Slashdot Mirror
Nine Things You Should Know About Nautilus
lessthan0 writes "The Nautilus program in GNOME is not only the default file manager, it creates and manages the desktop. While it looks simple on the surface, there is a lot of hidden power under the shell. The latest version of Nautilus is 2.14.0, which is included in Fedora Core 5. article covers a few non-obvious things about how Nautilus works."
The most useful feature of Nautilus is the scripts functionality, so simple & elegant.
I have a lot of iso cdrom images, that I use occasionally - I popped the iso mount script in my ~/.gnome/nautilus-scripts & off I went, merilly mounting & using iso files.
I looked for equivilant functionality under windows recently & just couldn't find it - this microsoft app wouldn't mount (map, whatever you whacky windows guys call it) lots of my isos, rar was nagware (and required you to extract, rather then giving you a virtual drive), nero's expensive, etc etc.
Anyway, back on topic - go download Nautilus scripts from g-script they've got loads of scripts, which solve a lot of problems in a very unixy way. All in all, handy.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
It was made by a company that tried to make money while still giving it out for free. It went under (i wonder why).
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
The only thing I've ever bothered to learn about Nautilus is how to disable it after every upgrade.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
For the mods:
;-)
"Nautilus has something of a colorful past. It was created by a company called Eazel, staffed by ex-Apple programmers that wanted to bring ease of use to the Linux desktop."
I have a touch of old-fogeyism in me, and wish that Linux's file system GUI management tools were all standardized and work as simply as My Computer/Explorer do. But the horrible XP search can be replaced with anything
Oh You POS
I hate it when I turn off that Nautilus crap, I lose my desktop background every restart. Have to manually set it with the desktop background tool every restart, so I know Nautilus doesn't need to run for it to get set, they were just lazy.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
What a waste of an article. I was hoping to find something new and interesting.
Don't you mean "insensitive klod"?
One: Adding Delete .Trash-uid directory if you move a file to the trash, as long as you have the file permissions.
/. sue for copyright infringement? Or is it DRM? Or is it just some Trashy slander?
The ~/.Trash directory is where files are moved if you delete local files. On mounted volumes, Nautilus will create a hidden
So will
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Is just my impression or they forgot to mention Nautilus can be also used to access a ftp ( simple yet useful )?
def greetings(x): return {'friend': 'Howdy', 'enemy': 'Dye [sic]'}.get(x, 'g0 4w4y, l4m0r')
if you like nautilus, but you'd like something faster, smaller etc, take a look at thunar. It's the file manager for the xfce project. works well in gnome as a nautilus replacement, and where nautilus has extensions(scripts), thunar has plugins. have a look.
i wish i was but oh well
OK, that was a completely useless article.
- upload-for-gnomes-nautilus/ though the progress bar doesn't update right. I also made some shell scripts that resize images using 'convert' from ImageMagick to thumbnail size and webpage size (e.g. max 700 px wide).
The nautilus-scripts thing is useful however. There is a script to upload photos to flickr at http://nozell.com/blog/archives/2004/09/04/flickr
One thing it shows though is that there is still a lot of confusing inconsistency on where Gnome-related applications store preferences and other data. IMO it should *All* be in ~/.nautilus, not scattered between there, ~/.gnome2, ~/.gtk, etc. You probably also have a ~/.gnome too for non-Gnome2 apps.
The global settings for Gnome are also scattered everywhere.
I wish they'd fix that.
Just a few weeks ago I posted a JE asking people what is so special about the spatial file management metaphor. Not so much because I'm bitching about it, but because I was genuinely curious about how my Slashdot friends feel. I got some good responses as well as some really good conversation going about Nautilus and GNOME. I'd been on a KDE journey (I prefer GNOME and no I don't want a flame fest both environment have their good and bad points) since November to really kick the tires and just switched back to GNOME. I decided to take the suggestions from my friends and post them in another more cohesive JE in the hopes that it would be helpful. I have to say with my new found knowledge about Nautilus plus what the article posted on the front page today reveals, I'm really enjoying Nautilus a lot these days.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I'm not really a big fan of anything mentioned in the article, but I love the Nautilus Actions extension:
http://www.grumz.net/node/8
In short it lets you configure context menu actions for files based on type/location/etc. It's significantly better than vanilla nautilus scripts.
that there's tabs or split level viewing SOMEWHERE hidden in Nautilus. I don't see how tabs go against the HIG guidelines but maybe I just don't get it.
This guy is way out there
I've been using Linux for a long time, but it was relatively early in my Linux experience that I realized graphical file managers are useless and only serve to slow me down and make me less productive. For years, most *nixes have shipped with an excellent file manager: bash.
I find that after using the commandline for all of my file management for a number of years, it's actually infuriating to try and use a graphical file manager. Nothing works properly, I can't do the things I expect to be able to do easily and it requires extensive use of the mouse.
Call me a purist and a luddite, but I bet I can find and manage my files faster with bash and related utilities than you can with Nautilus.
Did you ever really love GNOME? Judging from your comment history, you seem to be promoting KDE rather frequently. I am not saying that you are a KDE troll, but at least some of your comments look suspicious.
Anyway, I have hated Nautilus since GNOME 2.0 and I ended up disabling it after every upgrade. But now that I am using GNOME 2.14, I kind of like Nautilus. It is reasonably fast, not intrusive and rather convenient to use. Contrary to some users here, I like the spatial mode. Of course I still use the command line for some tasks, but Nautilus has a lot of nice features that make using it more efficient than using the command line (for many tasks, but not all yet).
For those still complaining that Nautilus is slow, you're probably the same people that hate Gnome and switched permanently to KDE about 5 years ago. Nautilus, especially in its latest incarnations is extremely fast at file browsing. And I don't know why more people don't mention it, but you can bypass the trash / recycle bin in almost every operating system by pressing "Shift-Delete" when you have a file selected. Works in windows, works in Gnome . . .
I must agree. I was a former GNOME user, as well. But like you, I have since switched to KDE.
It wasn't just the problems with Nautilus that you mentioned. I think it was far more widespread, throughout the GNOME community and implementation. The decentralized community spirit doesn't lead to a highly-coherent, tightly-integrated desktop suite. KDE, on the other hand, does offer just such a collection of programs.
While I can go from one KDE program to another with ease, due to the commonality shared between many of the core programs, I find that that just isn't the case with GNOME. There are too many subtle differences between the packages. And then you get a package like Nautilus, while fantastic in its own right, it just doesn't fit in well with the other pieces of software.
I also must complain about the speed of Nautilus. To have a well-rounded experience, I recently did try Nautilus 2.12.0. Frankly, it's quite slow. At times it can become very frustrating waiting for it to redraw a directory containing several hundred files. It'd be one thing if both Konqueror, Nautilus, and other files managers ran into the same problem. But that just doesn't happen. Konqueror handles the same directory with ease.
Now, I haven't profiled it, or examined the Nautilus source code to find out why it was so much slower. It may very well have been a problem with GTK+ (but it's lack of quality is another discussion). Either way, I likely won't use a product that exhibits such flaws, or is built upon other flawed software.
Stop writing such a nonsense. Nothing forces you to use the spatial mode. You can switch the behaviour on and off by clicking on the preferences menu.
Anyway for 99% of all new users spatial mode is the best option.
I think they got the right joice, then they switched to the spatial interface. It looks very clean and pleasent and you can consentrate on the subject - the files.
What's so horrible about having to click a checkbox to make Nautilus not be spatial anymore? Or is browser mode also an example of everything that is and ever has been wrong with the computing industry?
Did you try changing the option to "browser" mode? I know, I know, it'd be nice for it to be the default, but technically, it has not been dumbed down. You don't need to be stuck in the spatial world. I sure don't. (and yes I will add my voice to those calling onto the GNOME guys to change the default... though I guess any distro maintainer can do it too)
Nautilus is one of the most annoying interfaces ever. I generally like a lot of the other gnome apps I use, and find gnome in general to be pretty usable, but I don't rely (knowingly) on nautilus for anything, and I don't go to it as a tool to do anything.
/usr/bin directory and then click on the thing you want and click "open" or something. C'mon. That's horrid.
My apologies if this is incorrect, but I believe nautilus is responsible for the disgustingly *bad* interface that pops up when you run firefox under gnome and want to choose an application to open something with. I can't just type in a command and hit enter... that would be too easy. Instead, you have to wait for nautilus to load the entire freakin'
I guess it doesn't fit my brain (what little matter there is of it). But OTOH, doesn't an article showing you the hidden features of nautilus kind of speak to its usability? By the way, aren't these features documented in the Nautilus manual?
Visit my blog http://www.protocolostomy.com
My point of view:
1) It's fast
2) It doesn't suck (it is actually very nice IMHO)
3) If you want to disable it, just remove it from your session, save your session and there you go! Nothing secret about that.
Gnone is reborn for me and the reason is Ubuntu. Even with Gnome's quirks, Ubuntu is great because mostly everything just works. Of course there is also Kubuntu, but the time and effort spent on that distro seems to be considerably less compared to Ubuntu and it shows.
I used to think so but then I discovered Nautilus Actions and things have been a lot better since then. But don't throw away your Nautilus scripts - you can use them with Actions. The beauty of Actions is that it is sensitive to the current selected file/files/directory/directories/mix so that only Actions that are appropriate are visible.
For example, if you have a script to make a thumbnail of one or more JPEGs, then you can set the criteria for Actions to only show you that action for selections of just JPEGs.
Give it a try - it's a really nice feature. Hopefully it will be part of GNOME 2.16.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
The most useful tip I know for Nautilus is how to stop it drawing the desktop:
/apps/nautilus/preferences and uncheck the "show_desktop" option.
Launch GConf (gconf-editor on the Dapper command line), navigate to
This is especially useful if you connect to a Linux box using XDMCP from a machine using a rootless X server. I use Cygwin/X in rootless mode, and this switch means that bringing a Linux application to the top doesn't cause the root window (i.e. the Linux desktop) to be drawn, obscuring the Windows applications behind.
You know GNOME supports something like kioslaves: GNOME-VFS. SFTP, FTP, CDDA, HTTP, DAV and many other things (apparently on the fly decompression too but I don't know how that works or if that works -- file roller sucks).
;))
I agree in that Konqueror is likely more powerful than Nautilus, however, I very rarely find the need to use many of Konqueror's features, despite being quite a heavy computer user/programmer - most just confuse me or distract me. For anything that requires ungodly amounts of file operations, a quick "Open shell here" and small bash one-liner will often be quicker IMO (yes I find bash less confusing than Konqueror
That said, there is great potential for ease of use and usability in the KDE project, I feel that their UIs could just do with a bit of polish. I find they always have the impression of being tacky, where they do what you want, and you can find most of the features, but it's a bit messy and takes longer to get used to and use than it should.
I never knew you could make remote directories over SSH show up as folders in Konqueror. That's incredibly useful. Thanks!
"Actions" in Nautilus with that extension is equivalent to KDE's "Actions" -- something that I use a lot and think is sorely under-used (in both KDE and GNOME).
.desktop entry that identifies the file-types it applies to and doing 'mogrify -rotate 90 %f' to them. That's a simple case, but I use this sort of thing all the time (for example, to publish RPMs to a local repository, to add/remove items from a mirror list, convert data formats, etc.).
For example, adding a context-menu option to rotate images involves nothing more than writing a
Since upgrading Ubuntu 5.04 to 5.10, my desktop has had serious defects in rendering fonts in some apps (Firefox and Evolution), and can't burn audio CDs without refusing, misburning or crashing desktop/OS. The past 7 months of automatic updates, including the latest X.org dump, haven't fixed the problems. I haven't found messages in the Ubuntu forums, GNOME website or elsewhere on the Web indicating others with my problem, or who have solved it. Posting in those Ubuntu and GNOME forums hasn't returned any results. Where do I turn for that kind of support that actually works?
--
make install -not war
I have a touch of old-fogeyism in me, and wish that Linux's file system GUI management tools were all standardized and work as simply as My Computer/Explorer do.
I have a touch of old-fogeyism in me. What the hell is a GUI and why would I want to manage it from the file system?
Also, if Your Computer works so simply, what are you bitching about?
KFG
the .trash is just the trash folder which is on the desktop, from what I read in the article i thought it was doing the windows thing of not deleting even after you remove it from the trash can, which is not the case... I don't know why they even bothered to mention it... I suppose it gave me something to do looking for it and then testing my sending something there. One interesting thing I did notice is that when I had what is ostensibly 2 versions of the same folder and deleted a file from one it went from the other in real time. This is certainly an improvement on explorer where you have to refresh everytime you want to see changes...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I remember. People telling people to RTFM. And most people not RTFM.
I tried Nautilus years ago when it bombed constantly. So I never actually used it.
Now I'm pointed at the two options that make it work (view as list and open in browser) I might actually use it. And when my wife calls with a problem I can refer to it.
Thanks again to woz and jobs for coming up with the finder concept.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Midnight Commander is in my opinion the best of all file managers. Nautilus' "spatial" browser setting just sucks...unfortunately I have not seen much improvement in Gnome at all in the last few upgrades. I can't say same the same for KDE which IS getting better as is Konqueror. The file manager was perfected with Norton Commander and all of it's clones.
I once worked at an unnamed institution which had a large Windoze network and some smaller "research" Linux labs. Just like everyone else's story for the most part the IT guys didn't have a clue about the Linux side of things. For some reason, which I could never figure out, trying to connect to people's Windoze home directories through SAMBA (smbmount) would never work properly--we'd always get some weird auth error or something. Just for kicks I tried to smb://hostname/share one day with Nautilus and it worked without complalint. Don't ask, don't tell I guess, but it sure saved some hassle transfering large files from host to host.
bueller...bueller...bueller
Does anyone actually use these?
Four things would make them actually useful:
1. The fact that it only displays one emblem in list view mode is unfortunate -- if in list view there was a column for each emblem (or a "subcolumn" for an "emblems" main column), which you could use as a sort criteria, then you could very easily find files with certain emblems.
2. Automatic and dynamic emblems based on combinations of things like current age, original directory of creation, current directory, file type, size, patterns in the filename or grepped from the contents, etc.
3. Ability to create new emblems on the fly, even without an icon (just text), right from a particular files "properties" window or the sidebar. Really they are the same idea as "tags" and you should be able to invent new ones as needed without going through the "miscellaneous file properties" catchall bin that is "Backgrounds and Emblems" in the edit menu.
4. Using emblems when doing a full filesystem search; a seperate catalogue for emblemized items could be kept to make it very fast. If the actual filesystem supports "tags" or "keywords" as metadata for files, then add emblem tags to the files, so non-nautilus aware tools could use these.
Did you ever really love GNOME? Judging from your comment history, you seem to be promoting KDE rather frequently. I am not saying that you are a KDE troll, but at least some of your comments look suspicious.
Really, I did love GNOME. I felt like KDE was too bloated, GNOME seemed faster, didn't load me down with stuff I'd never use. And KDE frankly was the gayest looking thing I'd ever seen with it's old default "Keramik" theme and putrid default colors. Thankfully somebody recognized this, and you may or may not like Plastik or Lipstik, but I think it beats the old stuff. No, GNOME was clean and polished at 2.4, KDE was buggy and all fluff at 3.1. The reason you don't see me embracing GNOME in my comment history is that I fully defected to KDE with the release of GNOME 2.6 a couple of years ago. Really it seemed like GNOME just kept getting worse while each thing I didn't like about KDE got fixed. I'm really picky about having an optimal user interface tailored to my habits and needs, and KDE has infinitely configurable behavior. GNOME seems afraid that configurability, versatile UI's and usable file dialogs, will somehow confuse and frighten their users... But come on... These are Linux users. Most of these people are somewhat technical, or at least interested in computers enough to have installed their own operating system. There are exceptions, but for the most part a person with linux on their computer has USED a friggin' computer before and does not need his or her hand held to that degree. People don't switch to Linux for the same reason they switch to Mac. A typical Linux user didn't become one because Windows wasn't easy enough to use and he was afraid of viruses. He switched because he wanted to do more with his computer and the learning curve didn't scare him. That guy is well past the "problems" that GNOME started addressing after 2.4.
Every time I'd upgrade GNOME, I'd comb the system hunting down ways to re-enable what they took out. New features were scarce and it was all about gutting the ones it had. When I install a new KDE, I eagerly comb the system looking for features and improvements and I'm never disappointed. There for a while I was expecting Clippy to show up in the next version of GNOME, but
Definitely KDE's io-slaves are very good. Gnome does have the gnome-vfs subsystem, which in theory provides a similar function, but just seems to be lacking any real, useful functionality. I have yet to see gnome-vfs used the way most KDE users depend on io-slaves. There's not even a working fish:/// protocol. There is sftp:/// but I would find fish more useful as it works with servers that may not have sftp working; all it needs is shell access. However, both io-slaves and gnome-vfs have a fatal flaw in that they only are available to apps who know about them (IE linked to the KDE or Gnome libraries). There are a myriad of usability issues to overcome to make this kind of io layer work at the lower levels where all apps could benefit, however. So it is a tough issue. I have used a hack that used fuse to mount a kde io-slave url to a folder that anyone could access. It worked most of the time, but required an X11 connection to display the password dialog boxes.
Since spacial browsing is optional, I don't think that this alone is a valid reason to disparage Nautilus. The tired old argument against Gnome for having reasonable, simple defaults doesn't really fly either. It's all a matter of personal preference. Your need to micromanage the UI doesn't mean that all users want to micromange the UI anymore than my preference of sane defaults that I never have to tweak means everyone should also have the same preference. I don't find either Konqueror or Nautilus to be that useful to me period. My favorite file managers are the bash shell and the venerable Midnight Commander.
Why exclude MS and Apple? In fact, I'd be more suspicious of software from MS or Apple spying on me since they have intimate access to undocumented holes in the respective operating systems. All other apps trying to "phone home" should be caught by your firewall.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
In other news, the GNOME project has decided to change its logo.
But I don't think it's as well integrated as kio-slaves. Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember that in one of the Gnome 2.14 new-features articles we had on /. they mentioned that gedit now supports opening ftp etc like local files.
This implies that Gnome-VFS has to be integrated seperately in every app while I can use kio-slaves in every input field that accepts uri's in every app that uses the kdelibs.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I can only think of one thing you should know....IT SUCKS!
One thing I never got used to (don't know if it is a Nautilus thing or a GNOME thing) is how hard it is to make a new association between a file and an application. Apparently, you have to go to gconf, and create a new association, by extension and type. And I could never get it to stick (as in, log out, go back in, and the association disappeared). And god forbid, if you want to associate xml and xhtml to different applications. In KDE, right-click on the file, open with... option, type in the application, check the "remember application association...". Done and done.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Has anyone gotten CVS or any other versioning system working with nautilus? Under Linux I use lincvs which color codes each file by it's CVS status. In Windoze their are tools like Tortoise CVS that tweak the file explorer to do much the same thing and have corresponding context menus. Any luck w/ Nautilus in this vein?
Spatial mode was just one of many nails. The file dialog changes were another big one. The whole spatial really thing breaks down when I want to move to a place several directories up or down. Opening a bunch of new windows does not help usability in my opinion, and I think a lot of people would agree with me, since the tabs in Firefox are wildly popular even to the point that the next IE will have them.
The address bar being gone by default from Nautilus and the file dialogs is also infuriating. What if I don't want to take my hands of the keyboard and click a mouse a bunch of times times, scrolling and closing windows behind me all the while when I could have gone to the address bar and typed "/etc/httpd/conf" in about four keystrokes with auto-completion? I'm sorry if that means people have to learn something to take advantage of it, but why remove it when it works so much better for the people who have a little practice?
Nine things I should know ? Sorry but there's only one thing I know about Nautilus and that's that I can't stand using it. My reasons:
;)
1 The whole Spatial browsing idea. Yes you can turn it off (The is the first thing I do when I come across it) but it's a rotten idea. You can tell it's a rotten idea from the recent introduction of the "expanding folders" paradigm which is attempting to return "left hand " tree view functionality into the "single pane" spatial paradigm. Spatial browsing should have been left with the early MACs and the Atari, Amiga etc.
2 Poor keyboard support. My main gripe with Nautilus is that you can't navigate by pressing a key to "walk round objects whose name starts with a letter" as you can in Konqueror, Windows Explorer etc. etc. For me this makes finding files a complete pain in the arse. It's such basic obvious, useful functionality I can't believe it's missing.
3 Poor right mouse button support. Select some files and try to right click so you can select the "copy" option from the context menu. You can't. As soon as you right click then your current selection is discarded and the item nearest the mouse pointer is selected. This also has the added effect of changing the right click context menu. Great.
4 Similarly when you've got several files/directories on the clipboard and you want to paste them into a folder with a mouse click you can't. The right click once again selects an item etc. etc.
Personally I find Nautilus to be the single biggest impediment to me using Linux as my primary O/S. I run Ubuntu and for some reason Konqueror doesn't look quite right. But Nautilus sucks... it's as if the developers have never used a computer with a fully functional file manager.
And yes I have tried raising the issues on Bugzilla but my impression is that the Gnome developers aren't interested in adding functionality. They only seem to be interested in simplifying things as much as possible ("Oh that might be difficult for some users to use so we're not adding it...")
But in the time honoured tradition of open source I've given up on Nautilus and have started writing my own file manager using Mono (not being a proficient C# coder it'll take me a while) It'll probably be pretty crappy in general but it'll at least allow me to perform my file management in a sensible way.
On day the Gnome desktop will have been reduced to a single button and then you'll be happy
Ho hum, c'est la Vie.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
being a Mac fanboi it should be iNsensitive klod, you iNsensitive klod!
The location bar is still available. Without taking your hands off the keyboard, press control+ L and start typing the location you want. Or, (again without taking your hands off the keyboard), type the location starting with the root '/'. In both cases, the address bar magically pops up and is highlighted for text entry.
In the newest GTK+, there will also be a button next to the path bar, which, when pushed, will open up a location bar. This new button will make the whole location bar a bit more discoverable, fortunately.
In any case, to address your complaint: in Nautilus (and in any GTK+ application using the standard file dialogues), you can get to the location bar without clicking on the mouse.
Cheers!
~~~~~~~~~
dissertus scribendo latine videri volo.
but my god, what a piece of crap. Gnome is bad enough, a swollen, parasite ridden pig, with dystemper. But Nautilus twice as bad, and is the epitome of everything that is wrong with gnome, take a simple task, to wit, visually representing a hierarchal file system in a easy to understand way, and simplifying the manipulation of that file system, and instead create a file manager that does everything else (that is rightly the purview of other utilities) but manage files well. If want a desktop/window manager, I will install a desktop/window manager. Worse like a lot of gnome applications, Nautilus requires a number of additional huge footprint modules to be running in the background that either start with Nautilus, but don't shut down when Nautilus is shutdown, or just start no matter what when X is started.
Anything further from an idea file manager I couldn't imagine, it is almost identical the role Windows Explorer plays in Windows, but manages to use even more resources (I never thought I would see the day when a UNIX program would out bloat a Windows program.
my old sig is obsolete, and I haven't come up with a stupid enough new one yet
Nine things:
... rare? ... Bush ... Bushhhhhhh ... Bush don't know what is Nautilus!! (true, almost dies eating a cake !! imaging with a filebrowser!!!). .. gaaaaahhh!! (OMG!, do you need anymore?!!) .. Konqueror... if you want minimalistic ... Rox ... but if you're a Debian-Gnome-nerd of course, you must use Nautilus and run across the internet saying the wonderfulls of be a Debian-Gnome-nerd.
1) Is ugly
2) Is GTK/GTK2
3) Depend of Gnome.
4) Is
5) Is options limited.
6) Osama Been Laden use it to manage his batcave videos.
7) Bush
8) Ass Ketchup (Pokemon) use Nautilus
9) OK! you wanted it! If you want options/usability
until you become a programmer, and then everything is strikingly non-obvious.
Both Debian Unstable & Ubuntu Dapper come with Nautilus 2.14.1 (and I'm sure other distros do too:
Debian Unstable
Ubuntu Dapper
I have a very small mind and must live with it.
-- E. Dijkstra
It has nothing to do with distros or Nautilus, it is an option of the mount command (-o loop). For example:
mount -t iso9660 -o loop [filename.iso] [mount directory]
What is the big deal? What is the connection with Nautilus? Wou can write the above command in a shell script even if Nautilus is not installed.
Meh. Karma can only portioned out by the cosmos.
On My Command is the Mac version of this sort of functionality. It lets you do pretty much anything with a shell script in a context-sensitive way. Highly recommended.
[ReidNews]
Actually on OSX, the system just opens ".dmg" and ".iso" files with a little application called "DiskImageMounter.app" (I think that's its name, I am likewise not at a Mac right now) which calls hdiutil (presumably) and mounts it on the desktop. (Actually, in /Volumes/, but to the user it appears on the desktop.)
If you right-click on an image file, you can choose to open it either with the mounting program, or in Disk Copy, or in Adaptec's Toast if you have it installed.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Well it's a bit more complicated than this. Technically, an application that wants to be able to use GNOME-VFS has to use the GNOME-VFS functions instead of the stdio functions (obviously), but since GTK+ is cross platform (e.g. the GIMP), but GNOME-VFS isn't enabled automatically, rather an app needs to initialise that library.
It's very simple to do and aside from that, GTK can be fully integrated with GNOME-VFS, but it actually requires, like kioslaves, that you don't use stdio. A significant number of applications are written using only GTK and none of the GNOME libraries. I'd consider any program in the GNOME platform not working with GNOME-VFS as buggy or inconsistent behaviour.
Since I tried ditching Windows for day to day workstation use over a year ago, I've been using Gnome and Nautilus as defaults on FC. FC3 and now FC5. After reading of just a few things I could do, and the answer to some questions on other things that weren't as cool but totally necessary to getting things done, I found Nautilus was more than useful.
KDE on the other hand was unstable no matter what until recently (at which point xcompmgr also became stable and so did transparency and shadow effects for some bizarro reason), Kicker kept dying on login, and Konqueror kept doing anything other than what I wanted or crashing. Documentation was much worse and the help files looked like they were written by people for whom two sentence memos count as tl/dr.
I go with Nautilus by default and couldn't be happier with it. People who prefer command prompts are welcome to use them. Nautilus isn't a command prompt system and if you're going to compare apples and oranges then at least compare mc, emacs, and so on with ALL gui managers. Just so you know my take, in an age where keyboard skills are lacking more and more, using text to give people a chance to fat finger rm and other things is just stupid. GUIs exist for many reasons, and that is one of them.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
10) it doesn't
11) it hasn't
12) so is every other file manager of equal functionality
13) we do
14) thats one of the things it can do yes
15) so change them you lazy scrote
17) so does your post
18) opposite ends of the spectrum?
It's also great for sinking ships of war and whaling ships.
Nah, you're trolling... You definitely should have a look at Nautilus in 2.14. Integrated searching (including Beagle if available) is hardly an example of reducing feature set in relation to Konqueror, for example. Or for example network browsing and other gnome-vfs goodies are only getting better. Burning CDs/DVDs is extremely easy, drag'n'drop works beautifully across different GNOME apps etc. Or how about regular expression based matching with ctrl+S (which has been around for ages). Also, the spatial mode hasn't been the default since 2.12 at least in Ubuntu, thank god. I personally fail to see compromises for "the masses" or dumbening down in current GNOME releases -- quite the contrary I find the GNOME people are very clearly on the ball in terms of providing power users what the want (Nautilus scripts for example being one nice example), as well as accommodating those who just need the thing to work easily.
I'd like to give Linux a spin so I downloaded the Ubuntu (breezy) dvd install. Installed on my external firewire drive but 75% of the way through it told me it couldn't install the boot loader. Did some googling and it seems you have to jump through some hoops to get it to work right.
My question is this, are there currently any distros that can install and boot from an external firewire drive without having to monkey around with RAM disks, etc.? I don't have the space on my internal drive to sacrifice so my external is the only option.
Thanks.
Yes, like most of GNOME's new obstacles, there are workarounds. I knew about that, but it's really not good enough. I don't mind so much that it's a non-obvious solution. If something like that bugs me enough I will research it and once I've learned it, I've learned it. The extra step bugs me, and the overall reduced functionality bugs me. That location bar is better than nothing, but it still sucks. It behaves in an unintuitive way all its own. Example, start typing a location, then get halfway through it and press the down arrow a couple of times like you've been conditioned to do by every single other app that has that type of input method. Nothing. That means you have to remember the path or at least the first few letters of everything. Have to remember whether or not that name is capitalized, etc. So you just press enter halfway through what you were doing, find the right name, and either click, click, click, click or press ctrl-L again to get back to what you were doing. Why did they do that? Sometimes I think they do weird crap like that just to be different, not better... Stuff like swapping the OK and Cancel buttons around on everything. What purpose could that have possibly served? Standardize the apps, sure, but at least look to the de facto. Software should stand apart from the herd because it's better, not because its UI guidelines are completely different just for the sake of being different.
At least they got their branding down. I definitely know a GNOME-ism when I see it. The one big, black mark on Kubuntu is all of that GNOME weirdness that filtered down into the Firefox package.
To my knowledge, they were never removed. I've always seen the emblems in Nautilus...
I'm not quite following your rhetorical points. Is GNOME's copying of Windows a good thing or a bad thing? Is KDE's copying of Windows good thing or a bad thing? You seem to think KDE is good, then recommend GNOME for most dists because it "suits them". Logic hoy...
Anyway, "Everyone knows filemanagers like Explorer are really just web browsers" just hints You Must Be New Here. I might say that in Slashdot, everyone knows that integrating MSIE to Windows was the most colossal mistake Microsoft has made in recent history, from legal, security, and UI design points of view.
GNOME folks tried integrating web browser to Nautilus too, back in Nautilus 1.x. They realised it wasn't the way to go. Luckily.
And I haven't had to use gconf-editor for pretty much anything at all since 2.6 or so, can't be too sure but it's sure been heck of a long time...
And on the other hand, I have given up trying to figure out how the heck to not make KDE to use Konqueror (which I don't have installed) to open web links. Any help on how to get rid of the dreaded "could not find service 'kfmclient'" would be appreciated. And don't say "install Konqueror". GNOME can open links in Firefox just fine without either Nautilus or Epiphany installed! Maybe I'll need to write a 5-minute shell hack to replace kfmclient... oh, wait, writing shell scripts to bypass idiocies of the desktop environment is so GNOME user stuff, isn't it?
I don't greatly care for it either, and prefer the traditional two pane file manager. But, you install Gnome and Nautilus for a naive user, you can walk away and get no calls about it. Never a single one about how to find my files. Spatial browsing is fine too, and if they find it irritating, which they may after a while, you just have it open files in the same window.
I don't know that its a lot better than Konqueror in this respect, but if all they are doing is finding their files, and doing Office type work, this is one thing they do not have problems with.
I usually put one task bar at the bottom, with the apps in it, a desktop switcher, the calendar, and the little dock for the open apps. They never seem to have problems finding their way around, so Gnome must be doing something right. At least, for them.
network browsing and other gnome-vfs goodies are only getting better.
Yes, better than they were. Took them long enough to get there, but I did notice that. Better than kioslaves? I'm dubious but I admit I don't actually know. Early gnome-vfs left a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, and how about some tabs in Nautilus so I don't have to open fifteen windows?
Burning CDs/DVDs is extremely easy
Easy if you want to do one specific thing. Frustrating as hell if you're trying to do anything other than drag a few files into a window and burn them to a disc. I like K3B a lot better. And Nautilus could really use tabbed-navigation.
drag'n'drop works beautifully across different GNOME apps
I should hope so. That is after all what this whole pointy-clicky thing is all about. Just open up a tab and... Oh, wait...
Also, the spatial mode hasn't been the default since 2.12
If that's the case, then it took them six releases to do that. What, should we give them a medal? They had it right the first time, and we have known this since Windows 95. To think of all the time they wasted when they could have been implementing tabs in Nautilus! I find the GNOME people are very clearly on the ball in terms of providing power users what the want
Admittedly, I wouldn't know. I gave up on GNOME 'long about the time Konqueror got tabs.
I was hoping for a Jules Verne post.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I stopped using GNOME much earlier. Version 1.4 of GNOME added Nautilus 1.0 and it was dog sloooow. I had a 400 Mhz machine at the time and it took Nautilus 30 sec to open my home directory.
Anybody remember Eazel? This is the company which initially wrote Nautilus and spent millions of VC cash doing so. What was their business plan again?
Rox is by far the coolest file manager. And enlightenment 17 (even if still unstable) pwns gnome!
admp@sols:~$ apt-cache policy nautilus
nautilus:
Installed: 2.14.1-0ubuntu6
I avoided all the desktops for years. I really don't care for any of them. I still use a heavily customized twm at home. But when I switched from development to an IT environment where I have to support users who mostly have GNOME on the desktop, I started using it at work. And there's a lot I don't know about it even after three years (it's a tiny part of the job). So I learned a few things. I'm still on SL3 (RHEL3 from source), but I'd never realized there was an SMB URI, which is handy to know.
One thing I never got was the whole "spatial" thing. Woooo, spatial! It sounds like 3D or something, but it's just the same old thing that's been around forever. Some people like it, some don't. But giving it a marketing style name and jabbering away about it like you just solved Fermatt's Last Cryptic Note to the Cleaners is kind of stupid.
you mean to say that overlapping tiled windows by the dozen just to get to a single file while roaming around is easier than a simple tree view for a n00b?
HAHAHAHAHA! Shenanigans! Gnome got beat up all over the net over that decision, because they deserved it! KISS keep it simple. Mac had a few nice design features in the past, that wasn't one of them though, and certainly was a major mistake on the gnome devs part to try and mimic that idea. It was "busy"-needlessly busy-counter intutitive, had no immediate obvious way to initiate actions with whatever you were looking for even if you could find it, was cramped, used extra resources needlessly and was just plain *icky*.
*One* window,a basic and normal tree menu, a well thought out and easily understood way to see how this or that relates in its positioning. Already well established in the user/luser spectrum, nothing "new" to figger out, no extra crap to look at or guess at "what was under the third window down in this tile pile again???") nonsense.
Really, you want more instant features from any window that is opened? You have two quick ways to do it. Cram as many buttons oand input bars on it that you can, OR, use the right button menu system, which is MUCH mo better for past around just a few input features on any normal app window. If you are using a mouse for most of the work, keep the actions in the customized mouse menu, people will find it. Keep your work window uncluttered with some extra space and room to move. MOST people don't like 85 things opened in front of them, it's like driving down a street just chock full of neon signs, after a certain threshold, you stop seeing them and just see "big ugly mess".
Who the fuck modded the parent redundant?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
There's no hidden power, there's just incomplete documentation and limited usability. But I really doubt that these 9 things aren't mentioned anywhere. And these Special URLs are are just like in Konqueror .Maybe Nautilus would be still useful for common tasks if I didn't use Konqueror all the time. But I didn't know how to get rid of the gnome-desktop in ICEWM when nautilus was started.
Nautilus can't perform simple tasks such as deleting files and folders:
...
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108307
The above bug is only 3 years old, however. Give it time
Considering the above, in what sense do we call nautilus a 'file manager'? We could call it a 'filesystem approximator' or something. I'm running a small ( 8 PC ) Linux-on-the-desktop testbed in our sales department. They've all got gnome desktops. But we have to use konqueror as the file manager! Sad but true.
"It was created by a company called Eazel, staffed by ex-Apple programmers that wanted to bring ease of use to the Linux desktop."
In the Apple world, "easy to use" means "you have to try every single option to finally find what you want after ripping your hair out in frustration because nothing in the UI makes sense."
Staring at a white background [on a computer screen] while you read is like staring at a light bulb — Maddox
You seem to think KDE is good, then recommend GNOME for most dists because it "suits them". Logic hoy...
:) :)
No, he recommended GNOME to most _mainstream_ dists, probably because he doesn't think too highly of them, if you take the rest of his post into consideration.
I have to agree with you about the browser-in-filemanager thing. I really don't get what GP was trying to say.
And I haven't had to use gconf-editor for pretty much anything at all since 2.6 or so, can't be too sure but it's sure been heck of a long time...
I don't run gnome, but I use some gnome apps. I have to use gconf-editor way too much.
And on the other hand, I have given up trying to figure out how the heck to not make KDE to use Konqueror (which I don't have installed) to open web links.
1. Run kcontrol.
2. find the element called "KDE Components". Expand.
3. Choose "component choser" from its children.
4. Choose "Web browser" from the list of components. (ouch. KDE control center is a mess
5. Select the "in the following browser..." radio-button. Type the command into the text field, or use the appkication chooser (the button with "..." writen on it, to the right of the text field.
Hope this helps
Well, it sounds like you don't really want to give Gnome much of a chance. If it varies at all from your experience, you slam it-- even if Gnome provides other ways to do what you want it to do.
Pressing '/' or control + L is an extra step? How so? If you open up a file chooser with a location bar present, you must first click on the location bar or tab your way until it is selected. Either way will need at least one keystroke or, worse, taking your hands off the keyboard to click the mouse. On the other hand, if you press '/', then you have already started entering in the location without any preliminary keystrokes. This is actually *more* efficient. (If, for the sake of argument, the location bar is the first thing selected in the filechooser, it is simply as efficient as typing '/' to begin with. There is still no extra step.)
As you acknowledge, there is filename completion available: just start entering the name. What is so hard about that?
Gnome didn't swap the Ok and Cancel buttons. They placed the button most likely to be pushed to the edge of the window, where it is easier to be accessed. This has to do with Fitts Law. The Gnome HIG also recommends that the buttons have descriptive terms, such as "Don't Save" and "Save" rather than "Ok" and "Cancel." This isn't such a crazy idea, you know. Apple does it too, and everyone and their brother seem to think that Apple gets everything right.
The changes Gnome made were meant to make things better. You may agree or disagree whether the changes actually made things better, but if you read the mailing list archives, it becomes clear the intent was certainly good. Gnome did not make changes "just to be different."
~~~~~~~~~
dissertus scribendo latine videri volo.
it was on digg. i agree that digg had it after /., but who reads /. first theses days anyway
Now I use Gnome and Nautilus daily, and like it, so I'm not trolling when I ask why can't it open a simple text file? Now I admit it doesn't happen for every text file, but for some I get the elusive message:
"Cannot open blah.txt
The filename 'blah.txt' indicates that this file is of type 'txt document'. The contents of the file indicate that the file is of type 'plain text document'. If you open this file, the file might present a security risk to your system."
Can anyone explain how a 'txt document' is different from a 'plain text document', or how it presents a security risk? I've reported this as a bug in Gnome's bugzilla, but so far have heard nothing.
Oh, I'll really torch some karma if I start telling you how I feel about Apple... Anyway, not showing the location bar by default isn't the thing that bugs me so much as the way the location bar works. If the GNOME HIG stuff has really helped other people adopt it, then what few people like me that were turned off by it are inconsequential. We'll just use something else, and that's a good thing. I'm glad I have a choice. I do like GNOME a hell of a lot better than Windows or OSX though. And I certainly believe their hearts were in the right place when they started making all those changes. It's just that while their arguments make sense and their interface guidelines probably do make things intuitive for lots of people, it has quite the opposite effect on some of us who are already quite at home with all the functionality that allegedly confuses new users.
Gnome didn't swap the Ok and Cancel buttons. They placed the button most likely to be pushed to the edge of the window, where it is easier to be accessed. This has to do with Fitts Law. The Gnome HIG also recommends that the buttons have descriptive terms, such as "Don't Save" and "Save" rather than "Ok" and "Cancel." This isn't such a crazy idea, you know. Apple does it too, and everyone and their brother seem to think that Apple gets everything right.
All this stuff makes sense when you explain it, but if it has to be explained then it's hardly intuitive to me. Perhaps people smarter than I am came up with these ideas and that means I'm wrong, and when the buttons are labeled "Save" and "Don't Save" instead of "Ok" and "Cancel" it means that new users don't have to think as much. But it also means that old users have to read the buttons now. That's a small thing but it distracts me a lot more than, say, a toolbar.
I know they're trying. I have to give them credit for doing something new. And I know they're doing great things for their target audience. Their target audience just isn't me anymore.
Which is rather odd, come to think of it - it's not a subject I've seen brought up much here. In a community this large and diverse you'd expect almost anything to be a topic of discussion at least once. Can it really be true that noone here has any sort of athletic hobbies?
Then do yourself a favor and install the gnome-control-center. I have the same situation with KDE, and even I was clueful enough to install kcontrol, even when I don't use the majority of KDE apps.
Yeah, says /usr/bin/gnome-moz-remote in the text field. Trust me, I found this thing it really easily.
Next I say, for example, Help - About KDE... and then click on the kde.org web link. "Could not find service 'kfmclient'."
Okay, maybe it just got mad because I wanted it to use the default GNOME browser, me heretic me. I change it to say /usr/bin/firefox like all people who prefer to configure each damn thing differently, and hit Apply.
Help - About KDE... click on the link: "Could not find service 'kfmclient'."
And I did research a bit: kfmclient is in, you guessed it, konqueror package, which I don't want to install because I don't need several web browsers and file managers, let alone ones I don't use. gnome-moz-remote, which is the proggie GNOME apps use to open web links, is in gnome-bin, the generic package that has a lot of other generically useful binaries.
I'm not asking what's to dislike about spatial mode or other defaults of Nautilus. I'm asking why having to go through changing the default settings into something you prefer is such a roadblock?
Click the checkbox to go to browser mode. Click the checkbox to display the address bar. Doesn't that take away the vast majority of these complaints? You seem to be operating under the assumption that a few mouse clicks is this 30-foot stone wall that stands between you and a file manager that behaves more to your liking.
I don't like spatial mode, either. It is obviously something that made a lot more sense back when desktop computers were smaller and is poorly-suited to the kinds of complex directory hierarchies that people use nowadays, especially on UNIX-type machines. That's why I turned it off.
Okay, so you're a moron who complains about your incomplete installation, got it.
How do you make the autohide feature on the GNOME panel show only 1 pixel width?
How do you tell Nautilus which applications it should use for certain filetypes? Looks like they might have finally fixed this in 2.14. AFT!!!
What happened to the right-click terminal option in GNOME 2.14 in FC5? I noticed KDE brought it back.. hrmmm..
Maybe they don't think we notice these changes..
Whatever their reasons it directly impacts my experience..
So bad PR for GNOME, they need to get back with the program. It should be written by programmers for programmers, not by parents for children. If I wanted hand holding I'd buy a Mac.
I'm a moron who doesn't want to install a program I'm not going to use anyway. Maybe I'm just a moron for not wanting to buy a bigger hard drive and waste bandwidth for all those starving third world countries to use.
And I'm a complete fucking utter moron for suggesting that maybe we could ask Debian to put kfmclient in "kde-core" instead of "konqueror", just like they put gnome-moz-remote in "gnome-bin" instead of "epiphany-browser". At least until upstream screws it up again. But of course, we can't expect KDE to concentrate functionality that should be in core somewhere to illogical places like the core! Things like accessing the Web Browser have to be integrated to the Web Browser!
I'm cured! Let's waste disk space in harmony, joy, and capitalistic orgastic joy of mass hysteria or something! And finally, we can expect Microsoft to join the Linux desktop projects! They know all about wasting disk space, maybe they can offer us some expert advice!
No idea. I prefer my Window Maker icons 64 pixels.
Puzzled me for a while, but someone told me the answer: they're using the Freedesktop.org shared-mime-info standard for MIME associations. Just use all the usual tools for that stuff.
"Right click terminal option"? Eh? I don't quite follow.
Then perhaps you should compile kmfclient yourself, or find a distro that seperates it from the Konqueror package.
"Right click terminal option"?
When you right-click on the desktop, which is managed by nautilus and konqueror in GNOME and KDE respectively, a popup menu has several options to create a new icon, configure the desktop, etc. They usually also have an option here to launch a terminal, but that only seems to be available from time to time.
But I dunno, I just like ranting on and on about these little quirks. Every distro I've used has its faults, but at least they're not as bad as Windows. I have the option to replace the kernel or X11 or whatever suits my needs. But what I need is my own system, configured just the way I like it upon installation. Nothing else seems to work for me, because they're incomplete, full of bugs, lacking features and don't upgrade/update properly.
If you want it done right..
Oh, ok, fine...I'll take the bait.
Mostly because I don't think this guy is actually flamebait. I recall when Nautilus was first added to Gnome, and I was extremely pissed about it. In fact, I'd say that was the low point in my opinion of Gnome...the file manager was slow as hell, and like Explorer on Winders it was the basis for drawing a bunch of the Gnome "stuff" like panels and whatnot, so when you had a Nautilus problem you had a total desktop problem. In short, it was pretty, but otherwise sucked. I used KDE.
But those days are over.
Nautilus these days does not seem slow at all. Particularly in comparison to Konqueror on the hardware I use both of them on. I feel strongly that the speed of Gnome has improved markedly in the last year or two, in particular the boost with this last release. The spatial file manager (once you change the gconf key to make it not litter your desktop with old windows) is killer, and irrespective of speed the functionality is excellent. I expect you simply haven't used Gnome/Nautilus recently enough; please, take another look and see if things haven't improved.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Okay - I don't use Nautilus to draw the desktop, so I didn't remember. I find it much faster to simply hit shift+ctrl+n or shift+ctrl+t in an existing terminal...
...and in Window Maker, you use right-click-on-desktop to Launch Everything In The Whole World anyway, so I definitely get every X shell that way in any case. =)
As do I. But at least I realise that ranting about little quirks in the Competiting System(tm) has absolutely no effect and will only annoy people. As soon as I get back from a trip I'll file an enhancement suggestion regarding kfmclient packaging. That's how things get fixed, not by flaming the thing down, you know.
Even if I use GNOME and a little bit of KDE apps doesn't mean that I simply polarize the thing; I'd rather use the proper apps for the job. Qt folks don't have anything quite as good as Firefox or GIMP. GTK+ folks don't have anything that's quite as good as Scribus. KDE doesn't have anything quite comparable to Nautilus. GNOME doesn't have anything quite as good as amaroK or Psi. KDE folks can't come up with a good multimedia architecture so they also support GStreamer in amaroK - best of the both worlds! I want both work, and as far as I can see, they both do their things wonderfully. All apps have their stupid sides.