1gentoo(1x) gentoo(1x)
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6 gentoo - A highly configurable file manager for X
7
9 gentoo [--version] [--root-ok] [--no-rc] [--no-gtkrc] [--no-fam]
10 [--left=path] [--right=path]
11
13 gentoo is a file manager for Linux and compatible systems. It allows
14 you to interactively navigate your file system using the mouse, and
15 also to perform various fairly standard operations (such as copy, move,
16 rename, ...) on the files and directories contained therein.
17 gentoo always shows you the contents of two directories at once. Each
19 of these is displayed in its own scrollable list, called a pane. At any
20 time, exactly one pane is the current pane, and has a highlighted bar
21 running across its top region. The current pane acts as the source for
22 all file operations, while the other pane is the destination. You can
23 select rows in panes using selection methods of varying complexity
24 (from simply clicking a row, to selecting rows by name using a regular
25 expression). Once you have a selection, you can click a button to per‐
26 form some command on the selected files.
27 All file operations performed by gentoo are implemented natively. When
29 you use gentoo to copy a file, for example, gentoo does not simply exe‐
30 cute the system's cp(1L) command. Rather, gentoo contains its own code
31 for opening source and destination files, and then reading and writing
32 the right amount of data between them. This way of doing things makes
33 gentoo independent of the availability of shell commands to do things.
34 gentoo incorporates a fairly powerful, object-oriented file typing and
36 styling system. It can use a variety of ways to determine the type of
37 the files it is displaying. Each type is then linked to something
38 called a style, which controls how rows of that type are rendered in
39 panes. You can use this system to control icons, colors, and various
40 operations on the rows. For example, it is easy to make gentoo display
41 all PNG images in red, and to invoke The GIMP(1) on them when double-
42 clicked.
43 A design goal with gentoo has been to provide full GUI configurability,
45 removing the need to edit a configuration file by hand and restart the
46 program to see the changes, as is otherwise common in many programs for
47 Un*x. As a result of this, gentoo features a Configuration dialog win‐
48 dow where you can configure most aspects of its operation directly,
49 using the mouse and standard GUI widgets.
50 gentoo borrows its basic look'n'feel from the classic Amiga file man‐
52 ager Directory OPUS, but is not a "clone" of any kind.
53
55 gentoo is not primarily driven by command line arguments, but the fol‐
56 lowing are available:
57 --version
59 Causes gentoo to print its version number (a string on the form
60 MAJOR.MINOR.MICRO, like 0.15.6) to the standard output, and then
61 exit successfully. Numbers having an odd MINOR component indi‐
62 cate development versions of the program.
63 --locale-info
65 Makes gentoo print a couple of localization settings, and then
66 exit. This is mostly useful during development and debugging,
67 and not of a lot of interest when just using the application.
68 --root-ok
70 Makes gentoo accept being run by the root user. Normally, this
71 is not allowed since it is considered a big threat to system
72 security. Note that gentoo has the ability to execute user-
73 defined strings using the execvp(3) function. This is generally
74 considered harmful. However, if you really want to run gentoo
75 while logged on as root, supplying this option allows you to. It
76 is not recommended, though.
77 --no-rc
79 Starts up gentoo without loading any configuration file. This
80 makes it run using the built-in defaults, which are very Spartan
81 indeed. Seldom comfortable, but occasionally handy when trying
82 to determine if a problem is with the configuration or with the
83 core code.
84 --no-gtkrc
86 Avoids loading the GTK+ RC file, thus disabling any widget cus‐
87 tomizations, and forces all widgets to use the default GTK+
88 look.
89 --no-fam
91 Disables use of FAM (File Alteration Monitor) to detect when
92 contents of a displayed pane change. Option only available if
93 gentoo was built with FAM support to begin with.
94 --left, --right (or -1, -2)
96 Sets the initial path for the left and right pane, respectively.
97 If present, the path specified with one of these options over‐
98 rides any other path for the pane in question. See below (Ini‐
99 tial Directory Paths) for details.
100 --run ARG (or -rARG)
102 Runs ARG, a gentoo command. Commands specified this way are exe‐
103 cuted before gentoo accepts any user input through the graphical
104 interface, but after the configuration file has been read in.
105 You can use it many times in order to make gentoo run a whole
106 series of commands. Remember that gentoo's command names are
107 case-sensitive, and that built-in commands (like "About") always
108 begin with a capital letter.
109 Any non-option command arguments will be silently ignored. If an argu‐
112 ment "-h" or "--help" is given, gentoo will give a summary of its sup‐
113 ported command line options and exit successfully. If an unknown option
114 is given, or a option is missing a required argument, gentoo will whine
115 and exit with a failure.
116
118 When gentoo starts up, it will open up its single main window, which is
119 split vertically (or horizontally; it's configurable) down the middle,
120 forming the two panes mentioned above. It also contains a bank of but‐
121 tons along the bottom.
122 Initial Directory Paths
124 The actual paths shown in the two panes upon start-up can be controlled
125 in various ways. There are four ways of getting a path to show up in
126 pane. In order of decreasing priority, they are:
127 1. Command-line Argument
129 Using the --left and --right (or their short forms, -1 and -2)
130 command-line arguments overrides any other setting.
131 2. Configured Default Directory
133 If no command-line argument is present, and the "Default Direc‐
134 tory" configuration option is set, that directory is used.
135 3. Most Recently Visited Directory
137 If no default directory exists, the most recently visited direc‐
138 tory is taken from the directory history for each pane. This
139 only works if a directory history file has been found and
140 loaded.
141 4. Current Directory
143 If all else fails, gentoo uses the current directory (".").
144 Navigating
146 Navigating around the file system using gentoo is very simple. The two
147 panes act as independent views of the file system, and both are navi‐
148 gated in exactly the same way.
149 You can always see which directory a pane is showing by reading its
151 path, shown in the entry box below (by default--you can change the
152 position to above) the pane.
153 To enter a directory, locate it in the pane and double click it with
155 the left mouse button. gentoo will read the directory's contents, and
156 update the display accordingly.
157 There are several ways of going up in the directory structure. To enter
159 the directory containing the one currently shown (the current dir's
160 parent), you can: click the parent button (to the left of the path
161 entry box); hit Backspace on your keyboard; click the middle mouse but‐
162 ton; select "Parent" from the pop-up menu on the right mouse button, or
163 click the downward arrow to the right of the path box (this pops up the
164 directory history menu), then select the second row from the top.
165 Selecting Files
167 Before you can do anything to a file, you need to select it. All file-
168 management commands in gentoo act upon the current selection (in the
169 current pane). There are several ways of selecting files, but the most
170 frequently used are mouse-based. Note that the word "file" used below
171 really should be taken to mean "file or directory", since selection
172 doesn't distinguish between the two.
173 To select a file (or directory), just point the mouse at the name (any‐
175 where in the row is fine), and click the left mouse button. The colors
176 of the clicked row will change, indicating that it is currently
177 selected. To select more rows, keep the mouse button down, and drag the
178 mouse vertically. gentoo extends the selection, including all rows
179 touched. If you drag across the top or bottom border, the pane will
180 scroll, trying to keep up. This is a very quick and convenient way of
181 selecting multiple files, as long as they are listed in succession.
182 If you click again on an already selected file, you will unselect it.
184 You can drag to unselect several files, just as when selecting.
185 To select a sequence of files without dragging, first click normally on
187 the first file that you wish to select. Then release the mouse button,
188 locate the last file in the sequence (it can be either above or below
189 the first one), hold down shift on your keyboard, and click the wanted
190 file. gentoo now adds all files between the first and the last to the
191 current selection.
192 If you follow the instructions given above to select a sequence, but
194 press control rather than shift before clicking the second time, gentoo
195 will unselect the range of files indicated.
196 If you click on a file with the meta key held down (that's actually a
198 key labeled Alt, located to the immediate left of the space bar, on my
199 PC keyboard), gentoo will do something cool: it will select (or unse‐
200 lect, it's a toggle just like ordinary selection) all files, including
201 the clicked one, that have the same type as the one you clicked. This
202 can be used to select for example all PNG image files in a directory
203 even if you can only see one. Occasionally very useful.
204 If you click on a file with both the shift and control keys held down,
206 gentoo will toggle the selected state of all files having the same file
207 name extension as the one you clicked. This can sometimes be useful to
208 select files that you don't have a proper type defined for, as long as
209 those files do share an extension, that is.
210 Changing Sort Order
212 The files and directories listed in each of gentoo's two panes are
213 always sorted on some column: typically file name. You can chose to
214 sort on some other field by clicking the appropriate column title once.
215 If you click on the field that is already current, the sorting will be
216 reversed (i.e., for names it will be Z-A rather than A-Z).
217 If your display includes icons, try sorting on that column: gentoo will
219 then order each row according to its File Style, grouping the rows
220 based on their parent styles, all the way up to the root of the Style
221 tree. This means that, for example, JPEG and PNG pictures (both having
222 an immediate parent style of Image) will be shown together, and before
223 all Text files (HTML, man pages and so on). It's quite cool, really. :)
224 Executing Commands
226 Commands are used to make gentoo do stuff. The typical command operates
227 upon the set of selected files in the current pane, so it's usually a
228 good idea to first select some files. See the previous subsection for
229 details on how to select files. Once you have a bunch of files
230 selected, you need to tell gentoo which command to execute. There are
231 several ways of doing this.
232 Most basic file operations (e.g. copy, move, rename, and so on) are
234 found on the (cleverly labeled) buttons along the bottom of gentoo's
235 main window. To copy a file, just select it, then click the button
236 labeled "Copy". It's really that simple. Most of these built-in (or
237 native) commands automatically operate recursively on directories, so
238 you could copy (or move) a whole directory of files by just selecting
239 it and then clicking "Copy".
240 If you can't see a button that does what you want to do, there's a
242 chance that the command exists, but isn't bound. Click the right mouse
243 button in a pane, this opens up the "pane pop-up menu". Select the
244 "Run..." item. This opens up a dialog window showing all available com‐
245 mands. Select a command, and click "OK" to execute it.
246
248 gentoo is a pretty complicated program; it has a rather large amount of
249 configuration data that it needs in order to be really useful. For
250 example, my current personal configuration file contains well over a
251 thousand different configuration values.
252 To store this hefty amount of configuration data, gentoo uses a heavily
254 structured configuration file. In fact, the file is (or at least it
255 should be) legal XML!
256 When new features are added to gentoo, they will typically require some
258 form of configuration data. This data is then simply added somewhere in
259 the existing configuration file structure. Effort is made to assign
260 reasonable built-in default values for all such new features, so older
261 configuration files (that don't contain the values required by the new
262 features) should still work. The first time you hit "Save" in the con‐
263 figuration window after changing your version of gentoo, your personal
264 configuration file will be updated to match the version of gentoo.
265 Describing how to go about configuring gentoo is too big a topic for a
267 manual page to cover. I'll just say that the command to open up the
268 configuration window is called "Configure". It is by default available
269 on a button (typically the top-right one), in the pane pop-up menu, and
270 also by pressing the C key on your keyboard.
271
273 ~/.gentoorc
274 A user's personal configuration file. When gentoo starts up, it
275 will try to load this file. If the file isn't found, the site-
276 wide configuration will be tried instead.
277 /usr/local/etc/gentoorc
279 This is the site-wide configuration file. If a user doesn't have
280 a configuration in his/her home directory, gentoo loads this
281 file instead. The actual location of this file is slightly sys‐
282 tem-dependent, the above is the default. As an end user, you
283 typically won't need to access this file manually.
284 ~/.gentoo-history
286 This file contains lists of the most recently visited directo‐
287 ries, for both panes. These are the lists that appear in the
288 drop-down menu when the arrow next to the path entry box is
289 clicked. Can be disabled in the Dir Pane configuration.
290 ~/.gentoogtkrc
292 This file allows you to control the look of the widgets used by
293 gentoo, through the GTK+ style system. This file must be present
294 in the user's home directory - there is no site-wide GTK+ con‐
295 figuration file.
296 /etc/passwd, /etc/group
298 These two files normally hold the system's password and group
299 information. These are (probably) the ones gentoo uses to map
300 user IDs to login names, to do tilde-expansion (mapping of user
301 name to directory path), and to map group IDs to group names.
302 That is probably, because gentoo doesn't actually refer to these
303 files by name. Instead, it uses the (BSD-style) API function
304 calls getpwent(3) and getgrent(3) to access this information.
305 /etc/fstab, /proc/mounts, (or /etc/mtab)
307 These files contain data on available and mounted file systems.
308 They are read by gentoo's auto-mounting code. You can configure
309 the exact file names used, on the "Mounting" tab in the main
310 configuration window. Note that using /proc/mounts rather than
311 /etc/mtab is recommended on Linux systems; they contain roughly
312 the same data, but the one in /proc is always up to date, and
313 faster to read!
314
317 All releases of gentoo numbered 0.x.y, where x (the so called minor
318 version number) is odd, are to be considered development releases, as
319 opposed to stable ones. This means that the software will probably suf‐
320 fer from bugs. If you find something that you suspect is indeed a bug,
321 please don't hesitate to contact the author! For details on how to do
322 this, see below.
323 If you're concerned about using potentially buggy and completely unwar‐
325 ranted software to manage your precious files, please feel free not to
326 use gentoo. The world is full of alternatives.
327 The chances that a bug gets fixed increase greatly if you report it.
329 When reporting a bug, you must describe how to reproduce it, and also
330 try to be as detailed and precise as possible in your description of
331 the actual bug. If possible, perhaps you should include the output of
332 gdb(1) (or whatever your system's debugger is called). In some cases it
333 might be helpful if you include the configuration file you were using
334 when the problem occurred. Before reporting a bug, please make sure
335 that you are running a reasonably recent version of the software, since
336 otherwise "your" bug might already been fixed. See below for how to
337 obtain new releases.
338 Also, you should locate and read through the BUGS file distributed with
340 gentoo, so you don't go through all this hassle just to report an
341 already known bug, thereby wasting everybody's time...
342
344 gentoo was written, from scratch, by Emil Brink. The first line of code
345 was written on May 15th, 1998. It is my first program to use the GTK+
346 GUI toolkit, my first program to be released under the GPL, and also my
347 first really major Linux application. However, it is not my first pro‐
348 gram! ;^) I've been writing (increasingly complex) code for almost two
349 decades now. I have recently finished my Master of Science degree in
350 Computer Science and Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology
351 in Stockholm, Sweden.
352 The only efficient way to contact me (to report bugs, give praise, sug‐
354 gest features/fixes/extensions/whatever) is by Internet e-mail. My
355 address is <emil@obsession.se>. Please try and include the word "gen‐
356 too" in the Subject part of your e-mail, to help me organize my inbox.
357 Thanks.
358
360 The author wishes to thank the following people for their various con‐
361 tributions to gentoo:
362 Johan Hanson (<johan@tiq.com>)
364 Johan is the man behind all icon graphics in gentoo, and also
365 the author of the custom widgets used in it. He also comes up
366 with plenty of ideas for new features and changes to old ones,
367 some of which are even implemented. Johan has stuff at
368 <http://www.bahnhof.se/~misagon/>.
369 Jonas Minnberg (<sasq@nightmode.org>)
371 Jonas did intensive testing of early versions of gentoo, and
372 eventually persuaded me into releasing it (back around version
373 0.9.7 or so).
374 Ulf Petterson (<ulf@obsession.se>)
376 Ulf drew the main gentoo logo (the one shown in the About win‐
377 dow), and also designed the main HTML documentation's layout.
378 Josip Rodin (<jrodin@jagor.srce.hr>)
380 Maintainer of the gentoo package for Debian Linux, and also a
381 source of suggestions for improvements, as well as a relay for
382 bug reports from Debian Linux users.
383 Ryan Weaver (<ryanw@infohwy.com>)
385 Maintainer of the gentoo packages for Red Hat Linux, and proba‐
386 bly one of the fastest package creators out there. :)
387 Oliver Braun, Jim Geovedi and Pehr Johansson
389 Maintainers of gentoo ports to FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD,
390 respectively.
391 Thanks also to all people who have mailed me about gentoo, providing
393 bug reports, feature requests, and the occasional kind word. :^) It's
394 because of people like yourselves that we have this wonderful computer
395 platform to play with.
396
398 gentoo is released as free, open-source software, under the terms of
399 the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), version 2. This license is
400 included in the distribution under the traditional name of COPYING, and
401 I suggest that you read it if you're not familiar with it. If you can't
402 find the file, but have Internet access, you could take a look at
403 <http://www.gnu.org/>. It is important to realize that the mentioned
404 license means that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY for this software.
405
407 Some unfinished, outdated, but still pretty informative documentation
408 is available, in HTML format, in the docs/ subdirectory in the distri‐
409 bution archive. If you haven't installed gentoo from the original
410 .tar.gz distribution archive, you might need to either inspect the dis‐
411 tribution you did use (perhaps it came as some form of "package"), or
412 contact a system administrator.
413 The GTK+ GUI toolkit that gentoo requires is available at
415 <http://www.gtk.org/>. gentoo uses the slightly outdated stable
416 series, called 1.2.x. The latest known release in that series is GTK+
417 1.2.10. Because of severe performance problems, gentoo will probably
418 not be ported to use the current (2.0.x) series of GTK+ any time soon.
419 The latest version of gentoo is always available on the official gentoo
421 home page, at <http://www.obsession.se/gentoo/>.
422
424 regex(7), file(1), magic(5), fstab(5), strftime(3)
425 Manual page section numbers in this page refer to sections on (some?)
427 Linux systems, your mileage will most likely vary. Try the apropos(1)
428 command, it might help you out.
429Obsession Development July, 2009 gentoo(1x)