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As the title suggests, how can I install the Dolphin and Thunar file managers on Ubuntu 22.04?

BeastOfCaerbannog
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Cool124
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    The default desktop of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop is GNOME yes. It comes with nautilus by default, which uses the same libraries or toolkit that the desktop itself uses, meaning it's very efficient. When it comes to taste, we decide what we like ourselves (and resources are not considered). If your machine has >5GB of RAM you can ignore resources in my opinion (someone doing very resource heavy tasks will have a different figure than 5GB though; 5GB my general goto for average use) – guiverc Dec 14 '22 at 07:54
  • I noticed you asked on an answer about PPA's (Personal Package Archive), they are 3rd party package sources where all security checks are on you to perform (ie. no guarantees are offered). Refer https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu for the most detail; but do note some PPAs are from reliable people; others from reliable teams, but you still need to check they are still maintained, and they're not from unreliable people or teams... ie. checks are your job. There are costs with PPAs, so I'll suggest avoid them if you can. – guiverc Dec 14 '22 at 07:56
  • @guiverc Thank you for helping me. – Cool124 Dec 14 '22 at 18:31

2 Answers2

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"Best" is subjective, so it's unlikely you'll get an answer to that question. That said, you are certainly encouraged to explore to determine which file manager is best for you, as that's more important than what a bunch of people on the Internet might think.

As for installing the applications, you can do this quite easily. I tend to do many things through the Terminal, so the following instructions will show you how to install Dolphin and Thunar that way rather than through a GUI.

Enabling the "Universe" repository:

  1. Open Terminal (if it's not already open). If you enjoy using keyboard shortcuts, Ctrl+Alt+T will open the Terminal.
  2. Add the Universe repisitory: 
    sudo add-apt-repository universe
  3. Update apt: 
    sudo apt update

To Install Dolphin:

  1. Open Terminal (if it's not already open). If you enjoy using keyboard shortcuts, Ctrl+Alt+T will open the Terminal.
  2. Update apt to ensure the internal version list is up to date: 
    sudo apt update
    Note: This step is unnecessary if you've recently updated apt.
  3. Install Dolphin: 
    sudo apt install dolphin
  4. There is no step 3. You can, however, find Dolphin in your applications list and open it.

To Install Thunar:

  1. Open Terminal (if it's not already open). If you enjoy using keyboard shortcuts, Ctrl+Alt+T will open the Terminal.
  2. Update apt to ensure the internal version list is up to date: 
    sudo apt update
    Note: This step is unnecessary if you've recently updated apt.
  3. Install Thunar: 
    sudo apt install thunar
  4. There is no step 3. You can, however, find Thunar in your applications list and open it.
matigo
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  • Great answer @matigo – guiverc Dec 14 '22 at 06:53
  • So you don't go to the official website and download Dolphin or Thunar? I'm a noob so I'm just trying to understand how Linux works. I told people on the Ubuntu subreddit that I installed veracrypt through the PPA repository, and multiple Redditors told me that that wasn't safe, that the safe way to install software is to download it directly from the official website, which got me all confused. I just want to understand what is correct and what isn't? Thanks. – Cool124 Dec 14 '22 at 06:56
  • "Correct" is often just as subjective as "best". People will often push their opinions/beliefs/habits on others as though it were gospel. At the end of the day, it really comes down to the goal. If you just want to have a version of software that is known to work well with your current version of Ubuntu, then using the repositories supplied by Canonical will be simple. If you're looking for specific features that are only available in bleeding edge versions of software, then sometimes a direct download is required. The answer here leans towards "simple" – matigo Dec 14 '22 at 06:59
  • @matigo "If you just want to have a version of software that is known to work well with your current version of Ubuntu, then using the repositories supplied by Canonical will be simple." What is a PPA repository and how does it differ from the Canonical repository? – Cool124 Dec 14 '22 at 07:19
  • That is a very different question to the one that you've asked. Perhaps you can create a new question where you ask that? – matigo Dec 14 '22 at 07:22
  • @Cool124 Already answered in this comment: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1445492/what-is-the-correct-way-to-install-dolphin-and-thunar-file-managers#comment2522669_1445492 Ubuntu by default and excluding some variants for very specific reasons do no have any PPA enabled. – ChanganAuto Dec 14 '22 at 08:09
  • @matigo Hello, what is the terminal command to delete Dolphin, and what is the command to delete Thunar? Thanks for your help. – Cool124 Dec 16 '22 at 20:44
  • @Cool124 this should be a separate question, as this site generally aims to have answers for one question at a time. However, you can remove applications with sudo apt remove {package} – matigo Dec 16 '22 at 23:49
  • @matigo I edited the OP's question quite heavily to make it not opinion-based and a downvote-magnet. You may want to adjust your answer to that. ;) – BeastOfCaerbannog Jan 08 '23 at 18:55
  • @matigo Installing Thunar will also bring some Xfce dependencies, and you can avoid installing some of them (though some Xfce libraries will still be installed as Thunar dependencies), like xfce4-panel, thunar-volman, and more, by appending "--no-install-recommends" to the install command. So to install it without all the recommended packages: sudo apt install --no-install-recommends thunar. Same option should be used for Dolphin to avoid bringing KDE recommends. Note: to work with/from audio files tags, also install the Thunar Media Tags plugin: sudo apt install thunar-media-tags-plugin. – Fenyx May 23 '23 at 17:28
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You use

sudo apt install thunar

to install the Xfce file-manager, and

sudo apt install dolphin

to install the KDE Plasma file-manager.

There is no best file-manager, as it varies on your tastes, plus what desktop you're running. Thunar is best on Xfce,

Dolphin is one of the best options if using KDE Plasma (The KDE Desktop offers more than a single choice), but neither will be the most efficient if used on a GNOME Desktop, but as we all have different tastes (and may have machine resources to spare) what is best for us can vary to what is most efficient.

guiverc
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  • I omitted the need to add 'universe' sorry; but the other answer covers that (so I won't add it). I'm usually using flavors of Ubuntu, thus 'universe' is enabled by default. – guiverc Dec 14 '22 at 06:55