Make Thunar handle the desktop in Unity

[Finalfantasykid]

I am running Ubuntu 13.10 with nautilus handling the desktop icons and whatnot, however I would like to try to use Thunar to handle the desktop instead. Is there any way to make it do this while still running Unity?

[rihikz]

Hello.

Follow these steps to switch to Thunar:


Start Synaptic, and search for and install the thunar and thunar-archive-plugin packages. After installation, you can run Thunar by typing thunar in a terminal window.
To cause Thunar to open whenever you click an entry in the Places menu, you’ll need to edit a configuration file: open a terminal window, and type the following:

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

Scroll to the bottom of the file, and look for the line that reads

 Exec=nautilus --no-desktop %U

Change it so it reads

Exec=thunar %U

Then save the file, log out and back in again, and test the changes by selecting Places --> Home.

[Finalfantasykid]

That didn't seem to have any effect. Also I didn't have Exec=nautilus --no-desktop %U in the file, it said Exec=nautilus %U instead, not that probably makes any difference. Here are the full contents of the file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Files
Comment=Access and organize files
Exec=nautilus %U
Icon=system-file-manager
Terminal=false
NoDisplay=true
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Utility;Core;
MimeType=inode/directory;application/x-gnome-saved-search;
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=nautilus
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=general
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=3.2.1
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=nautilus

[rihikz]

Try changing the 4th line to

Exec=thunar %U

Make sure the file got saved, then kill nautilus and start thunar or try logging in and out.

[Finalfantasykid]

Nope, that still didn't do it. Are you sure that is the right file, or is there another one that I need to change?

And this isn't to change what opens by default when clicking a menu (although I suppose I want that as well), but it is the file manager which handles the desktop icons.

[Toz]

I am running Ubuntu 13.10 with nautilus handling the desktop icons and whatnot, however I would like to try to use Thunar to handle the desktop instead. Is there any way to make it do this while still running Unity?

Thunar doesn't manage the desktop, its simply a file manager. There is a plan to extend it so that it takes over the desktop management facilities that xfdesktop currently performs, but that has been post-poned to 4.12. In Xfce, xfdesktop manages the desktop.

[Finalfantasykid]

That is sort of what I was afraid of. And there ins't any hope to get xfdesktop running within Unity is there? I try to run it in the terminal, and it complains that there is already another desktop manager running.

[Toz]

I honestly don't know if it will work, or if it will break stuff, or what may happen (think "end of the world"), but you can force xfdesktop to manage the desktop via:

xfdesktop --replace

...again, I have no idea what will happen if you try this on a system running unity. Perhaps best to try it on a test system or within a VM.

May I ask, why do you want to replace the Unity desktop management facilities? Or why you don't just run Xfce (Xubuntu)?

[Finalfantasykid]

Whoa what the, I was sure I ran that earlier and it didn't work. I did it now and it did!

Could I just add xfdesktop to the startup applications? And how would I stop nautilus from starting up?

May I ask, why do you want to replace the Unity desktop management facilities? Or why you don't just run Xfce (Xubuntu)?

I like XFCE, but I much prefer what Unity offers. Except nautilus pretty much sucks now and Thunar is getting more and more appealing, and I want to give it a go for a while.

[Toz]

Could I just add xfdesktop to the startup applications? And how would I stop nautilus from starting up?

I'm not exactly sure (uncharted territory) but it sounds right. I do believe that nautilus has a "--no-desktop" parameter that prevents it from managing the desktop. You might want to add this parameter to the Exec line of its .desktop file in /usr/share/applications.