Lubuntu 22.04 RAR file support

Lubuntu 22.04 use lxqt-archiver as it default file archiver. It is a simple & lightweight Qt file archiver and support many archiving format like tar and zip. 

But Lubuntu do not ship with the unrar package natively as the RAR is a proprietary archive file format. 

 

Follow below step if you want to open .rar file in your Lubuntu setup.

1. Install unrar package.

sudo apt-get install unrar

2. With the unrar package installed, lxqt-archiver should be able to open/extract the .rar archive.

 

 

3. But as of Lubuntu 22.04 come with LXQt 0.17, there is a bug that cause the extract context (right-click) menu action missing for all .rar file. Btw, this issue have been fixed by using the latest version of LXQt 1.1.0.

 

4. To fix that, I will use pcmanfm-qt's custom action to create the context (right-click) menu. First, create the actions directory.

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/file-manager/actions

5. Create two action file for the extract action.

~/.local/share/file-manager/actions/extract-to.desktop
 
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Action
Name[en]=Extract to...
Icon=package-x-generic
Profiles=profile-zero;

[X-Action-Profile profile-zero]
MimeTypes=application/vnd.rar;
Exec=lxqt-archiver --extract %U
Name[en]=Default profile
SelectionCount==1

~/.local/share/file-manager/actions/extract-here.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Action
Name[en]=Extract Here
Icon=package-x-generic
Profiles=profile-zero;

[X-Action-Profile profile-zero]
MimeTypes=application/vnd.rar;
Exec=lxqt-archiver --extract-to %d %U
Name[en]=Default profile
SelectionCount==1

6. Relogin LXQt again and should be able to right click and extract the .rar file.