I run Mylar on my Xubuntu server to manage my comic collection. I found out recently that there’s a tool that can convert the embedded .jpgs to .webp to save space, but it only works on cbz files and not cbr (zipped vs rar for those who don’t know). I wanted to convert all of my cbr to cbz so that I could run the tool on all my comics, so I needed to search hundreds of subdirectories for them and move them to the same folder to be processed.
Under Windows, I’d just type *.cbr into the search bar built into Explorer from the root comic directory, hit enter to get a list of files, select them all, and move them to the new folder. On Xubuntu, it’s nothing like as simple.
I found the search option in Thunar which opened Catfish, typed in *.cbr, and got a no files found message. After looking through the very limited options, I started searching for a way to do it. About thirty minutes later I’d found dozens of links telling me to use different, Terminal only, tools, but nothing about how to search subdirectories from the Catfish GUI. Purely by accident, I found a post from 2012 that mentioned the fact that Catfish doesn’t use wildcards, so just search with .cbr, something that’s not mentioned in the official docs.
I tried it, and it searched the subdirectories too, and found my files! Except there was no way to copy or cut and paste, just open, show in file manager, copy location, save as, or delete. No good options for almost 500 files across several dozen locations.
I ended up asking Chat GPT how to do it, and doing it through the Terminal, using this:
‘find . -type f -name “*.cbr” -exec mv {} /path/to/destination ;’
This is pretty basic functionality, and I had to resort to getting help to use the Terminal :(
If you are expecting a more windows-like experience, I would suggest using Ubuntu or Kubuntu (or any other distro using Gnome/KDE), as these are much closer to a modern Windows GUI. With Ubuntu, I can use the default file manager (
nautilus) and doCtrl+Fand filter files via*.ext, then select these files then cut and paste to a new folder (drag and drop does not seem to work from the search results). In Kubuntu, the search doesn’t recognize*as a wildcard in KDE’s file manager (dolphin) but does support drag/drop between windows.dolphindoesn’t recognize*but searching for.extwill list all files in all directories with.ext, so you don’t need the wildcard.Thanks for replying :)
I don’t want a more Windows like experience, I’m just shocked that something as basic as moving files requires the terminal in Xubuntu. It’s just Ubuntu with a different desktop environment, it shouldn’t force me to the terminal for basic tasks.
Catfish lets me find the files in the same way as you said Nautilus does in Ubuntu, but it doesn’t let me do very much with them. It seems pretty pointless.
Unfortunately the choice of desktop environment matters a lot when talking about features like this
I suggest trying KDE instead, as XFCE is far from the user friendly interface your used to with Windows. Some DEs are good for new users, XFCE isn’t one of them
Whoever suggested Xubuntu for a Windows user is a bit optimistic