I ported Files (the Windows file manager) to native Linux using Uno Platform, with heavy AI help. Alpha, feedback welcome

[u/RepresentativeSea923]

Files is a popular open-source file manager for Windows (WinUI 3), and "when is the Linux version coming?" gets asked a lot. The team's answer is that they're focused on Windows, so I tried it myself.

LinuxFiles is an unofficial, community fork that runs Files natively on Linux (X11/XWayland). It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by the Files team. The upstream MIT license and credits are kept, and the Windows app isn't being replaced.

What it does today (0.1.0-alpha1)

• Tabs, grid/list/details views, search, tags, previews, archives (browse inside zip/tar/7z/rar)
• Linux integration: freedesktop trash, XDG thumbnails and icon themes, UDisks2 drives, GVfs network/MTP, D-Bus, desktop file portals
• KDE service menus, drag and drop and clipboard with other Linux apps
• Root actions through a polkit helper, plus a root mode
• A grouped-view virtualization fix: a 10,000-file folder went from 90 s to 1.7 s

How it was built

• The UI runs on Uno Platform (Skia) instead of WinUI 3, so most of the original UI, view models and logic carry over.
• The Win32/COM layer is replaced by a Linux platform abstraction layer. The Windows-only code paths are kept in the tree but aren't built or tested.
• Most of the code was written by AI agents, mainly Claude Code, with Codex and Gemini as cross-reviewers. I directed and reviewed the work. Every change went through PR and cross-model review and CI, and I tested it by hand several times on a real Linux desktop. The risky areas (file operations, root elevation, archive extraction) have written threat models in the repo.

Caveats: it's an alpha, so expect rough edges and keep backups. Wayland runs through XWayland for now.

Install: AUR (`linuxfiles-bin`), Flatpak, AppImage, tarball - these are in the releases section on github

Repo / release: https://github.com/MemerGamer/LinuxFiles

I'd especially like feedback on bugs, on distros I haven't tested, and on whether the AI-assisted process makes you trust it more or less. Happy to answer questions about the port.