A Nautilus Sucks Donkeyballs Linux Rant
Nautilus, the Gnome file assistant manager, sucks utter donkeyballs. Let us make an unordered list of the ways:
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If the underlying filesystem changes, say a copy operation, the file manager view does not update without a manual refresh by CTL+R. This leaves the view in a stale state, presenting false file information to the user, who might never know until they do something bad. This is a showstopper bug that's been hanging around since forever.
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Batch rename. Good luck trying to rename a series of files ordered sequentially by number, if the number happens to start with any number other than one. A sequence from 2 to x is impossible to batch rename. Because regex in sed never worked either. No, wait. It's always worked! For like, 50 years.
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Why, when moving a collection of files or a directory within the same filesystem, does it actually perform a copy and delete operation, taking cpu and time, when the inode location could just be updated like mv does?
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Thumbnails? Why do they take longer to generate for images and video than than the totality of the existence of the universe?
Nautilus is an unusable mess. If command line file utils were this bad, we'd never be able to reliably store and manipulate files. Who in their right mind actually uses this junk?
I also find it incredible, that there's no GUI button to edit the path. You have to just kind of know that Ctrl+L does that...
I don't have any of OP's issues, but this one! I hate it! Especially on the Steam Deck
Don't worry, it's documented on the second tab of options in an unrelated dialog box, so anyone who needs it should know where to find it.
This is the same in Dolphin (Plasma's file browser). And it's the same hotkey!
In Dolphin, you can click to the right of the path, like you would in a textbox.
I admit, it's not the most intuitive method either, but when you hover your mouse there, it does change over to a text editing cursor, shows a caret-like line to the right of the path and will eventually throw up a tooltip that you can "Click to Edit Location"...
Come to the dark side, KDE has Dolphin and it swims faster than any gnome could.
You can just install Dolphin on GNOME, you don't have to go the whole way.
You might as well go the whole way for desktop supremacy! ;)
Nah, I like GNOME, and I mostly use Nautilus anyway. :P
Also works on Windows
KDE is the answer to all of OPs problems.
Dolphin has been one of my favorite benefits of switching from Ubunt to Debian! I didn't know how "plain" nautilus was until I met Dolphin.
I've been able to customize the file window to my liking and it's really nice !
Using a file manager without split panels feels like going back to the 90s for me now. You mean I have to open two different windows?!
I've tried both but always find myself just opening new windows instead of using split panels. I find it to be more convenient personally.
Dolphin has split panels... Hit F3
Oh yeah that's what I meant, I'm so used to split panels in Dolphin now that other file managers feel old-school.
KDE gang rise up! Can't stand GNOME and its design philosophy, in recent times it seems like it's been trying its hardest to become the most off-brand macOS it can possibly be. Everywhere I look its more form over function. Urgh.
100% agreed. I personally hate the Appleverse, so Gnome just irks my gears.
KDE Nation, we are armed with Plasma!!!
Personally I never understood why file managers in linux refuse to do operations that require privileges. Guess what, if I have Nautilus open and want to move files into, let's say,
/usr/local, I don't want to have to switch to the terminal to do so if I already have the stuff copied within nautilus. On Windows, I just get an admin password prompt if I try to do naughty stuff. On Linux, we have the whole polkit system, but no file manager seems to ever use it. Tbf, this is not a nautilus problem, as no file manager seems to do this.You can do this in Nemo by default, and for Dolphin you'll need to install the KDE "kio-admin" package.
Oh wow you can? I just switched to Nemo on Arch after using Thunar for a long time but I got annoyed at it for crashing a lot when I copy files to my FTP server. Very good to know!
In Thunar it's just right-click and "Open as root"
I really like Thunar
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I'm aware of nautilus-admin, but not only is it not maintained, imho it should be part of nautilus by default, and it has to open a new nautilus window when you use it. What I want is to drag and drop files to
/usr/localand then get a password prompt to do the move. With nautilus-admin, I need to have the foresight to use "Open as admin" when going into/usr/local, but if I had that foresight then I might as well just start nautilus as root to begin with. Usually I just want to look into the folder, and only then realize I need to change something, which means a good old "go back up one folder, then search thelocalfolder again, then right click, search for 'Open as admin', then get thrown into a new window, completely disorienting myself in the process".[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
This annoys me to no end.
I honestly can never imagine Linux without KDE plasma. It has its flaws for sure, but at least I can modify the shit out of it to force it to meet my needs 100%.
Yeah every once in a while I see a screenshot of GNOME that looks really nice and get tempted to try it again, and usually within a day or two I'm back to KDE lol.
No shade to people who like to use GNOME, but it's really not for me.
Absolutely. Gnome is becoming gorgeous, but its workflow is not for me. Also, all the missing things that I have to add extensions for is just not ideal. I just re-create the gnome theme in kde when I miss gnome. or just install it in a VM and enjoy for for a little while. Otherwise, kde has always been where I belong.
I've had the best experience using xfce.
I would use it if it supported 4k better. Every time I set the resolution to 4k and the scaling to 2x, the whole UI gets jacked up and something can't be clicked anymore. Window bars stay really small. The panel gets all messed up. That's basically on every single distribution I've tried with xfce
Thunar
Thunar
Thunar?
Thunar.
Thunar
Caja tho
I don't even use Linux, but isn't copying and deleting files to simply move them, like super bad in the long run for data integrity?
Yes, which is why Nautilus doesn't do that, and OP is doing something weird
Select a group of folders and try it yourself!
How?
It's crazy crazy sort order that I can't stand. They deliberately go in and remove certain characters from the filename, specifically to make the sorting behave weirdly.
I don't know what you mean. If a open my Downloads folder and then download something, it shows up in Nautilus without refreshing anything
I mean at least there is a batch rename function unlike in windows
Again, I can't reproduce it. I can move many GB instantly using ctrl + x and ctrl + v
The only thing that really annoys me with Nautilus is that you can't type in the directory path you want to open except using ctrl + L. In the hamburger menu there even is an option to copy the path. Why not make one more to edit it? Or replace copy with edit, because when editing you can also copy it anyway
Here's what I mean:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/994
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2022997
Oh, and...
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-rename-multiple-files-in-windows-with-powerrename/
Of cause you can batch rename with an additional tool. Same goes for nautilus
I don't want to debate win here, that's off topic, but batch renaming is something Explorer does.
Why the fuck does a desktop app have a hamburger menu though.
Why not?
Dolphin has a hamburger menu too, what's so weird about that?
Gnome and kde are horrible for that. Mobile UX on a desktop platform is terrible to use.
I feel like with every major UI update it takes more steps to do the same basic tasks.
They're gonna have to put those options somewhere and there's only so much space in the top bar
So, gnome is an alternative desktop environment and it's great that they exist. If they inspired Apple's UI or the other way around, doesn't matter but they are the Apple UI of Linux. Mac users switching to Linux can have a somewhat familiar experience.
That said, their "we know better than you what you want, luser" attitude makes it hard for me not to grin when someone rants about their stuff. It shouldn't, because they are probably mostly unpaid contributors and their work should be valued, but once in a while...
The one that really irks me now is that Nautilus in Ubuntu doesn't show thumbnails for PNG images in the file selection dialog. It's such an ass-backwards change that I'm legitimately shocked.
Okay. I'm glad that the situation is looking better, and it's probably more on the Ubuntu people than the Gnome people, but it's still an incredibly shitty experience.
22.04 is not outdated.
It is 3 GNOME releases behind.
You'll have to compile a daily from github if you want the proposed fix.
Dolphin integrates fine into Gnome. Installs a tooon of dependencies though
It looks pretty though
There isnβt an alternative to Gnome, nothing looks the same
And if I use a fork of it then eventually that wonβt look as good because itβs not run by the Gnome devs
I'm not a fan of either Gnome or KDE.
To me, the big mistake both make is in the presumption the UI and utilities shipped with those platforms are why people use it. But no. Nobody uses MacOS because of its nifty calculator or the Finder. It's the overall toolkit integration with apps. Not even look and feel. But consistency in use.
Neither KDE nor Gnome offer that.
What do you mean consistency in use?
People use Macs to feel trendy
I don't presume to know why others choose to use anything. But MacOS is highly consistent across apps. Dialog boxes, text input forms, file browsing, hot keys, all the same across applications.
Oh so you mean being a closed eco-system
I feel a lot of devs would be upset if they were told they can only develop using GTK for example
I'm not telling devs what they can do. Merely pointing out this is why the projects fail.
Stopped reading at 'Gnome', thats what ya get for not using KDE.
Honestly I don't get why Gnome is standard for so many distros, if that's your thing sure but I feel like KDE makes more sense as a default (unless you're going for more of an apple feel)
My recollection mostly had to do with the old way Qt was licensed, which affected how people wanted to include KDE in distros. Gnome managed to step into the void by leapfrogging other choices like CDE (way back!) and it managed to get wired into a few fast growing distros. Most notably, it was pulled into Ubuntu due to the Qt licensing on commercial distros, then many things based on Ubuntu, and here we are.
I'm sure there were other considerations about features, where Gnome had a good set of tools, but used to be lighter duty than KDE. There was also a window of time where Gnome was designed to be more touchscreen/tablet friendly while KDE stayed away from that style (good!).
Different licenses, different styles, different release times. A bit of "right place, right time, now the default" for Gnome.
I like KDE, but I'm mostly a Mint/Cinnamon user, and have been around since SunOS CDE systems, so it's all better than that! I've got a couple of kids on Ubuntu/Gnome, mostly due to driver issues.
Some of this is correct, and some of it is myth. Source: I was there ;)
Qt way back in version 1 was merely "free for non-commercial use" and shipped with the source code. KDE was founded on that version. This was in like 1996, before KDE even had a stable release. Gnome was founded immediately in response, choosing GTK (the Gimp Toolkit) which wasn't really ready for use as a full fledged desktop toolkit, but existed and the license was friendly. KDE and Trolltech formed a few agreements -- the first was the creation of the QPL, an attempt to create an open-source compatible license for Qt, and the second was the creation of the KDE Free Qt Foundation (it said, effectively, if Qt were to become closed, the most recent version prior to that would be released under the BSD license).
However, the damage was done. Stallman and others would never forgive KDE for choosing a not-free-enough toolkit, and the Gnome devs were associated with redhat. That meant Redhat and Debian, the two biggest distros, defaulted to Gnome. Ubuntu just adopted Debian, ergo Gnome.
Qt would shortly thereafter be released under GPL, GPL3, and LGPL. There's still a commercial license option, and that pisses a lot of people off for some reason. But it was never a risk to KDE or the community -- not since before KDE 1.0.
The file manager in CDE worked. And it's all open source now. What I'd give for CDE and Motif to come back! Lol
That old shit all worked better.
You can still run CDE. One of the people on /c/RuneScape does
It's backed by Redhat. Somehow, projects backed by Redhat become the standard (systemd, pulseaudio, gnome)
KDE feels like an unpolished Windows desktop to me. I find it difficult to do things the KDE way when everything feels like Windows on first glance, but doesn't 1:1 behave like Windows. It's a disjarring experience for me, and probably others who migrate from Windows to Linux. I also think that Gnome has better touchpad gesture support than KDE, which makes Gnome the logical choice for companies that sell Linux laptops.