Thunar not displaying thumbnails is a problem I regularly run into whenever I do a minimal xfce install. For some reason the required packages for displaying thumbnails in thunar are never included and I end up having to install them manually every time. If like me you ever run into this same problem, here's how to easily fix it with two simple steps..
Thumbnails in thunar should now be working again, if not then i'd recommending visiting #linux over on freenode irc, or the community forums for whatever distro you happen to use.
For those who use xfce, every once in a while xfce4-panel may crash or glitch out. Thankfully you can easily restart the panel with one simple terminal command. Simply open up a terminal window and type in the command below followed by pressing enter. The panel should restart instantly and be working perfectly again.
Ok so I use deja dup for backing up my system and have done for a number of years now. It's a great app that makes backing up any system super easy. It's also included in many Linux distributions repos which makes it easy to install. The only problem I have is that unless you're running nautilus (gnome-files) the restore functions are pretty limited. You could easily open deja dup and restore a whole backup, but what if you don't want to restore a whole backup. What if you only want an individual file or folder ?? After doing some research, I found that you can use deja dup with a custom action in thunar. Follow the steps below to set up your own deja dup action in thunar.
Open thunar....
Select Edit and then click on Configure custom actions....
Click the + button to create a new custom action....
Complete the text boxes:
Name: Restore
Description: Restore files with Deja Dup....
Command: deja-dup —restore %F
Icon: deja dup icon
Click on Appearance Conditions tab and check all 6 boxes....
Uncheck directories if you don't want to be able to restore whole folders
Click ok to finish....
You may need to log out and in again for changes to take effect, but now you will now be able to right-click on a file or folder in thunar to restore earlier versions.
Some people might not know this, but xfce4-terminal can be launched in a quake style drop-down mode. Here's the command.
xfce4-terminal —drop-down
You can easily make it more accessible by binding the above command to a keyboard shortcut.
Open “xfce4-setting-manager” from your menu or application finder....
Click on the Keyboard icon under Hardware section....
Under the application shortcuts tab, click on the add button and type the command above into the provided box....
Now you’re able to press a keyboard shortcut to launch a drop-down Xfce4 terminal. You can click on the button at the bottom right of the terminal window to open the preferences dialog and edit various things.
Xubuntu core is essentially Xubuntu without all the additional features. It installs only the the basic look and feel of Xubuntu. There's no office suite, media player, or any of the usual stuff that comes pre-installed with regular Xubuntu. The best thing about it is that it is around 600MB in size, so will be faster to download and can easily fit on a cd. You can install Xubuntu core from the Mini iso either by running the “Xubuntu minimal installation task” or by finishing the minimal install and typing “sudo apt-get install xubuntu-core^” once you have logged in. Alternatively you can download one of the community ISOs. Xfce is a great desktop environment & Xubuntu is a great distro to use (my fav for a while now). Xubuntu core is a nice thing to have if you don't like bloat and want something that you can call your own.
Lipstick left is a simple theme with only a left border. This theme is designed to be super minimal, space saving & out of the way. Download the theme from GitHub or check out my post on r/unixporn. Below is a dirty & clean screenshot....
This isn’t I3.... This is xfce with a no-border theme installed.
image
Here’s how to create your own no-border theme for xfce or possibly any other window manager. Just follow the steps below or download the theme from here GitHub....
sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/themes/empty/xfwm4
You can replace “empty” with whatever you want. This will be the name of your theme.
sudo touch /usr/share/themes/empty/xfwm4/themerc
Leave this file blank and your done.
Finished!!
Open up your window manager settings and choose your newly created theme.
