Is there any way to Install Latest Nautilus File Manager in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Question

I am so desperate to use Nautilus File Manager 3.6 or above in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I have tried a lot of ways but finally tired to ask this question.

• I went for this link: How do I install Nautilus 3.6 in 12.10? but it was not my solution.

• I tried to install using binary package downloaded from here but it was so difficult to resolve all dependency packages. The list was not going to end.

• I tried to add repository: ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3 but it says: nautilus is already the newest version.

Nautilus is by default in Ubuntu 13.04. Its features like search files and folder and lighting speed make me mad. But unfortunately I want to stick with Ubuntu LTS version.

Edit

I don't know how but following link shows Files (Nautilus) 3.6 installed in Ubuntu 12.04 :

Files (Nautilus) 3.6.0 Final Available for Download

Now my excitement has reached to its peak. Is there really a way to install latest version in Ubuntu 12.04?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!!

Edit: Tried to install as suggested by Roman Raguet

1. First step executed without any error and installed listed packages successfully.

2. When executed 2nd step: sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus got following error:

   E: Unable to find a source package for nautilus
   

   so thought to skip this and continue with next step.

3. 3rd step also executed successfully and downloaded and installed around 40 to 50 Mb of packages.

4. Skipped 4th step, thought it as not that much important(ok if trash icon doesn't appear).

5. Finished 5th, 6th and 7th step and reached to 8th step.

6. When compiled using ./configure got errors as shown following:

   saurav@saurav-P4I45Gx-PE:~/Downloads/src/nautilus-3.6.3$ ./configure
   checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
   checking whether build environment is sane... yes
   checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
   checking for gawk... gawk
   checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
   checking how to create a ustar tar archive... gnutar
   checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
   checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... yes
   checking for style of include used by make... GNU
   checking for gcc... gcc
   checking whether the C compiler works... yes
   checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
   checking for suffix of executables... 
   checking whether we are cross compiling... no
   checking for suffix of object files... o
   checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
   checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
   checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
   checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
   checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
   checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /bin/grep
   checking for egrep... /bin/grep -E
   checking for ANSI C header files... yes
   checking for sys/types.h... yes
   checking for sys/stat.h... yes
   checking for stdlib.h... yes
   checking for string.h... yes
   checking for memory.h... yes
   checking for strings.h... yes
   checking for inttypes.h... yes
   checking for stdint.h... yes
   checking for unistd.h... yes
   checking whether byte ordering is bigendian... no
   checking for an ANSI C-conforming const... yes
   checking for gcc... (cached) gcc
   checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... (cached) yes
   checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes
   checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... (cached) none needed
   checking dependency style of gcc... (cached) gcc3
   checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
   checking whether ln -s works... yes
   checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... (cached) yes
   checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
   checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
   checking how to print strings... printf
   checking for a sed that does not truncate output... /bin/sed
   checking for fgrep... /bin/grep -F
   checking for ld used by gcc... /usr/bin/ld
   checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld... yes
   checking for BSD- or MS-compatible name lister (nm)... /usr/bin/nm -B
   checking the name lister (/usr/bin/nm -B) interface... BSD nm
   checking the maximum length of command line arguments... 1572864
   checking whether the shell understands some XSI constructs... yes
   checking whether the shell understands "+="... yes
   checking how to convert i686-pc-linux-gnu file names to i686-pc-linux-gnu format... func_convert_file_noop
   checking how to convert i686-pc-linux-gnu file names to toolchain format... func_convert_file_noop
   checking for /usr/bin/ld option to reload object files... -r
   checking for objdump... objdump
   checking how to recognize dependent libraries... pass_all
   checking for dlltool... dlltool
   checking how to associate runtime and link libraries... printf %s\n
   checking for ar... ar
   checking for archiver @FILE support... @
   checking for strip... strip
   checking for ranlib... ranlib
   checking command to parse /usr/bin/nm -B output from gcc object... ok
   checking for sysroot... no
   checking for mt... mt
   checking if mt is a manifest tool... no
   checking for dlfcn.h... yes
   checking for objdir... .libs
   checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions... no
   checking for gcc option to produce PIC... -fPIC -DPIC
   checking if gcc PIC flag -fPIC -DPIC works... yes
   checking if gcc static flag -static works... yes
   checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... yes
   checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... (cached) yes
   checking whether the gcc linker (/usr/bin/ld) supports shared libraries... yes
   checking whether -lc should be explicitly linked in... no
   checking dynamic linker characteristics... GNU/Linux ld.so
   checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate
   checking whether stripping libraries is possible... yes
   checking if libtool supports shared libraries... yes
   checking whether to build shared libraries... yes
   checking whether to build static libraries... no
   checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
   checking for floor in -lm... yes
   checking locale.h usability... yes
   checking locale.h presence... yes
   checking for locale.h... yes
   checking for LC_MESSAGES... yes
   checking libintl.h usability... yes
   checking libintl.h presence... yes
   checking for libintl.h... yes
   checking for ngettext in libc... yes
   checking for dgettext in libc... yes
   checking for bind_textdomain_codeset... yes
   checking for msgfmt... /usr/bin/msgfmt
   checking for dcgettext... yes
   checking if msgfmt accepts -c... yes
   checking for gmsgfmt... /usr/bin/msgfmt
   checking for xgettext... /usr/bin/xgettext
   checking pkg-config is at least version 0.16... yes
   checking whether NLS is requested... yes
   checking for intltool >= 0.40.1... 0.50.2 found
   checking for intltool-update... /usr/bin/intltool-update
   checking for intltool-merge... /usr/bin/intltool-merge
   checking for intltool-extract... /usr/bin/intltool-extract
   checking for xgettext... (cached) /usr/bin/xgettext
   checking for msgmerge... /usr/bin/msgmerge
   checking for msgfmt... (cached) /usr/bin/msgfmt
   checking for gmsgfmt... (cached) /usr/bin/msgfmt
   checking for perl... /usr/bin/perl
   checking for perl >= 5.8.1... 5.14.2
   checking for XML::Parser... ok
   checking for gtkdoc-check... no
   checking for gtkdoc-rebase... no
   checking for gtkdoc-mkpdf... no
   checking whether to build gtk-doc documentation... no
   checking for perl5... no
   checking for perl... perl
   checking for glib-genmarshal... /usr/bin/glib-genmarshal
   checking sys/mount.h usability... yes
   checking sys/mount.h presence... yes
   checking for sys/mount.h... yes
   checking sys/vfs.h usability... yes
   checking sys/vfs.h presence... yes
   checking for sys/vfs.h... yes
   checking sys/param.h usability... yes
   checking sys/param.h presence... yes
   checking for sys/param.h... yes
   checking malloc.h usability... yes
   checking malloc.h presence... yes
   checking for malloc.h... yes
   checking for mallopt... yes
   checking for EXIF... yes
   checking for EXEMPI... yes
   checking for is_selinux_enabled in -lselinux... no
   checking for more warnings... no
   checking for TRACKER... yes
   checking for BASE... no
   configure: error: Package requirements (
       gtk+-3.0 >= 3.5.12
       glib-2.0 >= 2.33.13
   ) were not met:
   
   No package 'gtk+-3.0' found
   
   Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
   installed software in a non-standard prefix.
   
   Alternatively, you may set the environment variables BASE_CFLAGS
   and BASE_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config.
   See the pkg-config man page for more details.
   

Solution

You can try to upgrade several important packages (gtk, glib, etc.) from the ricotz/testing ppa, then compile Nautilus 3.6 from source.

---

NOTE: Due to you are going to upgrade several important packages of your system, I strongly recommend to do this in a Virtual Machine or in a Test Machine only for testing purposes to see is everything is OK.

---

Make sure you have enable the "Source code repository"

In the Menu Bar choose Edit -> Software Sources. Click to enable "Source code repository". Just in case I use the "Main Server" to Download.

Then..

• sudo apt-get update

1) Open a Terminal and install the following packages.

• sudo apt-get install build-essential libtracker-sparql-0.14-dev wget

2) Install build dependencies.

• sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus

3) Add ricotz ppa and upgrade the system.

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/testing

• sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

• sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

4) Trash-Full icon in nautilus-places.

Nautilus 3.6.3 use the following icon for the trash-full (user-trash-full-symbolic.svg), not present by default in Ubuntu 12.04.
You can grab the icon from Ubuntu 13.04 to put it in /usr/share/icons/gnome/scalable/status/ directory.

To avoid this:

Once you have the correct icon type in the Terminal.

• sudo mv /path/to/trash/image/user-trash-full-symbolic.svg /usr/share/icons/gnome/scalable/status/
• sudo chmod 644 /usr/share/icons/gnome/scalable/status/user-trash-full-symbolic.svg
• sudo gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/gnome/

To look like this:

5) Create a folder to download the source code.

• mkdir ~/Downloads/src

• cd ~/Downloads/src

6) Download the nautilus 3.6.3 (raring) source code from Launchpad.

• wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/raring/+source/nautilus/1:3.6.3-0ubuntu16/+files/nautilus_3.6.3.orig.tar.xz

7) Extract the source code.

• tar -xvf nautilus_3.6.3.orig.tar.xz

8) Basic steps to compile & install. (You can change the steps according to your needs, add prefix etc.).

• cd nautilus-3.6.3/

• ./configure

• make

• sudo make install

9) Kill nautilus.

• pkill nautilus

10) Just in case... set default prefereces like show-desktop-icons, no show trash-icon in desktop, etc.

• gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop trash-icon-visible false

• gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop home-icon-visible false

• gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons true

11) Finally reboot the system to see the changes.

Result:

Hope this helps.

Comments

[blade19899]

To compile, you could resolve dependencies like so, sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus?

[Saurav Kumar]

It says: E: Unable to find a source package for nautilus Do I need to add some repository? I tried adding: ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3 , ppa:ricotz/stating and ppa:ricotz/testing but no result! Did you install it in Ubuntu 12.04?

[blade19899]

I dont think that nautilus under 12.04 is supported. Edit I dont know how, but softpedia got it to work? - news.softpedia.com/news/…

[Saurav Kumar]

@blade19899: I don't know how did they install in Ubuntu 12.04. The download they are providing is nothing but the binary package which I've already used to install it.. :(

[Saurav Kumar]

Please give a look at my edit..

[Roman Raguet]

@SauravKumar... I Edited my asnswer.

[Saurav Kumar]

You are genius.. :D Thanks you so much.. I successfully installed nautilus 3.6.x. I got some unmet dependencies while executing sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus but that was not a problem, I solved it using Synaptic and after that everything runs so smoothly.. Thanks a ton to you.. :D

[Roman Raguet]

Glad to help!.. but remember I strongly recommend only for testing purposes..due to the critical packages upgraded in your system.

[Alain Coste]

@SauravKumar does nautilus3.6.x work well in ubuntu12.04 ? I wanna install too.

[Saurav Kumar]

@David: It works without any problem. One thing I noticed that it doesn't search the files and folders which are as sub-directories. For example: Suppose you are at you Home directory and you type doc it will only search and list all files and folders with name doc which is in the current directory. i,e doc named files and folders available under <current_directory>/Music will not be searched. Apart from this I don't see any difference. I hope you understand me.