Thanks for your bug report!
I disagree with you. Almost none of our users knows the hardlink concept, so why
should we confuse him and even risk data loss? You can use
nautilus-open-terminal [1] and create hardlinks manually.
I really wonder how often and why you need them.

[1] http://manny.cluecoder.org/packages/nautilus-open-terminal/

I would use it, for example, for arranging photos in multiple directories (to
have me_on_holydays.jpg in Me_drunk dir and 4My_friends dir at the same time. As
long as both instances rests unchanged, only one space on the disk is used. But
as fast i change the one in 4My_friends dir (to reduce its size, for example),
it is saved on a new physical location. If I used simlinks for that purpose, I
would change the photo in all dirs at the same time (and i don't know all the
dirs where a simlink refers to my original - with hardlinks i don't need to care
about it).

I think i should change the status back to the unconfirmed. So i am changing it
(correct me if I am wrong :) )

Perhaps you could use nautilus-actions for this?

I see hard links as a way to tag files (be it audio, image or other) without having to maintain a seperate database or embedded information.  The advantage to this method of tagging is that the utilities used to manipulate the tags are simply those of the filesystem.  I could be wrong but I would assume that most users are very familiar with their chosen method of moving files around.  Symbolic links do not work as well as they break.

>  I disagree with you. Almost none of our users knows the hardlink 
>  concept, so why should we confuse him and even risk data loss? 

Is there a study that shows this?  If this is the case, why don't they?  My answer to the second question would be because they've never heard of them before.  The idea isn't a foreign one.  When handling files in the real world, how often to people put a note in one folder saying "see folder_z/file_x" as opposed to making a copy of folder_z/file_x and placing it in that folder.  I would imagine that if the second approach isn't used it is because you then have two versions which is fixable with hard links.  A simple diagram can explain the concept rather easily.

In terms of data loss, I don't understand how having hardlinks available would make dataloss any more likely than with symbolic links.  With symbolic links you only have to delete one instance of the file to lose it (ignoring the Trash).  Using hardlinks you have to delete multiple instances.

If it is really necessary to "hide" the feature to prevent confusing users, it could be addressed by how the feature is available and documented.  If hard linking is unavailable through the menubar and context menu then the only place that a user would come across it is in the help system where it can be explained.  I personally would never use the feature through a context menu anyway if a short cut was available for it.  

I don't know if it can be accomplished by using nautilus-actions.  However, even if it can, I would expect that a program whose sole purpose is to enable a user to manage a file system would be able to make use of all the features of the filesystem.  

In summary, why should we hide a feature of our filesystem because users of Microsoft have never heard of a hard link?  One step further, why should we not only hide the feature from users who aren't familiar with it, but make it unavailable to those who are?  I realize I can use the command line and do for most things, but for managing photos nautiuls is much nicer.

--Dave

(In reply to comment #2)
> I would use it, for example, for arranging photos in multiple directories (to
> have me_on_holydays.jpg in Me_drunk dir and 4My_friends dir at the same time.

You should be able do that sort of thing with saved searches now.

(In reply to comment #5)
> Using hardlinks you have to delete multiple instances.

I think that breaks the spatial metaphor.

> (In reply to comment #2)
>> I would use it, for example, for arranging photos in multiple directories (to
>> have me_on_holydays.jpg in Me_drunk dir and 4My_friends dir at the same time.

> You should be able do that sort of thing with saved searches now.

Searches for what?  All my photos are named either by date or simply a index number.  So what should I search for to find all pictures of my son?  Unless the search "searches" for a list of files (which wouldn't really be a search) I don't see how this would work.  Also, even if it did, is the saved search easy to get at from the command line, through a mounted filesystem, through my gnump3d server etc?  I can't imagine it would be as straight forward as accessing a directory.

> (In reply to comment #5)
>> Using hardlinks you have to delete multiple instances.

> I think that breaks the spatial metaphor.

So those who don't like it don't have to use it.  I'm not suggesting that we replace the symbolic link entries with a hard link entry, just add a key binding to enable use of hard links.  

If hard links breaks the spatial metaphore why wouldn't symbolic links?  The file might not be there after deleting the only hardlink but you still have a bunch of broken symbolic links to go around and delete.

--Dave

*** Bug 569784 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Has this been going anywhere since 2006? I'd really like this feature.

How about making it possible but you have to activate it in the configs? That way those who know can use it and those who are new or find it bad don't even see it.

Maybe even make it something like a separately installable addon if you think it's that bad, what matters is that it would become possible for those who know and like the hardlink concept.

I'll 2nd the sentiment of joelproko. I'd like a right-click hardlink option. Whether you have to enable it through a config or install it as an add-on makes no difference to me.

I'm another user who would really, really like to see this feature in Nautilus.

Questions of "what would you want to use it for?" are an annoying failure of imagination. There are all sorts of reasons people might want to use these. Let another user on your machine access files that they can rename and/or delete without hurting the originals (or knowing where the originals are actually stored), have multiple directory structures accessing files, with neither structure needing to be fixed, etc, etc.

Make it an optional feature that's turned off by default, but there are plenty of smart users out there who are quite capable of understanding the difference.

Hard links are essentially impossible to provide a) a good user experience for in a UI b) write documentation for c) differentiate properly from "soft" links. They are an extremely advanced user feature and are a good candidate for a Nautilus extension. But I don't think we should provide UI for this by default.

I disagree with this assessment.
> impossible to provide
> a) a good user experience for in a UI
> b) write documentation for
> c) differentiate properly from "soft" links

a) How about "create hardlink here" when drag-n-dropping with the right mouse button? (just like how you make softlinks)
b) just use the linux one, no need to reinvent the wheel for nautilus
c) if this is about "the users don't know the difference", that's why I suggested making it deactivated by default

Furthermore, that people don't know hard links is in part due to them not having been used in filemanagers so far, like David Berg said.

Lastly, even if this were available without having to activate it first and people might be confused about it, there couldn't be any data loss, as opposed to softlinks.

Breaking the spatial metaphor is an invalid argument as hardlinks already exist, so the metaphor is already broken anyways.

I would love this feature as well. Just because its a GUI, doesn't mean that it has to be dumbed down. 

If they don't want to use it. Don't.
If they don't understand it. Don't use it.

This is not a windows app and should not treat the users like windows users. We've moved to Linux/GNU for more control of our systems. 

One could say the same about RAID support.... which home users really use RAID. Once a person learns about it and learns how to set it up, many adopt.