• Registered: 2010-01-26
  • Posts: 275

Topic: Make nautilus --no-desktop default.

Hello everybody.

I don't use Crunchbang at this moment, but I installed Arch Linux next to it, trying to make some sort of Andreas/#! mix that I like better which is lighter. Don't get me wrong, Crunchbang is fast, but Debian is not thaaat fast, while Arch Linux is. So, I want to keep it that way: light.

Now Crunchbang uses Thunar as default file manager which doesn't manage the desktop, however I like nautilus better for it's features like easy dualpane, and that's about it. Anyway, I really like Nautilus over Thunar, so I install Nautilus. The annoying thing about it is the desktopmanaging: this means no access to the normal Openbox menu and suddenly a different background and icons and aargh.

So my solution:
I copied /usr/bin/nautilus to /usr/bin/nautilus.original
Deleted /usr/bin/nautilus
Made a new shell script called nautilus in /usr/bin with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash
nautilus.original $@ --no-desktop &

the '$@' means 'expand all received arguments'.
this causes 'nautilus /home/andreas/images/wallpapers/' to be executed as 'nautilus.original /home/andreas/images/wallpapers/ --no-desktop'

Et voila: a default --no-desktop nautilus file manager without needing gconf2-tool, gnome-settings-daemon or anything like that to be run at boot.
Now I just had a look, and I had gconf2-tool installed, but I don't care, I like my solution better.

This can of course be applied to every other program out there, if you want a few options always to be default without typing them wink
I hope you found this useful and I would like to see other people using it for their own purpose!

Meh. Interested for a Dropbox alternative? Go to https://launchpad.net/tart
  • From: Strasbourg, France
  • Registered: 2009-09-22
  • Posts: 73

Re: Make nautilus --no-desktop default.

Very interesting solution, I'll keep it in mine for future installations, thanks!

Xmonad is the best way to get things done, fast.
My french linux blog: http://cbrunos.wordpress.com

cbrunos's Website

  • luc
  • #! Die-hard
  • Offline
  • From: Munich, Germany
  • Registered: 2010-03-21
  • Posts: 560

Re: Make nautilus --no-desktop default.

might it not be better to switch the order of $@ and --no-desktop ? I'm thinking about the special option "--" which many programs use to indicate the end of options. if you use your script like this "nautilus --someoption -- file1 file2 -strangefile" your "--no-desktop" will be interpreted as a file. Or am I missing something here?
still nice idea.
luc

  • Kuno
  • #! Die-hard
  • Offline
  • From: Osnabrück - DE
  • Registered: 2009-01-09
  • Posts: 561

Re: Make nautilus --no-desktop default.

Andreas wrote:

Hello everybody.

... Crunchbang is fast, but Debian is not thaaat fast, while Arch Linux is. So, I want to keep it that way: light.

Sorry for going OT, but - since i installed CB10 just a few days again in parallel to Archbang and a selfmade crunchified Lubuntu10.04 - i infact feel CB10 to respond quicker than Arch and Buntu. Mighbe, you got some links on how to tweak arch ???

  • Registered: 2010-01-26
  • Posts: 275

Re: Make nautilus --no-desktop default.

kuno: I did Arch Linux, so no preinstalled software like on archbang, or daemons that I don't need or backgrounding of daemons, etc. Also quick-init is awesome (9 second boot to console login, about 11 seconds to gdm).

@luc: good topic you bring up, however I haven't heard of any program really thinking that. maybe some program like cp, but my overall experience with programs is that it doesn't really matter in which order the args and flags stand.

Meh. Interested for a Dropbox alternative? Go to https://launchpad.net/tart