Finding a New Nemo

Support & Help Requests
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#1

O' kind and ever helpful Wizards, Please help me find a current and stable version of Nemo for Ubuntu 20.04 Mate 1.24.0 :pray:

It seems there are Mate users looking for a way to do this, so any help would be useful for others. Nemo has several great features completely missing from Caja so every time I try to use it, disappointment soon follows. The version in the Software (snap) app is old (4.x) and crash prone.
I tried:

sudo apt install nemo

But it's the same 4.x version.

I've looked at Use Nemo instead of Caja - #26 by computerguy and the less relevant For Nemo users; How to install Nemo Preview (broken, help!) here on the Mate Community. As with these links and others out on the wild web like https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/07/how-to-replace-nautilus-with-nemo-file.html all seem to be at least two years outdated, compared with
nemo/changelog at master · linuxmint/nemo · GitHub (and that one got me even more keen on getting the latest Mate-compatible version of Nemo). There's not much I miss from MacOS, but Preview right in your files app is really nice!

My impression is that Ubuntu and/or Mate might have innate problems with Nemo, so maybe 4.x is the latest version that will work? Am I doomed to live with the crashes for now, or does someone here have a safe source to get a stable newer or latest version installed on Mate 20.04? Maybe things would be better if I were to leave the LTS 20.04 and go with the current stable Ubu-Mate? Anyone??

#2

Having stalled on getting a new version of Nemo I scanned the web more. Seeing some glowing reviews of Dolphin I installed that.
wow :exploding_head:
This looks like a giant leap in capabilities! The interface is similar to yet different from Caja so it took a while to explore and customize, including some changes making it more similar to my familiar Nemo settings.

I didn't find Dolphin in the Software app, but this Terminal command zapped it into Ubu-Mate in seconds:

sudo apt-get install dolphin

The online Help is quite good, though I'm hoping to find an offline Help too. For now, it looks like my question has been well answered. If you've had trouble with Nemo or are ready to move up from Caja, I suggest you give Dolphin a look.

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#3

For the full picture I should add the following.

Really Nemo 5.0.3 is available from Cinnamon Testing PPA of Wasta Linux.
You can install it by

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wasta-linux/cinnamon-testing
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nemo

and then use it.
Downgrade to ordinary Nemo 4.4.2 is possible by commands below:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:wasta-linux/cinnamon-testing

All packages like Caja, Dolphin and Nemo may be found in Synaptic. You have to install it first by sudo apt-get install synaptic apt-xapian-index . Newer versions of packages may be found in PPAs provided by Launchpad or by using special application named Y PPA Manager (installable from its PPA).

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#4

Thank you for the followup Norbert. Being unfamiliar with Wasta-Linux, I looked them up and didn't find 5.0.3 there. It took me a while to notice the word "testing" in the helpful PPA you kindly provided. So I gather the 4.4.2 version of Nemo is the latest Stable release. Since instability is the problem I've been having, I'm reluctant to possibly experience any new problems - particularly with a version presumably being tested on Cinnamon rather than Mate. I'm in awe of those like you, for whom new releases in testing are an opportunity to share your expertise in helping to refine and test toward a Stable release.

I've been using Nemo solely in 2-pane List view. Having now spent a little more time with Dolphin, my sense is it can do nearly everything Nemo does plus substantially more. It hasn't crashed or seemed unstable so far, but I'm trying to work around one missing Nemo feature and a little glitch. Nemo's quick & easy Pin feature is something I use every day to "bookmark" files and directories I'm actively using. So far the nearest thing in Dolphin is creating Links in a prominent directory (I'm using Desktop, but that's lame next to Nemo's Pin). The glitch is that when a file or directory is selected, mousing over it makes text and foreground go white (unreadable).

So maybe my current quest has shifted to addressing those two issues in Dolphin. I've seen some ideas elsewhere online, but none so far seem to work. If anyone here is using Dolphin, suggestions are most welcome. :slightly_smiling_face:

If I come up with something simple, I'll add a reply here. If it might be helpful for other Dolphin users, since there doesn't seem to be anything on these two issues here I may also post a new topic on Dolphin if anything works.

Thanks

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#5

Delightful that you've found some peace with this JohnW !!

As a happy Nemo user, my related note for you is that my journey in the direction of 20.04.2 showed it to be crawling with bugs sufficiently for my efforts towards making it ready for my uses to get put on an indefinite hold.

I did notice buggy behaviours with Nemo - but frankly it was just 1 among many - and that 20.04 refuses to get along with some of my preferred apps (like Mooedit...) AND 18.04 is far from being dead yet it was easy for me to just turn my back on the newer (but NOT really improved...) xx.04 version.

Since I am an XP refugee, I still yearn for the simplicities of its original explorer with the QTTabBar extension for the added stuff that M$ never bothered about.

In my quests for the best file manager 'fit' for myself I've got & do use DoubleCommander, Dolphin, Nautilus, PCManFM, SpaceFM, Thunar & Xfe.

All have their high & low points - and for me, for now it is good having Nemo as the default with Caja near to hand if/when I need to use it.

I've also found that it is good not to be squeemish about using file managers via WINE - with a fine example being the latest version of the A43 file manager and even the xplorer² file manager.

My closing thought for now upon this subject=>
Stay open-minded & try as many as needed to find what 'fits' your preferences best.

1 Like
#6

More like detente, in that nothing has changed other than the strength of my desire for a reliable and feature-rich Ubu-Mate file manager app. To me, it's perhaps the most important and oft-used app in any OS. I've returned to crash-prone Nemo in the crop sampled so far, mainly due to the Pin feature that I use most days. Of course, that's the glaring omission in Dolphin for me. :slightly_smiling_face:

This is very interesting news to me. I want an LTS, so won't be downshifting. I've been seriously considering throwing away all my tweaks on the appealing Ubu-Mate, and trying out Kubuntu or some other KDE Linux if only because I like so many of the apps.

Tell me about it! VLC wasn't glitchy on any other OS for me, and Thunderbird was torture to get running, and still doesn't allow Detaching files from emails (I may try again to install a non-Snap version that will auto-update).

I'm a spoiled iBrat, thanks to MacOS X and would still be mostly content there but for Apple's dropping of my antique MacBooks that work quite well on Ubu-Mate (aside from all the bugs and hassles).

Thanks for the recos. I'm now mostly Nemo, with Dolphin occasionally and Caja when forced to it. I sampled Thunar but haven't found it uniquely useful.

Interesting idea, but the few old apps I use it for amply demonstrate remind me how far computing has come and how klunky the simultaneously amazing and irreplaceable WINE can be.

Thanks for the followup and ideas.