What the headline doesn't say either: just use Linux already as that just works

Yes, I'm that guy, sorry, not sorry

I'll never understand why file explorers are so resource intensive and so slow. they're getting a list of file names, maybe pulling a thumbnail from cache. they don't need to read the metadata of every file in the folder you're looking at, certainly not before displaying a list of files.

macos finder is even worse. i am often pausing for multiple seconds at the "file -> open" dialog

I would like to use a file explorer which tries to be as lightweight as "ls -lF"