[Solved] Need prompt confirmation before trashing?

[sabin]

Hello everyone!

I've installed Linux Mint a week ago on my kids' computer, in order to have them not only be used to Windows, they need to avoid confusing the hardware and the operating system, and see they have a choice.

It's been fun, to get back to desktop-use Linux after many years (I operate on my Debian dedicated server through shell and a web panel, my last personal desktop use of Linux was in 2005 with late Mandrake/Mandriva, apart from this and setting up a laptop for an aunt, I had lost contact with Linux).

However, to be frank, there's one thing that's causing a problem : the Delete key. It sends contents straight to the Trash bin.

This is perfectly cool when these are adults using the system, however, when we speak about kids, that's an issue. They're aged 9, 7 and 4, and they're capable of trashing something without even realizing it, and if there are too many items in the trashcan, these items will be bulk deleted without double-checking, bam, goodbye potentially important files.

I searched for workarounds and, sadly, I couldn't find any. There are cases of actual success against this issue with MATE and Nautilus, however they won't work for Mint Cinnamon and its Nemo browser, apparently (Edit : I found the link : http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=129654 ).

And so, I'm now wondering, maybe I shouldn't stay stuck just to Linux Mint, after all it's about discovering and experimenting.

Would you know, please, if there are other cases (other distros, or perhaps simply other Desktops, maybe this is a common practice in KDE or Xfce, who knows !) when one can setup a confirmation query ("are you sure you want to... ? ") before sending something to the Trash can ?
On my side, in the next days, I'll be testing MATE, since apparently some people got it to work with dconf-editor in that environment. But I could use it as an opportunity to test other environments where it's standard, it's interesting in itself.

Thanks if you know

[xenopeek]

A quick look in Nemo, Caja, and Thunar (for Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce respectively) turns out they will only ask before permanently deleting a file and there is no option to have them ask before moving a file to the trash (that I could find).

Dolphin (for KDE) does have this option. It's in the Settings > Configure Dolphin menu, under General > Confirmations.

I'd say moving on to another distro for this question is a bit ridiculous but I hope I'm not telling you anything new. There are dozens of other file managers you could install on Linux Mint, without having to move to another distro that might have that file manager as a default. Now I don't know of any other file managers that are configurable like this (aside from KDE's Dolphin) but there might be. Here's a sampling of file managers: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li ... raphical_9. That's a list from Arch Linux but you'll probably find most of these in the Linux Mint repositories or else installable through a .deb file from the file manager's website.

There's perhaps also a lesson in breaking stuff, so perhaps it's fine the kids delete things Have you set them up each with their own non-admin account? That way they can only break their own account. You could run an automatic backup periodically of their home directories so you can quickly restore their account if needed.

[sabin]

I'm that kind of bad father that calls it "pedagogy" when kids do stupid stuff we warned them against and end up hurting themselves. Only few lessons are memorized better than these ones, afterwards

Still, I would regard the loss of their data to be too much. Sure, it's not a broken leg, but this would be irreversible, and my two older ones are old enough to have data they really love. Lego stop motion movies they spent hours creating, their weird "blooper" Super Mario creations, their scans of their drawings whose paper version is already long damaged and discreetly thrown away, their cherished movies... They're old enough to terribly regret losing something, but young enough to still manage to cause that loss.

Back to Linux, though

Honestly, I thought that the file browser was too deeply entwined with every aspect of a desktop and couldn't be changed.
I may be wrong, then.
Is it really possible to make Linux Mint, and its Gnome Cinnamon Desktop, accept another file browser for every time browsing files will be done ?!? O_o

Also, if you mention KDE and Dolphin...
Once again I'm openly newbie-ing, it it possible to install Dolphin within the Gnome-Cinnamon environment ? Or would that imply to add a new desktop environment to Linux Mint, KDE-something ?

(sorry for all those questions!)

[xenopeek]

Yes you can install a different file manager on Cinnamon. Nemo will by default still handle the icons on the desktop. There is probably a way around that but that might be a bit complex, IDK. You could install Dolphin but see the release notes of Linux Mint 17.2 Cinnamon because you need to do something extra if you want to use KDE applications on Cinnamon.

It might not be the best experience. A Gtk+ based file manager (Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce are all Gtk+ based desktop environments) would be more at home than a Qt based file manager (KDE is Qt based). Gtk+ and Qt and both widget toolkits that programmers can use to make the "widgets" (things like text boxes and buttons) in the GUI of their programs. Might be a better experience to install Linux Mint KDE. But, KDE has a lot of configuration options are is common found (initially) to be a bit confusing where to configure what. Cinnamon also has a lot of options, but more concise than KDE. Might be a bit too much for the youngsters.

Considering what you wrote about the importance of the files, I do hope you have a backup in place! Hard disks can and do fail suddenly and unrecoverably.

[phd21]

Hi sabin,

Read your post and the good replies.

Here are my thoughts on this: I use Mint KDE which has the option to turn on or off the delete confirmation option, as others have already mentioned. I personally do not think that using or setting up Linux Mint KDE is hard or difficult even though it does have many options for configuring pretty much anything, more so than the other great Linux Mint editions. If you setup Linux Mint KDE for your kids, then they would not have to handle any of the so-called "complexities". As with all the wonderful Linux Mint editions, installing it does not take long. You can also download the live version of Linux Mint KDE and burn it to a DVD to "test drive" it for yourself.

Also, I totally agree with "xenopeek" that you should always have good backups of your system to some external source like a USB hard drive and or a large enough USB Flash drive, regardless whether your kids are using the computer or not.

I might add that having a waterproof (spill proof) keyboard or keyboard cover would be a really good idea too.

[xenopeek]

If you setup Linux Mint KDE for your kids, then they would not have to handle any of the so-called "complexities".

I meant it more like, if you want to change anything at first it may be a bit confusing where to find what you are looking for. And once kids start clicking around, there is a lot to accidentally change.

Frequent backups would make that a non-issue, though from what OP wrote earlier perhaps split the backup into user files (e.g., Documents, Pictures, and Videos directories) and into user preferences (all the dot files and directories). Or some other way to restore user preferences without also reverting files the kids created themselves.

[sabin]

Thanks again for your replies!

I'll look into the installations and experimentations in the next days, to have Dolphin work, or perhaps, indeed, install Mint KDE entirely.

As for the backups, they're handled through the (main boot) Windows sessions, I have setup an automated backup to a cloud storage (Hubic is free for the first 25 GB). This isn't perfect because this is a synchronization, if the kids accidentally delete something it will also disappear from the synced location: but, precisely, this is what trash-sending confirmations are for