HOWTO: Dirty Hack to Replace Nautilus With PCManFM

[axxer]

first of all, this is a dirty hack to replace nautilus with pcmanfm. do this at ur own risk, i will not be responsible for any damages caused by this. again, DO THIS AT UR OWN RISK.

i always hate nautilus, its kinda slow and sluggish. so i use this hack to replace it with pcmanfm, the default, light filemanager used in lxde. inspired by a thread in ubuntuforum http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=692238. credits goes to them

1- first of all, we need to enable debian stable repo because we want to pull 1 package from it, which is pcmanfm-nohal 0.5-3, so edit ur sources.list:

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gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

2- add debian stable repo in it:

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deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

3- update ur package index

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sudo apt-get update

4- install pcmanfm-nohal

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sudo apt-get install pcmanfm-nohal

5- backup these 3 files; nautilus.desktop, nautilus-computer.desktop and nautilus-folder-handler.desktop:

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sudo cp /usr/share/applications/nautilus.desktop /usr/share/applications/nautilus.desktop.backup && sudo cp /usr/share/applications/nautilus-computer.desktop /usr/share/applications/nautilus-computer.desktop.backup && sudo cp /usr/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop /usr/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop.backup

6- open nautilus.desktop with gedit:

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sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/nautilus.desktop

find line 102 and edit it until it looks like this:

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Exec=pcmanfm

and save it.

7- open nautilus-computer.desktop with gedit:

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sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/nautilus-computer.desktop

find line 178 and edit it until it looks like this:

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Exec=pcmanfm

and save it.

8- open nautilus-folder-handler.desktop with gedit:

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sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop

find line 86 and edit it until it looks like this:

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Exec=pcmanfm -d

and save it.

9- restart x with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, u should automatically relogin back. at this point nautilus has been replaced by pcmanfm, but desktop management still doesn't work (all icon on desktop dissapeared, right-click on desktop wont work) so we need to enable desktop management in pcmanfm. open pcmanfm (it should be in menu) and choose Edit>Preference, move to Desktop tab, tick "Manage the desktop and show file icons". all ur icons on desktop should appear and right-click on desktop should work by now. done!!!

in case u wanna revert back to use nautilus as ur filemanager, just replace back 3 files that we backup earlier:

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sudo cp /usr/share/applications/nautilus.desktop.backup /usr/share/applications/nautilus.desktop && sudo cp /usr/share/applications/nautilus-computer.desktop.backup /usr/share/applications/nautilus-computer.desktop && sudo cp /usr/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop.backup /usr/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop

and hit Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. cheers

[axxer]

btw worth to mention, that pcmanfm-nohal 0.5.3 is old, from 2008.. current is 0.9.8 in unstable repo (yes i use lmde with debian unstable repo, dont know which version is in testing/squeeze).

that version doesnt support trashcan because it doesn't implement gvfs yet by that time, so any file that u choose to delete using it doesn't go to trash, its deleted forever. basicly, ur system wont have trashcan like in nautilus if use that pcmanfm.

current version (0.9.8) does support gvfs, but i couldn't make it run smoothly like that old version. that old pcmanfm uses "-d" command to run its daemon (look at 8th step), and 0.9.8 uses "-desktop" (read here http://blog.lxde.org/?p=737), but when i use 0.9.8 with "-desktop" or "-d" command earlier, it doesn't work... pcmanfm will just pops out from nowhere when login, and theres no way to make it manage the desktop like the old pcmanfm does (theres no such option in its preference).

so if anyone can make this hack works with pcmanfm 0.9.8, that would be awesome

[martyq]

I didn't follow all of the steps in the post since I wanted to keep Nautilus around for a little. To get around the desktop manager issue, I created a small shell script and added it to the Startup Applications so that it starts up once I login.

The script was simple with only two lines in it:

#!/bin/bash

pcmanfm -d --desktop

The -d, tell it to run as daemon and the --desktop option launches the desktop manager.

BTW: Version 0.9.7 is what's included with the Testing/Squeeze

[ctrlbrk]

I didn't follow all of the steps in the post since I wanted to keep Nautilus around for a little. To get around the desktop manager issue, I created a small shell script and added it to the Startup Applications so that it starts up once I login.

The script was simple with only two lines in it:

#!/bin/bash

pcmanfm -d --desktop

The -d, tell it to run as daemon and the --desktop option launches the desktop manager.

BTW: Version 0.9.7 is what's included with the Testing/Squeeze

I am using 0.9.8 on LMDE x64, and when I did this I got the following error. I'd like to make pcmanfm the default, ideas?

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# pcmanfm -d --desktop
No protocol specified
Cannot open display: 

This was from an X session terminal.

[ctrlbrk]

I didn't follow all of the steps in the post since I wanted to keep Nautilus around for a little. To get around the desktop manager issue, I created a small shell script and added it to the Startup Applications so that it starts up once I login.

The script was simple with only two lines in it:

#!/bin/bash

pcmanfm -d --desktop

The -d, tell it to run as daemon and the --desktop option launches the desktop manager.

BTW: Version 0.9.7 is what's included with the Testing/Squeeze

I am using 0.9.8 on LMDE x64, and when I did this I got the following error. I'd like to make pcmanfm the default, ideas?

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# pcmanfm -d --desktop
No protocol specified
Cannot open display: 

This was from an X session terminal.

This was due to running the terminal as root instead of the logged in user.

[elvis_ef]

8- open nautilus-folder-handler.desktop with gedit:

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sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop

find line 86 and edit it until it looks like this:

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Exec=pcmanfm -d

and save it.

Im using Linux Mint Debian with 2.6.39-2-486 core and PCManFm v0.9.8:
1.a) -d is for daemon - works fine!
1.b) --desktop is for managing desktop icons and so on - works great!
2. the file "nautilus-folder-handler.desktop" should have only "pcmanfm" line.
3. the file "nautilus.desktop" file should have "pcmanfm -d --desktop" line for getting work.

This is my configuration and works fine, after a few tests and working around..
Please let me know if this work..

PS.But still when I want to run (by ALT+F2 key combination) for exapmple this: "/", nautilus shows up...