I’m in the process of switching my machines to Linux Mint from Windows and on my network drive I have a bunch of folders that are sorted with the help of preceding underscores (like this “__folder1” “___folder2”)) so that folders appear in a specific order.

When my Mint machines access the drive they sort by the first letter skipping the underscores and I’d really like to have that functionality back rather than having to rename a bunch of folders to try to sort them again. (I’d like to avoid a preceding ‘A’ workaround if possible as there’s a bunch of folders)

Any suggestions? A setting I’m missing (very likely) or something?

Edit: The more I look the more it looks like I’m going to have to make a custom locale to be able to get the sorting I want from the default Mint file manager.

  • @TootSweetEnglish
    7•6 months ago

    Clarification: in what program(s) interfaces are they not sorted the way you want? In the output of an ls command? In the default Mint graphical filebrowser? (I’m not a Mint user, so I’m not familiar with the default Mint filebrowser if there is one.) In QT and/or GTK file open/save dialogs?

    • GormadtOP
      1•6 months ago

      In the file browser and also in programs that access the network drive.

      NGL I’d try to avoid terminal if at all possible

  • @[email protected]
    2•6 months ago

    Are you using Caja file manager? If there’s no setting, it could be that the authors of that file manager just wanted it that way. You can try other file managers like thunar and see if they are different?

    • GormadtOP
      2•6 months ago

      The default file manager on Mint in Nemo

      But I’ll do some more trawling in the settings and look into a new file manager if I can’t find a setting for it

        • GormadtOP
          3•6 months ago

          It’s kinda worked

          Now the underscores appear between uppercase names and lowercase names

          So it’s a step in the right direction for me for sure now that they’re at least bunched together

          • @s38b35M5English
            2•6 months ago

            Not a fix, but a workaround I use when symbols and punctuation are treated this way: I use lowercase letters to precede folder names to get the sort I want.

            aFolder1
            bFolder2

            Not elegant, but it works in your case. You could also try other file managers, like Thunar to see if they manage sorting differently

            • GormadtOP
              2•6 months ago

              Honestly I think I’m just going to have to go through and rename the folders as faffing about with locales isn’t my idea of fun lol

              I was going to install Dolphin file manager (which has a sort option that does it the way Windows does) until I saw a known bug of “sometimes crashes without error and just loses the files you were moving” which is an absolute deal breaker for me. I do photography as one of my hobbies and I’d lose my shit if I lost the pictures I took in the process of making backups.

              • @s38b35M5English
                2•6 months ago

                Yeah, that sounds like a better long-term solution for you. Once you change your workflow, you shouldn’t have to do it again anyway!

                • GormadtOP
                  1•6 months ago

                  Plus I wouldn’t have to worry about the issue again on other distros

                  It’s just going to really really suck renaming all those folders