m2xtreme
October 4th, 2011, 03:41 AM
Hi all,
I finally found a work around for using nautilus for managing the desktop instead of xfdesktop!
Why? I think nautilus is the **the best** file manager for Linux (until Marlin is released that is ;) ) despite it's gnome dependencies. I wanted to find a way to use nautilus with xfce without install all the unnecessary dependencies and this is my not-so-elegant solution.
Before I continue, this tutorial assumes:
You are using an xfce based distribution without gnome installed (if you have gnome installed you probably don't care about dependencies or resource usage)
You can fill in the gaps of what I may have left out (this was written after I set things up so there are probably some steps missing)
Okay, the first thing you're going to do is disable xfdesktop from showing a desktop image or desktop icons since we're going to make nautilus do all that. So open up:
Xfce Settings > Desktop
In the Background Tab set the background Image to "none" and Colors as solid black.
In the Menus tab, disable all options under Desktop Menu and Window List Menu.
In the Icons tab, set Icon type to None.
You should now have a blank desktop. If not, try again until there is nothing showing on your xfdesktop. You want to do this to be sure that you aren't wasting resources on something you won't see (since it will be covered by the nautilus desktop).
Next, install nautilus. To make sure you don't pull in all the unnecessary gnome dependencies you should run this command in terminal:
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends nautilusNow, launch nautilus (Alt+F2, "nautilus"). Open the Xfce Settings > Session and Startup. Go to the Sessions tab. At a bare minimum you should see xfwm4, xfce4-panel, xfce4-settings-helper, and nautilus. Close any other applications you don't want running each time you log in and then click the "Save Session" button.
Now log out and log back in. Congratulations, you should now have nautilus managing your desktop!
But you're not done yet. If you notice, right clicking the desktop and choosing "Change Desktop Background" doesn't do anything. This is because it relies on a command called gnome-appearance-properties, which itself is part of gnome-control-center. But you don't want install this! It will require an extra 40MB of disk usage for one command for which I have found a simple work around ;)
Instead you should install a simple program for managing gnome/nautilus desktop background, such as nitrogen. There are other options out there but I will be using nitrogen for this example, feel free to look for an alternative (there are some cool apps that will change your background based on set time intervals for instance).
Anyways, run:
sudo apt-get install nitrogen && nitrogenYou should now have nitrogen installed and running. Test it out and make sure everything is working. Typical wallpaper folders are...
/usr/share/xfce4/backdrops
and
/usr/share/backgroundsOnce you know Nitrogen is working, you need to make a script which will pretend to be gnome-appearance-properties and will launch nitrogen instead. Open a terminal and enter to following command (substituting "geany" with your text editor of choice).
sudo geany /usr/bin/gnome-appearance-propertiesenter the following text into your newly created file:
function --show-page=background
{
nitrogen # background configuration
}
"$1"
exit 0 Save the file and close the text editor. Now every time the command "gnome-appearance-properties --show-page=background" is run it will automatically launch nitrogen. Try right clicking the desktop and choosing "Change Desktop Background" to confirm nitrogen is launched. If it does, you're done! Enjoy the benefits of nautilus combined with the light weight xfce desktop environment :)
Additionally, you should NOT remove xfdesktop. It is used by xfce for things such as keybinds among other things. You have been warned.
Lastly, if there is anything I forgot please let me know so I can update the original post.
Thanks!
I finally found a work around for using nautilus for managing the desktop instead of xfdesktop!
Why? I think nautilus is the **the best** file manager for Linux (until Marlin is released that is ;) ) despite it's gnome dependencies. I wanted to find a way to use nautilus with xfce without install all the unnecessary dependencies and this is my not-so-elegant solution.
Before I continue, this tutorial assumes:
You are using an xfce based distribution without gnome installed (if you have gnome installed you probably don't care about dependencies or resource usage)
You can fill in the gaps of what I may have left out (this was written after I set things up so there are probably some steps missing)
Okay, the first thing you're going to do is disable xfdesktop from showing a desktop image or desktop icons since we're going to make nautilus do all that. So open up:
Xfce Settings > Desktop
In the Background Tab set the background Image to "none" and Colors as solid black.
In the Menus tab, disable all options under Desktop Menu and Window List Menu.
In the Icons tab, set Icon type to None.
You should now have a blank desktop. If not, try again until there is nothing showing on your xfdesktop. You want to do this to be sure that you aren't wasting resources on something you won't see (since it will be covered by the nautilus desktop).
Next, install nautilus. To make sure you don't pull in all the unnecessary gnome dependencies you should run this command in terminal:
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends nautilusNow, launch nautilus (Alt+F2, "nautilus"). Open the Xfce Settings > Session and Startup. Go to the Sessions tab. At a bare minimum you should see xfwm4, xfce4-panel, xfce4-settings-helper, and nautilus. Close any other applications you don't want running each time you log in and then click the "Save Session" button.
Now log out and log back in. Congratulations, you should now have nautilus managing your desktop!
But you're not done yet. If you notice, right clicking the desktop and choosing "Change Desktop Background" doesn't do anything. This is because it relies on a command called gnome-appearance-properties, which itself is part of gnome-control-center. But you don't want install this! It will require an extra 40MB of disk usage for one command for which I have found a simple work around ;)
Instead you should install a simple program for managing gnome/nautilus desktop background, such as nitrogen. There are other options out there but I will be using nitrogen for this example, feel free to look for an alternative (there are some cool apps that will change your background based on set time intervals for instance).
Anyways, run:
sudo apt-get install nitrogen && nitrogenYou should now have nitrogen installed and running. Test it out and make sure everything is working. Typical wallpaper folders are...
/usr/share/xfce4/backdrops
and
/usr/share/backgroundsOnce you know Nitrogen is working, you need to make a script which will pretend to be gnome-appearance-properties and will launch nitrogen instead. Open a terminal and enter to following command (substituting "geany" with your text editor of choice).
sudo geany /usr/bin/gnome-appearance-propertiesenter the following text into your newly created file:
function --show-page=background
{
nitrogen # background configuration
}
"$1"
exit 0 Save the file and close the text editor. Now every time the command "gnome-appearance-properties --show-page=background" is run it will automatically launch nitrogen. Try right clicking the desktop and choosing "Change Desktop Background" to confirm nitrogen is launched. If it does, you're done! Enjoy the benefits of nautilus combined with the light weight xfce desktop environment :)
Additionally, you should NOT remove xfdesktop. It is used by xfce for things such as keybinds among other things. You have been warned.
Lastly, if there is anything I forgot please let me know so I can update the original post.
Thanks!