No Thunar will work just as well in the Gnome Environment (well it used to when I was running Zorin 15). Whatever you do do not attempt to remove Nautilus as it will break your system entirely - thanks but no thanks to those clueless intelligentsia of the Gnome project!
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There is something else to consider too - the extremely powerful Midnight Commander:
I first came across this whilst using my ... Amiga 1500!
Its in Software! 
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Nemo for sure. Nautilus seems well outclassed by it
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This option is also present on mine. The only conclusion that logically follows is that on Zorin Core with Gnome, it will not let anything other than Nautilus manage the desktop. Gnome also removed desktop icons. Gnome has a serious aversion to users using the desktop as a directory or launchpoint and has decided, like Microsoft, to control the user.
On XFCE desktop, I do not have this problem. On mine, using Nemo, the option to save to desktop is present.
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Also can't paste anything directly to desktop. At first i thought it was any other drive. Paste works if i select desktop in the sidebar of the explorer. But no directly to desktop if you know what i mean. Can't copy and paste to other internal drives
All was working fine previously.
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After reading, I guess because the OP change the file manager but not the DE. Before, I read somewhere that these things have like, there are file managers and windows manager that cannot be installed without the desktop environment that they should be part of. This is what I try before using AntiX and along the way I just end up messing the system. hahahah.
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It is not necessary to use the D.E. a file manager is associated with. Normally.
But in Karls case, he has some very stringent requirements for what he wants each to do and how he wants them to behave.
And... he is using them on Gnome which is very strict as to what it will allow the user to do.
Between both... he's having some trouble getting his D.E. to behave.
But you can use Thunar or Nemo interchangeably across Mate, Cinnamon, XFCE, LXDE etc without any of these troubles.
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My last Amiga was a 1200. I remember being surprised at the time about how much better it seemed than PCs and Windows. 
But it looks like Gnome won't let us change the file manager without it causing other problems, such as removing the paste option for me.
Thanks, that reconfirms that I'll probably be happier with Zorin xfce once that's available. Until then I'll put up with Nautilus, since every attempt to customise it (remove unwanted folders) or replace it has caused other, bigger problems (loss of New Document dialogue, loss of paste option).
First off before tinkering install Timeshift. See my post here:
Then at the terminal enter:
sudo apt-get install xfce4
Obviously answer with Y to install. After install run
sudo apt-get update
Then restart your machine - go to the cog bottom right of login and select xfce.
Keep us posted!
Just attempting myself - you get option to change display manager - I have kept it at GDM3.
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Hi Karl, glad to see another Amiga user - I still have my Amiga 1500 with 1 Gb SCSI Hard Drive on an Oktagon 2008 SCSI controller with 2 Mb ZIP RAM!
I always got peeved that mainstream computer named it a toy - it was so good that Commodore did not officially support it at a computer fair because it was superior to their C64 at the time of its release. It was one of the first devices to have a WIMP DE from the get-go Windows Icons Menus Pointer and it came with its own cursor creation tool!
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I used to love the tweaks that came on magazine coverdisks, replacing the cursor with different designs. Also that did things such as made a window with eyes in it that follower the pointer, or made the screen melt.
I still play Spectrum, C64 and Amiga games via emulator. (Well, I did in Windows, a later thing will be to test which run via Wine etc, or which have replacement Linux versions). I just love replaying old games. It seems funny that I have this new PC with an RTX 3060 Ti, yet the main game I am playing is a mod for UFO Enemy Unknown (called X-COM Files; it's as good as X-Pirates, both of which swallowed up more than a year without me getting bored of them, supplanting HOMM2 and 3 as my favourite games). I also have a Pi-based full size arcade machine in my office, emulating via MAME. I love some 2-player Bubble Bobble, Streetfighter 2 or Mortal Kombat.
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Well I did it (but no sound as sadly xfce has been garnered into using the inferior Pulse Audio so I will stay clear for moi!
I had to remove the browser icon in the panel at the bottom as it was expecting Firefox which I have removed! Replaced it with FlashPeak Slimjet.
Will experiment with QAS mix to see if I can get sound!
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Thanks, I may have a go at XFCE, though I'm also happy to wait for the official Zorin 16 version.
I never used system snapshots in Windows (well, I did about 10 years ago!), and am not sure about it in Linux, just because of the way I use my PC. I usually prefer to do a fresh install of an OS and my key software and settings (meaning I can also change to newer versions if necessary). I used to find that took me a couple of hours every second year, so I favoured that over the idea of snapshots. At least in Windows, I found if I had to roll back to a previous one on someone's PC when I was doing tech support, it was because of issues that left it still in a less stable state, which was better fixed by a fresh OS install. Moving to Linux, I am hoping the base OS is even more stable than Windows.
That's the thing - I have been using the Gnome based version for a few weeks, and each time I tweaked anything it has had a chance of breaking something else. I just worry that trying to plonk a different DE on top will cause other issues where the cause will then be even harder to identify. But I am looking forward to trying Zorin xfce 16 when it is done!
PS I used to write letter to Amiga Format back in the day - someone even recognised my name once and asked if I used to write daft letters to them! See this post: https://www.karldrinkwater.uk/2016/04/amiga-format-madness.html
Well basically you are installing xubuntu on Zorin. I do have sound - it is just the sound icon is greyed out so that does not matter to me. The bug bear I have in xfce is that, you know like in Windows 7 where you had excess icons pointer to show the ones hidden from the panel and you could drag them to it I can't in xfce even after getting rid of something like application finder they are still stuck there! From recollection Zorin xfce uses the same Windows 7 look as Core, that is the difference. When you use 'pure' xfce you get the traditional top panel and a quick launch panel at the bottom. It might be because I used gdm3 instead of ldm as I did not want to lose access to Plasma (KDE).
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I should never have stripped issue 1 to 4 as my good lady said my mags were taking up room. I still have the original issue 1 Space Invaders floppy.
What I could never understand was that the premium Amiga, the 3000 came with lower spec floppy drive than my Amiga 1500! On the plus side we have to remember that Wallace and Gromit's Grand Day Out was processed entirely on the Amiga 3000!
Now there was a distro which I can't remember, might have been Epidemic from Brasil but there was not only the video of 'Elephant's Dream' present but also how it was made entirely with no commercial software whatsoever. Whilst an Elephant does not appear in the 3-d animation it tells a hidden story of how an older man has always followed a given system and his apprentice thinks there is a better way - getting the Free Software Foundation message! Because the young upstart suggests a different, better way, the old man kills him!
Here is the link to the video:
Ironically, trying to get to youtube to the video to play in SlimJet proved fruitless, but Konqueror browser that crashes continually in Plasma works great in xfce, and with ALSA too! LOL!
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Update - Videos plays in xfce my music no problem but not an mp4 of a YouTube video didn't but worked ok in Kaffeine which is a KDE application, so any apps that are installed from other DE's will be present in xfce.
I just realized that I cannot paste (from nautilus or nemo) to the desktop as well.
It cannot be because I have installed nemo because I then restored I timeshift snapshot and it's the same behaviour.
@Karl , can you still paste from nautilus to the desktop ?