. Linux may not be as flexible as it was,
which is a shame...

>> I am really, really, REALLY appreciative of the FOSS software I also
>> use every day. I don't have anywhere near the knowledge and experience
>> of most of the list members, and this severely limits my ability to
>> help others and pay back to the community, which I'd like to do. I do
>> contribute a bit of money, and have worked with a few authors
>> regarding ideas to improve the capability of some programs, some of
>> which have been adopted by the author.

> Good stuff.

>> And again, many thanks for your help.

> You're entirely welcome.

This is a recorded announcement: :-)))

Thanks for your help.

-- 

 rikona