For Linux, the official file manager for the GNOME desktop is Nautilus. In case you wondering the origin for Nautilus, it is a play on words. By evoking the shell of a nautilus to represent an operating system shell. Nautilus replaced Midnight Commander in GNOME 1.4 and was the default from version 2.0 onwards.

There are many ways to open an application in Nautilus. However, here’s a simple tip that you might not know. You can open special locations in Nautilus by entering the URI in the location bar. An Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a string of characters used to identify or name a resource on the Internet. You can invoke the location bar by using the keyboard shortcut key Ctrl+L.

For example, if you would like to show Computer and lists the disk partitions, you can type in computer:///. Similarly, you can try the following special location URIs :

network:/// to show the network locations
burn:/// to see the inbuilt CD application
fonts:///  to list the fonts installed on the system
burn:/// to open the CD Writing Window.
themes:/// to list the themes available for the Gnome Desktop
system-settings:/// to give access to system settings.

These URIs can be handy and it could be a time saver indeed.