As a workaround in future you should be able to open the Unity7 desktop file manager in a Unity8 window by: nautilus -w -- --desktop_file_hint=unity8
However nautilus is crashing right now. Looks like a simple bug 1603923 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to unity8 in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1539957 Title: [enhancement] Allow files and links to be put on the Unity8 desktop Status in Mir: Invalid Status in Ubuntu UX: Triaged Status in unity8 package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Bug description: enable the use of the desktop as in unity 7 . then adding the possibility to put files on the desktop To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mir/+bug/1539957/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp