[unwind]

Hi, author of gentoo (the file manager, not the Linux distro [*]) here.

I'm really low on time for maintaining gentoo now, which is why it no longer even has a web site, which is annoying and a bit sad.

I haven't used DOpus since my Amiga days back in the 80s and 90s, but obviously it was a big inspiration for gentoo. Probably DOpus has evolved a great deal since I used it; I've never touched it on Windows.

Just for fun/inspiration/reference, I would appreciate hearing what you find most lacking in gentoo, if you have experience using it. When it was first released, around 2000, I feel it was a pretty decent file manager for Linux and also some BSD systems, and it did so much* to help me improve my C and portability skills.

[*] I have actual e-mail from Daniel Robbins, the founder of Gentoo Linux, about the name clash. The e-mail is dated 2000-01-22, so it's almost 22 years since the question was semi-relevant. :) Now off to comb my beard and chase people off the lawn.

[nurbl]

Thanks, I used gentoo quite a bit back in the day! Today I don't do enough file management to bother going outside emacs dired :)

Just to add some context, as far as I remember, gentoo was pretty similar to how DOpus worked on the Amiga until version 5, when it went from being a classic "one window, two pane, rows of buttons" thing, to arbitrary numbers of independent windows. DOpus 5 was really neat and powerful but also quite a different experience, more like its own desktop environment really. I hope I still have the ring bound manual somewhere...

[justinlloyd]

Thank you for your contribution to the ecosystem of open source software and the monumental and often unsung effort it takes to develop and maintain something like a file explorer across a diverse set of platforms for an ungrateful audience.

Given a month of time, I don't think I could express the vast differences between Directory Opus 12 and Gentoo or many other file explorers that are available. Even PathFinder on macOS is a pale shadow of what Directory Opus achieves, and I happen to love PathFinder.

From file type support, to file renaming, image sizing, meta data options, scripting, macro recording, tabbed directories, filtering, finding in files, finding files in diretories, directory navigation, bookmarking, stability, speed, virtual directories, directory browsing, file system search, ftp, sftp, one and two way syncing, filename copying (e.g. copy filenames, copy full pathnames, copy short names, copy short pathnames, copy URLs, copy MD5 checksums, copy SHA-1 checksums, copy full pathnames with double backslashes, copy folder path, copy complete folder listing), file copying & file moving, queued file copying, unattended file copying, speed of file copying, prioritized file copying, pausable file copying, file deduping, renaming of dupes, unzipping and zipping in different archive formats, encoding files and decoding files. And I've only scratched the surface. And then just general spit and polish. And compatibility with all the different versions of Windows. And everything on a hotkey. And everything with configurable & saveable preferences.

I know that "but <favourite file explorer> also does that!" is a common refrain, but on Directory Opus, whatever feature you are comparing against, Directory Opus basically took the amplifier knob, turned it up to 11, then snapped it off to make sure you couldn't fuck with it. I know that "there is a utility in Linux that does that" or "well, that's easy, you just have to open a terminal and..." but again, it's built-in to Directory Opus. It just works.

I know I am singing high praises of this software, but it is like comparing Photoshop and GIMP, they both push pixels, but we know deep down, there really is no competition.

I really wish GPSoft would consider a Linux port, but they have emphatically stated that they have no intention of doing so, for business reasons, and I can kind of see their point.

There's nothing bad about Gentoo, but it isn't Directory Opus.

[emj]

We are comparing what we used 20 years ago on the Amiga. What I think we all fell in love with was the configurability and speed. What Gentoo showed me was that the configurability and UI of the old DirOpus will only get you so far. I did a filededupe plugin for Gentoo, the UI for that made me cry getting that right takes time. I'm glad that DirOpus has gotten better and solve all these things in a good way!