Like Windows explorer but better

Foobar2000 Linux version when?

I have to use windows for work, and Windows Explorer annoys the everloving hell out of me.

What idiot thought that the "Home" folder and the User folder should be the same?

And regularly, when "Home" hasn't loaded I'm halfway done typing the address in the address bar "//someletters/adv" for example, it will decide to clear it to let me know I'm "Home"

You might have made my life just a little bit easier.

I was like wait this is so cool then I realized I'm on Linux already

There is also Krusader that might be worth looking into.

Does anyone else remember when you could replace windows ui entirely with plasma or did I hallucinate that memory

I used to run blackbox on windows xp. It worked really well too.
One of my favorite creators, MichaelMJD made a Video about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVXMcrRANC8

I don't know how much of this is going on now, but in the early days, one could run a variety of linux apps in windows with the correct runtimes installed. this may be how WINE came about?

Just FYI, WINE is for running MS Windows software on Linux, not Linux software on MS Windows^1. As others have mentioned, I think cygwin was sort of the reverse-WINE. Also, I think KDE made a push to get their apps running on MS Windows because QT was cross-platform.
I was using WINE to play StarCraft back in like 2000. I think it predates running most Linux software on MS Windows, except for a few big, multi-platform packages like Firefox (back when it was still Netscape, then Mozilla Suite (don't remember what it was called), then Phoenix, then Firebird (right? the same name as a database, so they had to change it, iirc). Those were usually developed for each platform specifically, not just for Linux and then run with an emulator.
^1: not trying to be snarky or anything. just put it in in case you didn't know or maybe had a brain fart. Or maybe I'm wrong about the origins of WINE.
- Definitely a brain fart. Thanks for looking out.
Was it cygwin, or something? I vaguely recall running an X server on Windows so I could display remote Linux gui apps locally.
- You’re thinking of remote X server, but there was also something called Cygwin that allowed you to run certain Linux apps within a virtualized environment. It was basically just an X window that opened up in windows inside of which you could run Linux apps.

NGL, I didn't realise it's an actual Dolphin icon on the folder until I saw this post. I always have the Dolphin pinned on my taskbar but it's teeny tiny so I couldn't make out the symbol.

For what it's worth, the dolphin face is a relatively recent addition. I wanna say three months tops.

Oh shit

Great! Dolphin is also better than macOS Finder. I would replace it with Dolphin as well.

However, Windows Explorer in Windows 11 still excels in one area: it doesn't have a header, and the tabs are displayed on the header, like in Chromium.

It's also annoying that all KDE Dolphin tabs have that red [X] button. Sadly, the KDE developers reject great PRs like this one: https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/merge_requests/269

Who even presses those [X] buttons? I always use the Ctrl+W shortcut.

- @prole @stebator but what about something like this?
It’s also annoying that all KDE Dolphin tabs have that red [X] button. Sadly, the KDE developers reject great PRs like this one: https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/merge_requests/269
My God, what a read... I love KDE, but holy shit, these guys really need to pull the sticks out of their arses...
the most recent version of Finder is... a bit weird. I like all of the tools and functions it has, but it's a huge departure from the previous version of Finder, and I'm not a super-fan of some of the feature implementations. but, if you're used to using Finder for a lot of work, you won't feel too out-of-place.
I haven't used Dolphin in over a decade, so perhaps I'll check it out.
Still excels? I don't recall windows explorer ever being good at anything!
You are saying you like the tabs in the header, so at the top. But Dolphin lets you split, which would make that not make as much sense.

I have one old laptop with Windows 10 sitting around, and only because it's the only way to update the Xbox Series controller I have that randomly bootloops and thus is essentially useless anyway.

So this begs the question: how much of Windows can I delete and replace with foss stuff, while still having it technically be a Windows OS?

Soon:

"I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Windows, is in fact, GNU/Windows/NT, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Windows plus NT. Windows is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another nonfree component of a fully functioning free GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX... and whatever NT does."

I think better questions to ask first might be things like "Can I pass the controller USB connection to windows in a VM?" which is probably yes, and "Can I just never update this controller?" which I would normally say is a yes, but it sounds like yours has issues.
- Yeah after some searches it sounded like updating the controller might fix the bootloop issue. Running the accessories app for the controller through Linux seemed like a no-go, so for me the path of least resistance was putting Windows on an old laptop I don't generally use anymore.
  Updating fixed the bootloop issue, until it didn't. The lesson I'm taking from all of this is to not buy Xbox controllers anymore. Currently the DualSense is my main, but I'm looking at the Gulikit ES Pro at some point.
  If I ever find a controller that has a companion app that natively runs on Linux, that's what I will prefer. But really, controllers needing to be updated is dumb to begin with.
You mean GNU\Windows\NT
- Backslashes in file paths makes me go 🔥😡🤬😤😾💥
The absolutely most? ReactOS. It's not really suitable for daily use, but it is essentially a clean room reverse engineering project of Windows itself.
- Yeah I check in on React OS every few months. Maybe someday I'll give it a try, but it's still so much in alpha status.
- That is cool as heck! I've got some reading to do.
https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat
- That's just running a full fat installation of Windows.
- Sounds more like Winbloat. >_>

The thing that really annoys me with Linux file explorers is that none of them have a "sort by extension". They have sort by type, but it'll mix .jpg, .png, .gif and .webp together, for instance.

I dunno, on GNOME49 it seems to me like Nautilus is doing it by file extension. Like yeah, it's still type, but it's sorting the extensions alphabetically. There's also an extra column for "Detailed Type."
I just checked and Dolphin very much has that feature, the wording in English might not be exactly the same as I have the UI in my native language but I found it in the hamburger menu under Sort by>Other>File extension.
- The Sort by → Type also doesn't group together image formats, at least...
Well, apparently that is a thing in Dolphin, but if what you actually want is e.g. to just move all .png files, then I prefer to use the Filter bar (Ctrl+i or the fourth entry in the hamburger menu). You can just type ".png" into it and then it hides all entries which don't contain that substring.
obligatory linux user: whats an extension? Surely you mean File Type.
- Lol goddamn, I haven't even been using Linux that long, and I read the comment and was like "extension? Like a Firefox extension? Huh?"
On windows?
- Had that problem on linux, haven't tried dolphin on windows, but I wouldn't expect it to be different in that regard

I actually like the Windows file explorer. Used to be my favorite, before Dolphin. Nowadays I'd say Dolphin is slightly better overall, but could still use a change inspired by Windows or two. For instance, I really like the drive view on the Windows file explorer's home page.

In the newest versions, idk about older ones, dolphin lists all attached drives with a progress bar to show how full they are on the left panel, not too different from what youre suggesting, just built into the sidebar instead of a "my computer" type page.
- It's nice, but I just really like the Windows' design of this feature. Not really anything functionality-related. Honestly, I wish I could just have the file manager from Windows Vista or 7. I don't even need tabs.

Afaik the version is old?

nope
- Hi fellow Mr. Clippit!

(Someone on the interweb:) "Hey, you should try KDE Connect"

(Me:) Uh, I don't use Linux on my laptop and that's the computer that I use the most

(S:) "Well it also runs on Windows."

(Me:) Really?... Holy sh- HOLY SHIT, this is so much better than every shitty cloud sync package, and that Google app they keep renaming every time I look at it so I can't remember what it's called this week

Kde connect just really feels like it was made by someone who wanted to use it. Also just the fact that I can beam stuff between my desktop, phone, and steam deck is so nice
- Especially the android app was made by someone who really wants to use it because it has literally no way of closing it or preventing it from auto-starting
FOSS >> properitary🤮

spent almost a decade straight on Win10 LTSC then switched to regular Win11 - I think Microsoft forgot how to make software. Vanilla edition is so bloated it is scary. Considering embracing Ubuntu.

Check out Mint or PopOS! over Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is falling behind in the desktop experience, as well as their insistence of using their proprietary backend for snaps over flatpaks, and overriding tools that you expect to get the flatpaks and causing trouble shooting issues because you are expecting one behavior but getting another (not that hard to work around or translate once you know, but still a hassle.
Also, Mint and PopOS! are just great experiences and were top contenders for my personal desktop (dev, gaming, power user) switch from Win10 -> Linux. I wound up going with Arch/Garuda because it's forcing me to learn far more about Nix than I've learned as a dev. I still might make the switch since Garuda can become unstable occasionally due to the way that the OS is "bleeding edge", and forces me to troubleshoot the causes (I guess this is what I wanted to learn?) instead of doing personal dev, gaming, or desktop entertainment.
- Thank you! I will try out both on my personal computer.
I recommend Mint. It's basically ubuntu with the controversial stuff disabled (Canonical's snaps mostly, but I guess also any ads for their pro services) and with an extra layer of polish.
I'm happy with it for both the "I want something that works reliably" reasons and the "I'm an engineer who wants a free system that I can control and modify" reasons.
- thanks. gotta check it out.

I love Dolphin. Great for GameCube and Wii games.

is this a /j
- ComOP is joking about this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_(emulator)
  I thought the same thing when I saw the comic.
- could be, or not, we will never know for sure
  either way, it is funny

I like Thunar better. There was something really minor about Dolphin I didn't like. Maybe it was the way it handled tags or something, I can't remember anymore.

Thunar = 🐐
Although, the only reason I use it is because when i made the switch many moons ago, i was following this guy's tutorial on setting up i3 and he recommended thunar. Never looked back (although, at this point i think its more about the ui than any functional difference)

No windows 32 bit version?????? Lazy asses, it's just a checkbox! /s

Can recommend, Dolphin makes life on windows slightly more tolerable. Kate for Windows is also amazing

I kinda dislike Dolphin, but I also know it's very customizable and haven't dig into the options, so it's possible there's a version of it I like that I haven't found yet. If that makes sense.

For me is the tree view (like explorer), it doesn't feel comfortable and I can't put my finger on why. On Windows explorer it felt quicker (like on a practical level, not about performance).
But guess I gotta use it so... Dealing with it
- Yeah, I miss Windows Explorer. Which I find really shocking. But I think it's just missing the accumulated years of muscle memory.
Same. I try it every now and then and am constantly blown away with how it just seems to know my system and auto mounts things, and knows how to thumbnail images and videos without being nudged....
...but I just can't get over the clean glossy UI. It makes my whole system feel like a web app.
And thus I always go back to Thunar or Dired because apparently cavemen just like to bang rocks rogether and that's okay

Good news is I could install this without admin priveleges at work. Bad news is that while it can see my onedrive folder it behaves very badly with onedrive, click on a folder and it just dissappears. It did the same thing with Google drive as well. Since cloud is where all my data lives it's not usable currently. =(

awesome, tho tbh i like total commander on windows

Yeah, still a shame that never got ported to Linux. There's Double Commander, which is fine, but still a little inferior somehow.
- double commander had a weird issue where the window size wouldn't change properly and display solid color in resized area on my system for some reason :/
  gentoo, worker and xfe all seemed to be pretty good, but i haven't really tried them much. mc usually works well enough.
- Have you tried mc? (Midnight commander I think it's the full name).

When I look up "Dolphin windows" I just get the wii emulator (I am clueless)

https://apps.kde.org/platforms/windows/
Halfway down the page.

So can Okular, but recently how well it works on windows has been getting worse and worse.

Kde.org/apps

You can run lots of kde apps on Windows and Mac OS. I personally use Kate at work since it is far faster than VScode

There even is a konsole port in the works

I prefer Geany 🧞‍♀️
Lighter and faster
Okular is the best PDF software for Windows, beating Adobe's own solution.
- That is a pretty low bar.
Kate is wonderful
wait, KRITA IS KDE?!?!? i've been using it for so long how did i not know that
- Does it have a weird name starting with K, or have a C replaced with a K? Most likely a KDE app. (I always thought Krita was a play on Critter. Turns out it's Swedish)
  Does it have a weird name starting with G? Gnome.
  Then there's Gwenview, which was ported to QT and adopted by KDE, but was never renamed...
All my homies love Kate.
- Kate's a lot better than Karen
- We wanna be Kate!
Installing this as well on my work laptop, I do frequently get part way through typing kate then remember it's notepad++

I know this is the wrong place to say this, but I really like the Windows Explorer. Dolphin is a good replacement, but it would be one of the few things I'd like to keep on Linux.

I just updated to Windows 11 and oh boy has it gotten worse when compared to 10...
The UI, useless spacing in between items, 2nd context menu, gigantic bars on top, the somehow missing create folder button, OneDrive Integration, "Pin to quick access" everywhere, freezing up when creating thumbnails, constantly somehow resetting the layout of the user home and I'm just getting started... But hey it got tabs now
- At least on linux you have the choice. Somehow however, it seems so many people like to recreate or even worsen the windows experience. I guess Unixporn didn’t make it to lemmy, but half of those did not feel usable. Why would I want one inch wide gaps between everything?
- I was a win10 user because I was forced to update from 7. So I got really annoyed when I saw the new context menu for dumdums. It's useless.
  If I ever need to install windows 11, either on a virtual machine or for a family member, I run a script that returns the old context menu (and several others that remove a bunch of bloat and de-activate internet search on the searchbar)
- Microsoft messed up File Explorer tabs. If you make a new tab, start a search, the close the tab before the search finishes, you break the URL/path bar text. You cannot see what directory you are in unless you click the path bar. The only way to fix it is you restart the application.
- There's also this on Windows
  https://github.com/files-community/Files
  Although it seemed to freeze up from time to time back when I was on windows
- windows 11
  oh... now I understand everything
- Explorer on windows 11 has gotten better in a lot of ways and only worse in a few.
GET THE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS!!!
- Nah, who cares. We even have guys around who claim that they like vim. Just another crazy isn't a reason to get torches. We save them for a real occasion.
But... Why? It's just a mediocre and laggy copy of Dolphin.
- Okay, I'm generally on the side if dolphin UI-wise, but when it comes to the topic of lagginess, it has to be said that dolphin, and in fact, almost everything using the kio infrastructure, is the one shitting the bed here. You'd think a bit of multithreading will keep the UI from freezing up whenever the underlying I/O has some minor hiccup (which can absolutely happen in practice with network filesystems or USB sticks in combination with large file transfers), but apparently dolphin can't do that.
ever tried PCManFM? I use that and it feels like the old Windows Explorer.
If it wasn’t for the bugs I’d whole heartedly love windows 11s explorer over 10s.
But if explorer stops responding me my interactions one more time I’m going to commit a crime.
Seconded.
There's a lot of reasons to hate Microsoft. There's a lot of reasons to hate Windows 11.
Their explorer is't one of them. The new context menus when you right click anywhere is, sure. But explorer and notepad got righteous upgrades.
- On the context menu: I've been using Nilesoft Shell for a few years now and it's been wonderful. It's got all the options from Windows 10 plus a few more in the Windows 11 style.
  Edit: wrong link, fixed
The primary differences between Dolphin and Explorer are mainly in speed and the context menus for applications. (which is the reason explorer is more encumbered)
Since I use context menus on my windows admin workstation, I wouldn't want dolphin there and I sure as hell don't want explorer in my NixOS.
Yikes
I would say Windows makes the dolphin experience unusable compared to file explorer

So much kde stuff works on windows. Its a lifesaver

Just need windows to allow different desktops.
- And to run on top of the linux kernel
- Like, virtual desktops/workspaces?
  That's a thing. Press windows key + tab.

I'm going to try to get Dolphin through security review at my company. QUICK everyone start listing reasons why my company should take on the risk of installing Dolphin.

You don't try company wide.
Prepare a feasibility study on the merits on giving choice to power users without sacrificing security or increasing complexity. A multi departmental working group should be established to review the merits of the new platform, while a control group should also be established to monitor how existing solutions perform.
Once completed a multi stage rollout plan should be compiled by a different multi departmental group to make sure all workflows are covered in the new system.
- One million years later: "The study has been inconclusive."
- This guy corporates
  I have been down that path before with Obsidian and LaTeX (Obsidian was a success and LaTeX was meh). The first step is getting the executables white listed and Its always a PITA with our security team. I need to first convince them it is worth the study, which is always hard because they are not power users. Feature lists help. Win11 explorer being dogshit also helps.
the only reason to avoid dolphin is if your shell is fish
- My shell is DOS. :(

Also filelight and kde connect.

kde connect works for you? none of my devices finds each other anymore, but they used to. thought they screwed something up in an update
- Sometimes I need to re-pair, but generally it works for me as long as my phone is on wifi. Or bluetooth? I think I had that working alongside a VPN but it was touchy.
- I'm not on windows personally.
- I used to be able to use shared clipboard, but it doesn't work for me anymore :(
- Probably firewall, do you use eset or something?
- My desktop and mobile devices connect but the desktop doesn't connect to my laptop anymore

Dolphin is the best file manager of all time. Both linux and windows.

Does it need administrator access to install? If I can weasel that onto my work desktop without having to contact our support that would be great.

It might work in WSLg otherwise?
Please don't bypass work restrictions
- In some companies the restrictions are just knobs that were turned for the fun of it.
  We do cloud native and they blocked WSL suddenly.
  You can't use Docker/Podman without WSL. So everyone had to bypass the restriction in order to be productive.
- If somebody can easily bypass work restrictions, they probably aren't enforced or implemented properly.
- I used to work a food service job that had computerized touchscreen scales for weighing out products and printing out labels for them.
  I learned that particular model was running an OS vaguely labeled as "Linux", and it was on an ARM-based system. My biggest regret in that job was abstaining from trying to get Doom running on it.
  Please bypass work restrictions.
- Never said I would, but if I can install it on my work desktop via the Microsoft Store without the need of administration privileges then what’s the harm?
  KDE has a proven track record and I’ve already got KDE connect on my work desktop to send files from my phone to the desktop without any issues from up top, plus I’ve spoken with my IT & Managers and got the ok for a Linux distro, but they do make the point of “what if someone else uses your computer” which is fair and is why I’m hesitant for them to switch me to a Linux work station, was thinking dual booting but not sure due to Windows history of wiping EFi boot partitions.
- Fine I will just install Linux on my work laptop. Actually curious how long I could work like that before anyone noticed.

I think I know this meme template from somewhere, but I cannot quite recall from where. Could you give us a link to the original?

The original webcomic link is dead but here’s the know your meme page
- The original is a lot lamer than I thought it would be…

I love you, maybe my work laptop will be tolerable now.

Omg really? I am installing this on my work laptop

@carrylex

I thought this was a post about the Gamecube emulator. lol

Oooh, since we're talking about Dolphin- today I had to organize image files on an Android device, and connected it to my pc via usb to do it. I noticed Dolphin did not use image thumbnails as the file icons like it normally does on local image files. Is there a way to make it do that on externally connected devices?

In Dolpin settings, under Interface > Previews, there's an option for previews from remote storage. Not sure if it applies to connected devices or just network drives though.
- Cool, I will try that out.
- It can apply to both. You can set a size limit so it doesn't spend ages parsing multi gigabyte files just for a preview (unless you want it to).
I mean yeah, it's Linux. Pull requests welcome.

Thunar >>>>>>>

Doesn't have dark mode == useless
- KDM users when they're asked to toggle between infinite GTK themes instead of between "light" and "dark" themes.
Thunar is the best
Booo

It would be more useful on windows than on linux too no?

Nautilus is way better

Having had to set up a KDE install recently I really, really like Nautilus GUI better. A little less customizable/extensive but it's so much cleaner.
My only real beef is having like 3 separate areas for options. Hamburger menu, then the dots in the address bar, etc.
- Yeah I agree about the options fragmentation. But yes, exactly. KDE in general feels very messy visually and functionally to me.

Dolphin is nice, but Thunar is my fave.

Thunar is a little more clunky, a little less modern in design, but it doesn't hide things as much and I like that.

Really? Been a minute since I used it, but dolphin has a lot of options. What options are hidden?
- People love complaining about some random obscure feature only they and 4 others use being """hidden""" in Dolphin which usually just means it's not a default button taking up half the UI, but can be added in ten seconds by using the toolbar customization features.

This might have been just a me issue.

But I used to be a long time Total/Double Commander user on Windows Vista & 7. But sometime after I switched to Windows 10 it stopped letting me change the default file manager to anything other than explorer...

I use the split panel feature in dolphin a lot. the shortcut is F3 if you didn't know already.

I use Freecommander with Voidtools everything for searching on Windows. it's nice.

Hmm darkmode doesn't work. And it's 615 MB on disk, is it an electron app lol

That's because of Qt and the KDE frameworks. ...Sorry those are a necessity! Though, if you installed other KDE apps now, they'd be like, 80 MiB per app!
not at all. QT/KDE app. the size is probably due to bundling of QT and KDE framework libraries because usually windows installations doesn't come with system versions of those. it's like flatpak KDE runtime.

Just tried it but had a hard time adding my server as a network folder like I do on fedora