Linux Mint’s reaction to the ‘controversial’ changes introduced in Nautilus 3.6 was simple: fork it.
Now, plans for their Nautilus fork, which is named Nemo after the captain of the Nautilus in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island novels, have been detailed by Linux Mint project lead Clement Lefebvre.
Clement had some damning opinions on the state of the ‘new Nautilus’, describing it thus: –
“Nautilus 3.6 is a catastrophe. It removes features we consider requirements. Nautilus 3.6 [is] in our opinion, a lesser product than Nautilus 3.4.”
Linux Mint is not alone in holding reservations about the changes to the file manager made by its upstream GNOME developers.
Canonical has chosen to use an older version of Nautilus in Ubuntu 12.10 in order to give them time to figure out how they plan to accommodate, fix, and adapt to the changes in future releases.
Clement acknowledges this, writing:
We welcomed the news that Canonical decided to stick to Nautilus 3.4, but it …only temporarily solve[s] the problem for Ubuntu and Linux Mint.
…patching/freezing Nautilus was the right decision but it’s only a good decision if it’s a temporary one, long term [Ubuntu will] need to make their own file manager if they don’t want to chose between breaking Unity or Shell.
Plans for Nemo file manager
It’s this long term goal that has convinced Mint developers that forking Nautilus is a better solution than opting for a different, existing file manager.
If we want to give ourselves the ability to implement our goals and to give people a great user experience, we need to broaden the scope of Cinnamon to all visible components of the desktops, file and desktop management being extremely central.
Amongst the features Nemo has already added are:
- Full navigation buttons
- All features of Nautilus 3.4 that were removed
- Open as root/in terminal options
- Detailed file progress information
And features its plans/hopes to add in the new future:
- Proper status bar
- Configurable toolbar buttons
- Better search
Is Linux Mint forking Nautilus to maintain its own file manager sensible?
Very, in my opinion.
Linux Mint has always paid careful attention to the needs and wants of its own users.
Just as Cinnamon gave the distro the chance to mould their own desktop experience based on what their users wanted, so Nemo will afford them an unshackled file manager free of upstream concerns or whims.
By controlling the development it can it is control, and can be sure that the file manager, such a fundamental part of a desktop OS, will always meet its own users’ needs, and not be spun off, split, or adjusted to satisfy those on others distros or DEs.
You can read more about plans for Nemo on the Linux Mint blog.