Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

cloverskull · 2017-11-10 06:45:40

Debian's bug list for thunar in stretch is insane. Check it out here:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgrepo … ist=stable

I've had all kinds of bizarre behavior in the past 24 hours of normal-ish computing. When I leave a thunar window open for a little while, one of three things happens:

It freezes and becomes totally unresponsive and difficult to kill independently
I suddenly can't interact with items in the open folders (typically renaming things)
It'll just start failing to move things when I click and drag them from one place to another

Have we explored other options? Seems like a decent conversation to have at this point. The usability, in my recent experience, and the user experience in general is very degraded following what I've grown to love in thunar that shipped with jessie. The problem is that the failure mode for a poor file manager results in a failure mode for bunsenlabs as a whole.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-11-10 07:16:10

cloverskull wrote:

Have we explored other options?

Not really, I leaned towards spacefm and a few others like pcmanfm but thunar is just a default and very easy to change so we've just left it.

Seems like a decent conversation to have at this point.

Erm, I think we would rather get the release out than have more extended debates about the default software.

Maybe for Lithium though, eh?

But perhaps others will disagree.

Martin · 2017-11-10 07:31:20

cloverskull wrote:

Debian's bug list for thunar in stretch is insane. Check it out here:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgrepo … ist=stable
I've had all kinds of bizarre behavior in the past 24 hours of normal-ish computing. When I leave a thunar window open for a little while, one of three things happens:
It freezes and becomes totally unresponsive and difficult to kill independently
I suddenly can't interact with items in the open folders (typically renaming things)
It'll just start failing to move things when I click and drag them from one place to another

Odd, I haven't seen any of this and rather miss Thunar when at work. Are these issues a stretch thing?

/Martin

MAC the Bloody · 2017-11-10 07:41:03

Running plain Debian Stretch with xfce and have been having the same kind of issues mentioned by cloverskull.

martix · 2017-11-10 18:21:55

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Not really, I leaned towards spacefm and a few others like pcmanfm but thunar is just a default and very easy to change so we've just left it.

I tried SpaceFM and I think it's brilliant but once it was brought up you mentioned handling things like storage on digicams, which is indeed not reliable with SpaceFM (I forgot what it is doing it, but it works fine with Thunar). It's a pity SpaceFM is not actively developed anymore.

BLizgreat! · 2017-11-10 20:57:15

Heya Cloverskull,

Pretty much what Hoas already said. It's gnu/Linux ... off the top can think of about a dozen ways to deal with this easily. Though get what you're saying fix it at the source = BL iso. Am running Stretch for gotta be several weeks now and haven't seen any buggy behavior from it. So not sure how big if any of an issue it'll be when BL's next release comes out. It's not misbehaving in the least here.

If did ... yep, may or may not apt-pin from another branch. Install another or whatever else. Blahblahblah ... ok, shutting it.

ii thunar 1.6.11-1 i386 File Manager for Xfce

Sheesh kind of odd to see so many bugs classed as "important" in Debian's stable branch !?!? Though my system and BL are a long way off from a standard Debian stable install. Both with much in common. Kinda wonder if that's a factor ? Ala ... with more complexity, comes the chances that something will go wrong vs keeping it simple and stream-lined. Less moving parts so to speak, less stuff to break and easier to diagnose ?

Last edited by BLizgreat! (2017-11-10 21:05:45)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-11-10 22:28:30

cloverskull wrote:

I've had all kinds of bizarre behavior in the past 24 hours of normal-ish computing. When I leave a thunar window open for a little while, one of three things happens:
It freezes and becomes totally unresponsive and difficult to kill independently
I suddenly can't interact with items in the open folders (typically renaming things)
It'll just start failing to move things when I click and drag them from one place to another

I think it may be helpful to open a support thread (or bug report) about this issue, we haven't had any other complaints and I actually use thunar in my Debian stretch system and it has been fine there.

Question for the support thread: do you have any attached file shares?

brontosaurusrex · 2017-11-10 22:32:06

I noticed something similar in Stretch, but It included two usb drives (1x ext4 and 1x ntfs) and it only happened once (freeze).

cloverskull · 2017-11-10 23:18:02

No attached file shares here. Nothing bizarre going on. Freshly followed the helium-dev netinstall instructions. I've seen evidence of this happening elsewhere

The only "weird" stuff going on is that I use LVM. I hardly think thunar cares about that, though.

johnraff · 2017-11-11 01:39:02

For Lithium, the choice is still open of course, and there's plenty of scope for discussion.
In that period, bugs may be fixed, new ones may appear, (in Thunar or other FMs), and other FMs may arrive...

Meanwhile, as HoaS points out, it's really too late for Helium to change central software like the default file manager, but for users to change to another is no harder than install newFM + uninstall Thunar. If newFM is one of caja nautilus pcmanfm spacefm or xfe then menu items etc will continue to work as before. Otherwise use Debian alternatives to set exoticFM as bl-file-manager.

Plebeu · 2017-11-11 20:33:41

I dropped Thunar because I found it to be limited and installed Caja instead (multiple tabs ftw). Recently though, ranger file manager is looking pretty cool. Mostly because performance is a huge deal for me.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-11-11 20:37:01

Plebeu wrote:

ranger file manager is looking pretty cool

Yes, I much prefer ranger over any of the GUI alternatives, I find the layout and previews far better than the iconified competition.

I even prefer it over nautilus in my GNOME desktop.

Not really an option for (default) bl-file-manager though, much as I would love that.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2017-11-11 20:38:31)

Martin · 2017-11-11 21:15:25

Thanks for reminding me of Ranger. It has been off my radar for quite a while but might be a good choice for my i3 laptop.

Lithium? Never heard of that one and I don't find it in BL repo.

What about the 2-pane file managers (midnight commander offspring)? I find I need one of those from time to time and make sure I have one installed -- even on Windows. Ten years back one of those was my primary file manager but it wasn't maintained and it faded away. I don't remember its name.

/Martin

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-11-11 22:52:22

Martin wrote:

Lithium? Never heard of that one and I don't find it in BL repo.

Lithium is the name of the BunsenLabs release after the next one, it will be based on Debian buster.

BLizgreat! · 2017-11-11 23:00:56

Thanks for the mention of ranger (file manager) have been meaning to dork with it more. As for the topic of this thread, +2 Hoas, even if it were a problem and haven't seen any issues with thunar on Stretch as yet. It's trivial to switch it out but still get where Cloverskull is coming from recommending new users to BL not be subjected to using it if these problems are common.

ohnonot · 2017-11-12 12:52:17

just in case someone would recommend pcmanfm: don't.
it has serious problems with copying multiple files, can take 10 times as long as with command line.
this has been an issue for years across distros for me; only incredible laziness keeps me from ditching it once & for all (and maybe a lack of easy-to-use alternatives - thunar clearly has a set of its own long-standing issues, but the copying works better).
just saying.

MALsPa · 2017-11-12 14:32:50

Martin wrote:

What about the 2-pane file managers (midnight commander offspring)?

I'd been using mainly Double Commander for the past nine months or so. Recently switched over to using Midnight Commander, though; after getting used to that, I don't want to use anything else! I don't mind Thunar as the default for BL -- doesn't really matter to me since I don't normally stick with the defaults anyway.

brontosaurusrex · 2017-11-12 14:33:25

+1, At the end Thunar always comes back to me as well.

nore · 2017-11-12 15:09:19

Defaults don't have to be perfect, just sane. I vote for keeping Thunar as default. Once again, those who want something else than "File Explorer mockup", know how to get it.

Martin · 2017-11-12 20:10:23

+1

/Martin

#1 2017-11-10 06:45:40

Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#2 2017-11-10 07:16:10

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#3 2017-11-10 07:31:20

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#4 2017-11-10 07:41:03

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#5 2017-11-10 18:21:55

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#6 2017-11-10 20:57:15

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#7 2017-11-10 22:28:30

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#8 2017-11-10 22:32:06

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#9 2017-11-10 23:18:02

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#10 2017-11-11 01:39:02

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#11 2017-11-11 20:33:41

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#12 2017-11-11 20:37:01

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#13 2017-11-11 21:15:25

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#14 2017-11-11 22:52:22

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#15 2017-11-11 23:00:56

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#16 2017-11-12 12:52:17

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#17 2017-11-12 14:32:50

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#18 2017-11-12 14:33:25

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#19 2017-11-12 15:09:19

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

#20 2017-11-12 20:10:23

Re: Can we migrate from Thunar in helium?

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