All Linux Things

So, right now on my work pc I'm running Ubuntu (because the devs do), with Gnome (because the devs do). So I don't have a choice in running Ubuntu with GNome. My only issue has been finding a good file manger that can connect to cifs (samba) shares. Files (nautilus) just is...garbage. I mean it has no features. It's utter and complete junk. Tried spacefm, nice looking, supports all kinds of connections, but everything fails when I attempt to connect via smb:// to any network shares instead of using automount. I installed Dolphin, and connecting via smb:// works fantastic, so I know that works, so it must be the udevil plugin to spacefm that has issues.

I'm fine with having Dolphin on here, although it is a bit inefficient to have all those qt5 and kde libraries for 2 applications (konsole so I can use the built-in terminal to dolphin). So if anyone knows of a good gui file manager that's a bit more gnome-centric, feel free to post so I can try it out and see if I can get away from having the kde libraries on an otherwise gnome machine.

Many are using Thunar but cant say if it meets your needs overall. Nemo is used with Elementary OS so you might look at it, but ive never tried it.

I'll have to try them.

Well, Nemo is just as worthless as Nautilus. Thunar's not as nice as dolphin, but it has more than the absolute BASIC file manager functionality, so it's well above Nautilus. Might just be worth keeping that around just to not have the KDE/QT libraries. Thanks!

At some point if I have the time I'll need to see if I can get spacefm working correctly. It would be absolutely ideal, awesome layout and all the features built in...just sad I can't get any of them to actually function.

Thunar is the most popular alternative for the Ubuntu users so far.

Look at XFE and Caja as well.

XFE is nice with the dual panes, but fails completely at being able to connect to cifs/smb mounts.

Caja does work, but doesn't create a menu icon for gnome (weird), and also doensn't support (that I can find) dual paned view, so no better than Thunar. Also Thunar seems faster.

So looks like I'll stick with Thunar for now. Also I've learned to start opening things in mulitple tabs in Thunar, which while not QUITE as useful as daul panes, is still quite useful, so I'm not really losing much from dolphin while able to get rid of a LOT of otherwise unneeded libraries.