Set Nautilus as Default

kaisarcode · 2015-11-29 20:23:59

Hi people.

I'm setting up my environment to work, and I'm kind of in a blocker since I can't find much info online about how to set up Nautilus as my default and only file manager.
Currently I set up Mate Desktop, and now I'm on a weird combination using Thunar and Caja.

Why Nautilus? Because I already have a couple of scripts to custom it that I'm used to work with.

How can I do this?

Thank you very much.

Last edited by kaisarcode (2015-11-29 20:25:26)

damo · 2015-11-29 20:48:38

GUI method: Menu -> System -> Edit Debian Alternatives
CLI method:

sudo update-alternatives --config bl-file-manager

Not sure how that would all work with a FrankenLabs system though

Last edited by damo (2015-11-29 20:50:09)

kaisarcode · 2015-11-30 06:59:11

Awesome!
I thought that the alternatives were about repositories (O_o Don't ask me why).

Nautilus is set as default. The thing now is that, this doesn't changes the Desktop file manager... (It's still Caja). Even if I uninstall Caja, it doesn't falls back to Nautilus (I just end without any desktop folders at all).

Is there a way to start Nautilus as desktop, like we can do with PcmanFM?

Kind of:

$ pcmanfm --desktop

Thanks!

Last edited by kaisarcode (2015-11-30 06:59:47)

tknomanzr · 2015-11-30 07:14:26

You will need dconf-editor.

sudo apt install dconf-editor
dconf-editor

You will then need to edit org.gnome.desktop.background and check show desktop icons. Also, be sure you have an entry in /etc/xdg/autostart that looks like this:

cat /etc/xdg/autostart/nautilus-autostart.desktop 
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Files
Exec=nautilus -n
AutostartCondition=GSettings org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons

The scrot below will show you what I am talking about:

kaisarcode · 2015-11-30 07:54:55

Epic. It works.
One last thing:
Now, when I enable "show-desktop-icons" on dconf-editor, the background goes away, and its replaced by a solid color.
What can this be?

tknomanzr · 2015-11-30 08:04:31

Nautilus will handle your background setting now. Simpply right click an image and set wallpaper to set it. Since you are using Nautilus, you could probably safely remove or purge Nitrogen.
Edit:
Actually you will need to install nautilus-actions to enable that functionality.

sudo apt install nautilus-actions

Last edited by tknomanzr (2015-11-30 08:06:20)

kaisarcode · 2015-11-30 08:15:44

Actually, I've already installed nautilus-actions. Nitrogen is removed too.
The option to set an image as background is available, it also is executed, but the background keeps blank.

hhh · 2015-11-30 13:26:40

Nautilus used to draw the background in GNOME but now gnome-shell does and there is some conflict when "show desktop icons" is checked...
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … bug=726562

I'm curious if Nautilus from experimental, which the bug report says contains the patch that fixes this, is easily backported to jessie. Post whether you're on 32 or 64 bit and I can take a look after work (or maybe someone will beat me to it), or you can try yourself...
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=58

johnraff · 2015-12-01 02:01:04

btw on a regular BL setup (I don't know if Mate would interfere with this, but think probably not), if Nautilus is installed and Thunar removed then Nautilus wil be automatically set as bl-file-manager without having to edit Debian Alternatives manually.

OT
It's done by the script /usr/bin/bl-alternatives, and the default list of auto-configured alternative file managers at the moment is "pcmanfm spacefm nautilus". Should caja perhaps be added? Any others?
/OT

tknomanzr · 2015-12-01 04:52:17

Caja would be ok. It's dependency list is not terrible (less than kde or gnome but more than thunar and pcmanfm). The only other thing I could think of is if you wanted to include Midnight Commander or Ranger in that list. I honestly could see a use for Midnight Commander if I was working via ssh a lot.

johnraff · 2015-12-01 09:04:50

^yes Midnight Commander's an old favourite, but it doesn't seem to be in the Debian repos, so the automation wouldn't work. It's a dpkg trigger.

Temetka · 2015-12-01 09:10:13

Eh? I installed it from Synaptic (mc that is).

johnraff · 2015-12-01 09:25:07

Ah gottit now.

But as a text-based app it'll need a terminal to run in, so would have to have a wrapper script, I guess, in order to be a direct bl-file-manager plugin.

kaisarcode · 2015-12-01 10:18:45

Coming back to hhh's reply:

hhh wrote:

I'm curious if Nautilus from experimental, which the bug report says contains the patch that fixes this, is easily backported to jessie. Post whether you're on 32 or 64 bit and I can take a look after work (or maybe someone will beat me to it), or you can try yourself...

So basically it's a bug (Lucky me).
It's a little bit beyond my current knowledge to do this, but I'll try.
By the way, my system is 32 bits, if you want to take it a look, I'll be your guinea pig XD.

tknomanzr · 2015-12-01 14:15:08

johnraff wrote:

Ah gottit now. http://s16.postimg.org/9d6xui2up/icon_redface.gif
But as a text-based app it'll need a terminal to run in, so would have to have a wrapper script, I guess, in order to be a direct bl-file-manager plugin.

I just mentioned for the sake of completeness. I would make the assumption that anyone willing to use it is comfortable enough with the cli to make it work . At any rate, it would not be too terribly hard to autostart it if that were needed. Perhaps one day I will make an xdg entry for it, if I find the need for it.

It's a shame that kde is such a tangle of dependencies. They have some really nice file managers. I could see ditching pcmanfm for one of those nice multi-pane things provided I didn't have to pull in half of kde to make one work.

Last edited by tknomanzr (2015-12-01 14:15:35)

Zill · 2015-12-02 22:02:44

tknomanzr wrote:

It's a shame that kde is such a tangle of dependencies. They have some really nice file managers. I could see ditching pcmanfm for one of those nice multi-pane things provided I didn't have to pull in half of kde to make one work.

Have you tried "xfe"? A very nice lightweight but powerful dual-pane file manager with few dependencies. It runs fine on Jessie so I guess it should be fine with BL but haven't confirmed this yet!

https://packages.debian.org/jessie/xfe
http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/index.php

tknomanzr · 2015-12-03 00:54:15

I saw that one. I will definitely give it a try and see if I like it. I really like pcmanfm but heavy file navigation with it can be a pain at times.

hhh · 2015-12-03 13:57:22

kaisarcode wrote:

By the way, my system is 32 bits, if you want to take it a look, I'll be your guinea pig XD.

I took a longer fresh look at the bug report, and it says it's fixed in version 3.12 which is lower than the jessie version.

I'd be glad to see if this is something that can be set with gnome-tweak-tool or gconf/dconf-editor but I'll need a day or two.

#1 2015-11-29 20:23:59

Set Nautilus as Default

#2 2015-11-29 20:48:38

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#3 2015-11-30 06:59:11

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#4 2015-11-30 07:14:26

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#5 2015-11-30 07:54:55

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#6 2015-11-30 08:04:31

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#7 2015-11-30 08:15:44

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#8 2015-11-30 13:26:40

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#9 2015-12-01 02:01:04

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#10 2015-12-01 04:52:17

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#11 2015-12-01 09:04:50

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#12 2015-12-01 09:10:13

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#13 2015-12-01 09:25:07

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#14 2015-12-01 10:18:45

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#15 2015-12-01 14:15:08

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#16 2015-12-02 22:02:44

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#17 2015-12-03 00:54:15

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

#18 2015-12-03 13:57:22

Re: Set Nautilus as Default

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