Ubuntu – How to rebuild and test Nautilus source

gnomemenunautilus

I'm new to OS level programming so apologies for the noobness.

Ultimately I would like to change the behaviour of clicking on "Change Desktop Background" from the desktop context menu. It would appear the Nautilus package contains the source and I have even found the line which calls the Desktop Control Panel after clicking on "Change Desktop Background".

Is it possible to re-compile the modified version of Nautilus, test it, and install it on my own system? This could be ultra noob asking a question like this but I just don't know yet!

Best Answer

In order to download the source and re-build it, do this:

Install all build-dependencies for nautilus: sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus
Run apt-get source nautilus in a directory you want the source.
cd into the nautilus- directory.
Run debuild -uc -us. This creates an unsigned source, unsigned changes file and one or more binary packages. You'll find these one level of a folder lower.
Install the package(s) using sudo dpkg -i /path/to/binary-package1.deb /path/to/binary-package2.deb [...].
Make changes to the source, and rebuild/install as many times as you like.

You can apply this recipe to any Debian/Ubuntu package.

To undo the installation of your modified version, simply revert to the main upstream Ubuntu version of the package by reinstalling and selecting that version in your package management. This keeps your system clean without files everywhere unmanaged by your package management.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Prevent nautilus showing partition mounted in bash script

Try this suggestion: http://www.worldofnubcraft.com/969/hide-your-disks-or-partitions-from-nautilus/

I'm fairly sure it has to do with udev signals and processing.

Run Dolphin Instead of Nautilus – Step-by-Step Guide

There are several caveats in what you tried to do. I already mentioned the danger introduced by your approach:

Next time nautilus is going to be updated, your dolphin gets overwritten (as your link points there). Same goes for gnome-terminal.

So we figured, this was not a good idea :)

But there are some ways to try working around, so "x" gets run when "z" was requested -- but I'm not aware of any as soon not "z", but "/full/path/to/z" gets called. As long as it is just "z":

creating an alias for z, like alias z=x (works on a per-user-level -- or globally, depending on where it was defined)
creating a "replacement" for z in a location mentioned in the PATH before the location the real z resides in

A little more details on the second approach. Taking your original problem, you want to have dolphin executed whenever nautilus is called upon. You already found nautilus at /usr/bin/nautilus. Now let's (probably correctly) assume your $PATH contains (in this order) /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin -- so you see /usr/local/bin would be searched before /usr/bin. So we simply create a shell script /usr/local/bin/nautilus with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/dolphin %$@

So what will happen? If you (or some script/program/daemon/...) invokes nautilus, this will execute /usr/local/bin/nautilus (as this is the first "nautilus" found in the PATH), which simply starts /usr/bin/dolphin -- voila! But if the "whatever" uses the full path, this won't work.

So you say: Hey, why didn't Izzy say "just do a ln -s /usr/bin/dolphin /usr/local/bin/nautilus?" Sure you can do that -- and it will work the same. But using a script as shown may come in handy if you need to introduce additional parameters which are not passed with the original call. With above script, dolphin simply gets passed the same parameters the original call used (%$@). But you can play around with things in the script, replace parameters, etc. As for your current problem, the link would be enough (as long as nautilus doesn't get called with the full path).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Prevent nautilus showing partition mounted in bash script

Run Dolphin Instead of Nautilus – Step-by-Step Guide

Related Question