What was the reasoning behind using Thunar as the default file manager in Xubuntu (compared to Ubuntu's default of Nautilus). Unless I have mistakenly installed it (if so, likely as another application's dependency), Nautilus seems to be installed on Xubuntu by default, but is unused.
Is Thunar more performance friendly than Nautilus? Or is Thunar simply continuing to be used because it has been the default for Xubuntu since 6.06 release?
Best Answer
This answer is based on historical sources on the Web.
According to this release note, Xubuntu 6.06 had included Xfce 4.4beta1 and Thunar. This release of Xfce is also the first release to include Thunar as the default file manager, replacing the original Xfce file manager Xffm (now code named 'Rodent').
This dated project site has noted the release of Thunar as part of Xfce at that time.
Regarding how Thunar becomes the default in Xfce, this can be read from the history that has been written in the Rodent user guide.
The short story: It seems that the original file manager was unfriendly to new users of Xfce. You can see for yourself the file managers in Xfce 3 and Xfce 4.4 on Wikimedia Commons.
Nautilus itself is not installed by default. Prior to 16.04 release, Xubuntu had included
nautilus-data
which was required by the archive manager of GNOMEfile-roller
. The dependency has since changed in newer releases, and Xubuntu does no longer rely on such package.Based on the history, Thunar becomes the default mainly because Xffm was unfriendly to new users. Another supporting reason is that the memory usage of Thunar was significantly lower than other file managers at that time.
This legacy wiki page, which was last accessible and archived in 2012, reported the memory usage of Thunar compared to Nautilus, ROX, Konqueror and Xffm.
In above table, you should look at the
Data size
for comparison (the reasoning for this can be read in the quoted link of legacy wiki). Note that the author had disclaimed this is "by no means 100% exact" and "just a rough measurement".TL;DR Thunar is the default file manager in Xfce, before being the default in Xubuntu. The legacy wiki had proven that Thunar uses less memory; Thunar is generally more responsive than Nautilus.