Replace Thunar and Xfdesktop with Nautilus in Xfce

Thunar is File manager by default that Xfce, which to be simple and light, lacks some options that have Nautilus y Dolphin for example.

The following article explains how to use Nautilus for Manage the Desktop and the folders even when we use Xfce and I took it from a post in the Ubuntu forums. I just tried this method on the laptop of a friend who uses Xubuntu 10.04 but it must be valid for any other distribution. Go for it!!!

Disabling the Xfce Desktop

The first thing we will do is disable all the elements of xfdesktop, that is, from the desk of Xfce. For this we go to Menu »Preferences» Desktop. Once there we follow the following steps:

<° - In the Background (background) we disable the wallpaper. For them we modify the following options:

• Image: None
• Colors: Solid color and we choose the Black.

<° - In the Menus we disable all the options that appear there.

<° - In the Icons we disable the icons in the options Appearance.

Installing Nautilus

Later we must install Nautilus. To try to install as few dependencies as possible in Ubuntu / Debian we open a terminal and put:

$ sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends nautilus

Later we launched Nautilus with [Alt] + [F2] writing as is logical: Nautilus without the quotes.

Nautilus as default File Manager

Now to do what Nautilus please start next see us join our session and replace Thunar y xfdesktop we have to go to Menu »Preferences» Session and Start and we go to the tab Session. There we must leave only that we need to start when we enter xfce.

Normally the following processes would have to be left:

• xfwm4
• xfce4-panel
• xfce4-settings-helper
• Nautilus

If there is something else open, we close it and then save with the button: Save Session.

This will be enough for the next time we start, Nautilus manage our desktop and be who opens the folders. Now, there are a couple of extra things to do, one that comes in the original tutorial and one that I added later.

Managing the wallpaper with Nitrogen

If we try to change the wallpaper using the option Change the Desktop Background with Right Click nothing will happen. This is because that option calls gnome-appearance-properties which is included in the package gnome-control-center.

We could install this package, but that entails a number of dependencies on Gnome that we will not need, so we will make use of Nitrogen a very simple program for Manage wallpapers en Gnome. So we install it and run it with this command:

sudo apt-get install nitrogen && nitrogen

Once the application is launched we will only have to configure in which folders the images we want are located.

Normally we could use:

• / usr / share / xfce4 / backdrops
• / usr / share / backgrounds

Setup Nitrogen it's very simple, so I don't think I need to explain how to add or remove folders with images. For what Nitrogen be launched when we try to change the wallpaper, we have to create as root a file inside / usr / bin with the name: gnome-appearance-properties which should have this inside:

[code] dir = »ltr»> function –show-page = background
{
nitrogen
}

"$ 1"

exit 0

[/ Code]

Then we give it execution permissions:

$ sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/gnome-appearance-properties

And ready. Every time we click on Change the Desktop Background it will come out Nitrogen 😀

Activate folders in Nautilus.

Now in Xubuntu next Menu we have the plugin Places which executes Thunar instead of Nautilus. I couldn't immediately figure out how to change this, so what occurred to me was to put the Personal folder in the Desktop.

To easily activate the folders we must install gconf-editor.

$ sudo aptitude install gconf-editor

Then with [Alt] + [F2] we execute it by typing «gconf-editor»Without the quotation marks. Then we will apps »nautilus» desktop and we activate the personal folder.

Ready, we close the session, we go back in and Voilá !!