HOWTO: Replace Nautilus with PCMan (4 Steps, No Fuss).

[SilverWave]

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PCMan works great as a drop in replacement for Nautilus.

PCMan works well with GNOME and has options to "Open Current Folder as root" and also "Open Terminal" .
Its fast, uncluttered and has tabs!

http://pcmanfm.sourceforge.net/
Features:

* Extremly fast and lightweight
* Can be started in one second on normal machine
* Tabbed browsing (Similiar to Firefox)

Original idea from: http://lifehacker.com/software/linux...ger-288616.php

OS: Ubuntu 7.10
Architecture: 64bit.
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1.
Install pcmanfm from the package manager.

Applications > System Tools > PCMan File Manager

2.
If you find that you like PCMan and want to have "Places" use it instead of nautilus do the following:
Start the PCMan File Manager and go to:

/usr/share/applications

In PCMan "Open Current Folder as root"

Tools > Open Current Folder as root.

3.
Make a backup copy of the files below (copy and paste and add "_bak" on the end of the file name.

/usr/share/applications/nautilus-computer.desktop
/usr/share/applications/nautilus-folder-handler.desktop

4.
Change the line in each with starts with Exec=
e.g

For nautilus-computer.desktop: Exec=pcmanfm /
For nautilus-folder-handler.desktop: Exec=pcmanfm %U

Done

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Note: You can go quite a bit further in replacing nautilus if you wish (see gsiliceo's post below) but the steps I have detailed above give the most change for the least effort.
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[UPDATE]
Old tip - See this post for latest NEWS

[gsiliceo]

To completly replace nautilus follow this steps, they all are reversable and not harmful at all, as long as you make the backups.

First we need to backup some files

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

Then open these files

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

and replace every nautilus word with pcmanfm (delete the arguments after the word pcmanfm since some are not supported)
And save

And these changes are for gnome session manager(so ubuntu stops trying to load nautilus)
Backup this file

sudo cp /usr/share/gnome/default.session /usr/share/gnome/default.session.backup

Then we need to delete a few lines an change some numbers

sudo gedit /usr/share/gnome/default.session

Then open it and delete the lines that have at the beggining the same number as the nautilus line
something like this:

2,id=default2
2,Priority=40
2,RestartCommand=nautilus --no-default-window --sm-client-id default2

Then rename the other lines so the numbers dont jump from 1 to 3.
And from the line

num_clients=X

Change the number to the new number of process you just changed.
And save

If you don't understand i added my file to this post as an attachment so you can compare.

And the most important step to kill nautilis you need to do this :

sudo cp /usr/bin/nautilus /usr/bin/nautilus.backup
sudo rm /usr/bin/nautilus
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/pcmanfm /usr/bin/nautilus

Finally, you need to open a PCMan window and go to edit, preferences, desktop, to configure the desktop.
And dont forget to restart the session doing ctrl+alt+backspace

Doing this ubuntu wont ever load nautilus, saving the precious ram and reducing boot time.
I wish you could just uninstall it, but the package is tied to many other important packages.

[SilverWave]

Your forgot a few files that you ...

I was about to make a how to my self, but i don't like duplicate posts, so i hope you can update yours =D

Updated the howto pointing to your post for the advanced stuff

If you get a chance add in a couple of screen shots to your original post.

[tad1073]

I followed the steps in the first post but nautilus is still opening computer and home from the desktop icons

[gsiliceo]

you have to follow the second post instructions to get rid of nautilus.

[tad1073]

you have to follow the second post instructions to get rid of nautilus.

I don't want to remove nautilus until I get pcman opening everything that nautilus opens.

[gsiliceo]

You dont actually delete nautilus you just delete the binary, and you keep a backup, and then you replace all calls to nautilus to pcman, there are just too many files that need to be edited so stuff gets opened with pcman and not nautilus, so this is an ugly but effective and secure solution.

[tad1073]

can i do the same with thunar, for some reason pcman was causing 100% processor usage while i was editing the files that were posted

[gsiliceo]

I recommend upgrading to the latest version, first uninstall the one you currently have.

sudo apt-get remove pcmanfm

And get the latest tarball from here:
http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php/PCMan_File_Manager
This app has being getting better and better with every upgrade and since the one in the repositories is old you are missing a lot.
And once you have the new tarball:

sudo apt-get build-dep pcmanfm

Extract the tarball and open the terminal in the extracted folder

./configure
make
sudo make install

And there you go.

[tad1073]

I followed the instructions and when I go to places>computer, i get an error saying file doesn't exist.---I got this problem fixed, but the error message pops up everytime I open computer.

What do i need to do to get desktop icons and have pcman open the location. such as, computer, sdc1, home, network etc...