The article quoted above at Ubuntuforums is a very old discussion and is not really applicable to current Xfce. The following discussion is made up from my experimentation and with reference to the nautilus --no-desktop
discussion at the xfce forums.
It depends whether you want to run xfdesktop
and nautilus
together, or let xfdesktop
handle the desktop and use nautilus
just as a filemanager. On my 12.04 machine, which has the ppas for xfce 4.10 and 4.12, nautilus
seems to work well. However, there are some possibilities if you have problems.
I note you said that you had already made nautilus
the default filemanager and removed xfdesktop
, but you should be able to run nautilus
and xfdesktop
in the same session if you use the --no-desktop
option when you run nautilus
. If you apply any of the commands below, you should logout and then login again to see any changes.
IMPORTANT NOTE: you must find what exactly are your own CLientCommands in your xfce session by launching xfce4-settings-editor and going to the xfce4-session
tab and noting which ones currently refer to Thunar
and xfdesktop
, then modify the number in the commands below accordingly.
Scenario 1) no xfdesktop
installed and nautilus
is the default filemanager.
You may need to look at your xfce4-session
, and alter the failsafe defaults for the Client Commands that define an Xfce session. You also have to do this if you wish to replace the window manager with another one, and I think it might help in this case.
As an example, you could change the Client_Commands that refer to Thunar
and xfdesktop
to nautilus --no-default-window
using xfconf
(The --no-default-window
option just stops a nautilus
window being opened at login).
Remember to use the numbers of the Client_Commands on your own system-see xfce4-settings-editor
.
xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client2_Command -t string -s "nautilus" -t string -s "--no-default-window" -a
xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client3_Command -t string -s "nautilus" -t string -s "--no-default-window" -a
Upon logging in you will get a blank desktop, but you can set a desktop wallpaper by using gnome applications such as gthumb
.
This is the best way to ensure that nautilus
is running the desktop and nothing else is interfering.
See the end of the article for how to reset them. Logout and login again to see any changes.
Scenario 2) xfdesktop
is installed and you wish to use it to manage the desktop and nautilus
as a filemanager.
Find the number of your own Client_Command for the filebrowser (Thunar) by refering to the xfce4-session
part of xfce4-settings-editor
. As an example, my Client_Command was 2, and so this was changed to nautilus --no-desktop --no-default-window
.
xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client2_Command -t string -s "nautilus" -t string -s "--no-desktop" -t string -s "--no-default-window" -a
Logout and login again to see any changes.
Remember to use the numbers of the Client_Commands on your own system-see xfce4-settings-editor
.
Whenever you launch nautilus
in your session you should use nautilus --no-desktop
.
If you need to Reset Changes
Select the appropriate section in xfce-session
in the graphical xfce4-settings-editor
or use xfconf-query
. You must use the actual numbers of the Client_Commands on your own system, not necessarily these ones given in the examples below:
xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client2_Command -t string -s "Thunar" -t string -s "--daemon" -a
xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client3_Command -t string -s "xfdesktop" -a
Logout and login again to see any changes.
The options suggested above might be useful for you, although very often problems with nautilus
on Xubuntu are not always easily solved. The first scenario that makes nautilus
manage the desktop and act as filemanager might be most useful, assuming you have made nautilus
the default filemanager.