Names list of Gnome Applications

Ask Fedora
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GNU developers and others were very creative in inventing obscure names for common applications Files in fact is Nautilus, Disk space is baobab, image viewer is Loup.

Is there a complete translation list of these fancy pansy names?

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thanks. that is a great list. It would be great if that was just shown after installing an os. These gnome developers are weird.

files is called files in that list but it is caled Nautilus.

EDIT: I see that I can hover to reveal the real names (these gnome developers are definitely stuck in the early 90ties ux/ui wise)

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It is a fact that many apps use other apps/libraries to perform their tasks.
Changing the name of an existing app/library may break many other apps so things remain named as they already are. The only ones that get new names are ones that are developed totally new, and even then they rely on already existing software in the background.

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What does GNU have to do with anything?

GNOME != GNU

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Files is a user-facing name while Nautilus is a historical and developer-facing. Why is this weird?

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It’s worth adding that GNOME isn’t even under a GNU project umbrella anymore

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Just a note about the Terminal app. It looks like that the Gnome project changed from gnome-terminal to console lately.
While we with Fedora deliver ptyxis a container oriented terminal as default.

When you know also a bit about the history of Linux and the Desktop environments, you realize that there are also projects, which have been continued under other names (Forked/Renamed), to avoid confusions with the apps and their compatibility.

As an example was the Mate Desktop which has continued on the code-base of Gnome 2.x. The Linux Mint Porject got also for this very popular, helping users which not have been ready to let the windows styled start button go.
This way we can also say that this kind of Desktop Environments look sometimes a bit outdated from the styling because they not made the change to the Gnome 3.x code-base, which completely changed the style how we do use the Gnome desktop today.

Linux Mint also used a new name for the file manager from the Mate Dektop, which is Caja, to not mix with existing projects and their names.

So you see. Linux is a much more mixed and also different looking project than Windows and Apple Os, as an example. While the proprietary Operating systems just retired older versions, they could for the never version reuse their app names.

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Console iirc is kgx and also following that odd-naming scheme :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t know when abstracting names happened, but I knew of Nautilus back on Ubuntu 6-7 days where it was clearly-labeled and not generic “Files”. I feel as if I’d have to guess or figure that out creatively nowadays like I did with Disks being baobab (I opened the Disks app and found the process under System Monitor).

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You seem to be under some illusion that LinuxMint uses Caja for it’s DE, it doesn’t, Nemo was forked directly from nautilus-3.xx.

LinuxMint main DE is Cinnamon, they also provide secondary media based on XFCE and Mate.

FTR Mate upstream is functionally dead, they haven’t produced any new releases for nearly two years.

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It’s been Files for 15 years

Before that it was called ‘File Manager’ and before the is was ‘File Browser’

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What about M$?, they use a dumb name for their file manager (Windows explorer).

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Ubuntu 6.06 was 2006 :stuck_out_tongue:

They had to have used Nautilus somewhat clearly back then :man_shrugging:

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Hey, I do refer to the Mate desktop, in the beginning of Linux Mint. When everyone cried, “please do not change the UI, I want my start button back!! (Windows XP like)”

Source The History of Linux Mint Distribution :: IT'S FOSS

The Rise of Cinnamon and MATE: Defining Desktop Environments

One of the most pivotal decisions in the history of Linux Mint was the introduction of multiple desktop environment options. While initially focusing on GNOME 2, the development team recognized the need for alternatives as GNOME evolved.

  • Cinnamon: In 2011, following the controversial introduction of GNOME 3, the Linux Mint team created Cinnamon, a fork of GNOME 3 designed to provide a more traditional and customizable desktop experience. Cinnamon quickly became a flagship desktop environment for Mint, known for its elegant design, user-friendly interface, and extensive configurability.
  • MATE: Recognizing the continued popularity of GNOME 2, the Mint team also adopted MATE, a fork of GNOME 2, to provide a classic and lightweight desktop environment option. MATE proved particularly popular among users with older hardware or those who preferred a traditional desktop workflow.

The availability of both Cinnamon and MATE, alongside other desktop environments like Xfce, allowed users to choose the environment that best suited their needs and preferences, further enhancing Mint’s appeal.

Source: GitHub - mate-desktop/caja at 1.24

This is Caja, the file manager for the MATE desktop.

Caja is a fork of Nautilus.

Hacking on Caja

Please see the HACKING file for information about hacking on caja.

How to report bugs

Bugs should be reported in GitHub
GitHub ¡ Where software is built

My conclusion:
Caja is also a fork direct from Nautilus, just out of the codebase of Gnome 2.0 and the Mate desktop came out of that (Gnome 2.0).
While Nemo is the rename of Nautilus from the Gnome 3.0 version which was also the base for Cinnamon.

Here in this topic we tried to explain to the OP why there are so many different names for a single application. In my case I tried to take the example of Caja to illustrate why this aliases are used to distinguish names and also see which are the versions they come from.

Exactly, and this worked because they where retiring old software. So they not really had to care about new names. An other example is the “Internet Explorer” which got a so bad reputation an substituted with the Broswer “Microsoft Edge”

I hope with this discussion here, we can also better understand new Linux users when they say, some things in Linux look so old and everything is so complicated. Behind every Software in Linux is a loooong story :slight_smile:

R I P, it served for many years and is still working well on older systems.

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At least it’s “explorer.exe”; Xfce’s (usual default) is the all-expected thunar :stuck_out_tongue:

KDE, Plasma; I took a guess and dolphin sounds right; I remember that from back around Kubuntu 7.04 :stuck_out_tongue:

Windows Explorer is explorer.exe and Desktop Window Manager is dwm.exe. I don’t know what Mutter’s daemon is called after years of GNOME use :stuck_out_tongue: (and imagine it wouldn’t be an easy mutter?) Or is it Clutter? Compiz was relevant too! Meanwhile DWM was launch-Vista till today-11; Windows knows how to name :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

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I think its GNOME-Shell (at least thats what the process is called)

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Found an other one, Document Viewer is Papers :zany_face:

whereis papers
papers: /usr/bin/papers /usr/lib64/papers /usr/share/man/man1/papers.1.gz
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“There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.”
– Phil Karlton

At least these some of these examples often have relevance to the task they provide, like Loup and Papers. On the other hand, I know what ptyxis means, I just don’t know why it’s the name of a terminal emulator…

I deal with completely random project names at work, like “Thumbtack” and “Alfred”. The names have zero links to what they hope to achieve - they’re just plucked randomly from a dictionary. It gets to the point where you have to have a list of names and their purpose written down or you have no idea what the lead programmer on Project “Whalebone” is actually doing, or why.

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GNOME’s choice for simplicity is reflected in the naming of the core apps as well. By doing that, it actually addresses some of its design principles: design for people; make it simple; reduce user effort.

I think we should keep in mind that those active on this forum are not necessarily representative to the vast majority of users. And many users are not willing to remember all the code names of specific apps. E.g., if someone wants to open the default video app via Activities Overview, they can just type Video Player, instead of remembering Showtime for example.

And the above example also highlights another advantage: it lets GNOME switch one default app for another, yet keeping the previous naming. That way a user won’t get confused when upgrading from GNOME 48 to 49 and searching for the PDF viewer, since it was called Document Viewer on both releases, as opposed to searching and not finding Evince, and then figuring out they should have searched for Papers instead. The same applies to Totem being replaced with Showtime.

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