   A tale of Linux, Nautilus, and frustrations with command-line file manipulation.
  Anyone here who used Ubuntu has probably been frustrated, at least at some point in time, by the whole having to create/move/rename folders or files by a sudo command in command-line when you have Nautilus, your little graphical folder broser, right there. I mean, what use is it if you can't do anything but look at stuff with it? (Looking at stuff and not manipulating it?) So, sudo nautilus sounds like a good idea at this point. I drag a link of my /home/(username) folder to an area in the nautilus window, trying to make a shortcut to it. Hm, it seems to have moved this new shortcut to the wrong place, well, it seems I can't find how to move it to te correct place here, so I'll delete this new shortcut and try again a different way. Oh, that wasn't a shortcut then, and with no recycle bin to catch my mistake. Apparently moving the little rectangular boxes that appear instead of an address bar functions like moving the actual folder. My great discovery of the day and I might just have to get a new OS installation, I can't stand this.Does anyone know of a linux distribution that allows me to manage files and folders in a graphical viewer (outside of just things in my home folder) without such dangers as this? Or does anyone know of a way to make Ubuntu function in such a way?Is there any way to make Ubuntu send anything deleted in such a manner to a recycling bin [not limited to one in the /home/(username) directory].   
  There are numerous linux file managers and you can use pretty much any of them (although some will have way more dependencies then they are worth). Just google for linux file managers and this is the first hit.14 of the Best Free Linux File ManagersSome of those should even be in apt ready for easy installation.   ;Quote:Original post by pbjgameOh, that wasn't a shortcut then, and with no recycle bin to catch my mistake. Apparently moving the little rectangular boxes that appear instead of an address bar functions like moving the actual folder. My great discovery of the day and I might just have to get a new OS installation, I can't stand this.This is why I would never touch any system-critical files with a graphical file browser.  And it's probably why you've got to jump through hoops to be able to do this.  The filemanager's inability to manipulate files outside your home is not a fault of the manager itself -- it's that it doesn't have the necessary rights to manipulate the files.  No manager will have these rights unless you grant it the rights -- via sudo, for instance.Also, if I learned something about graphical file managers, it's "Always drag files with your right mouse button, never with the left one."You could also try Midnight Commander as a file manager.  It isn't graphical, but it works great for me.  Oh, if you want GUI, there is also Krusader, a KDE thingy -- I'd guess someone's made a Gnome clone of Krusader already (oh, there is: Gnome Commander).  All of these file managers are from the same class as Total Commander is -- if you already are comfortable with Total Commander, you might like one of these.Edit:Quote:Is there any way to make Ubuntu send anything deleted in such a manner to a recycling bin [not limited to one in the /home/(username) directory].You could poke around the /root directory -- recycling bin is usually stored in some subdirectory of the user's home.  You did that as root and root's home is /root.Ubuntu has root's account disabled by default, but you could try doing sudo passwd to give root some password, then log out of Gnome and log in again as root -- chances are you'll see the deleted files in the Recycling Bin icon somewhere on the desktop.Just a guess, though.   ;  Danger, Will Robinson!There's a good reason. Be very careful what you do to the file system, if you don't know your distribution inside out. Why even go outside your home folder as a regular user?And never, NEVER log in as root ;-)   ;  if you are finding yourself needing to use sudo to create/move/rename folders regularly then you are doing something very wrong....   ;  Basically, like how in windows I have program files, out of the way of my desktop and documents, I like that. So when I'm installing some apps manually I like to get them into their bin folders and edit them while they're in there. Funny thing is, my error came from accidentally deleting my user folder, which really didn't have much of anything to do with the aforementioned problems with editing items in the filesystem.   ;Quote:Original post by OxydQuote:Original post by pbjgameOh, that wasn't a shortcut then, and with no recycle bin to catch my mistake. Apparently moving the little rectangular boxes that appear instead of an address bar functions like moving the actual folder. My great discovery of the day and I might just have to get a new OS installation, I can't stand this.This is why I would never touch any system-critical files with a graphical file browser.  And it's probably why you've got to jump through hoops to be able to do this.  The filemanager's inability to manipulate files outside your home is not a fault of the manager itself -- it's that it doesn't have the necessary rights to manipulate the files.  No manager will have these rights unless you grant it the rights -- via sudo, for instance.Also, if I learned something about graphical file managers, it's "Always drag files with your right mouse button, never with the left one."You could also try Midnight Commander as a file manager.  It isn't graphical, but it works great for me.  Oh, if you want GUI, there is also Krusader, a KDE thingy -- I'd guess someone's made a Gnome clone of Krusader already (oh, there is: Gnome Commander).  All of these file managers are from the same class as Total Commander is -- if you already are comfortable with Total Commander, you might like one of these.Edit:Quote:Is there any way to make Ubuntu send anything deleted in such a manner to a recycling bin [not limited to one in the /home/(username) directory].You could poke around the /root directory -- recycling bin is usually stored in some subdirectory of the user's home.  You did that as root and root's home is /root.Ubuntu has root's account disabled by default, but you could try doing sudo passwd to give root some password, then log out of Gnome and log in again as root -- chances are you'll see the deleted files in the Recycling Bin icon somewhere on the desktop.Just a guess, though.Dude, you got it! My folder was only moved to the root recycle bin, I gui logged-in as root and was able to get it back! Well, like another person said, if you plan on sudo nautilus a lot then make a backup of your home directory, and I should next time. (I just can't afford an external hard drive right now, honestly.)   ;  What were you trying to do poking around in root's files anyway? The reason why it's cumbersome is that you're really not supposed to; there's very rarely a reason to directly browse or manipulate system files.   ;Quote:Original post by pbjgameBasically, like how in windows I have program files, out of the way of my desktop and documents, I like that. So when I'm installing some apps manually I like to get them into their bin folders and edit them while they're in there. Funny thing is, my error came from accidentally deleting my user folder, which really didn't have much of anything to do with the aforementioned problems with editing items in the filesystem.Are you messing around with stuff in the /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin folders? You aren't really supposed to touch those, you let the package manager do that. Otherwise you are setting yourself up for trouble down the road.If you really want to install apps manually, you can set up a 'bin' folder in your user directory and then add that to your PATH. You don't need sudo to do that.It really is true when people say that if you need to sudo on a regular basis, you're doing something wrong.   ;Quote:Original post by pbjgameSo when I'm installing some apps manually I like to get them into their bin folders and edit them while they're in there.Of course you could just do as you do in Windows and always work as root. As you have noticed now, even he has a trash-folder when you use your graphical-file-manager.But actually that's braindead, guess how nice it is to crackers when their harmful software runs as root or Administrator.Maybe look at Gobo Linux (gobolinux.org), where each program gets its own file hierarchy. Not sure if that's interesting to you :)   