Thunar 1.6.2 (the default XFCE file manager) doesn’t seems to provide any kind of built in search function by default. A good way to address this issue is use catfish (which is installed by default in Fedora 18), just open Thunar, go to Edit and then Custom Actions and add the following line: catfish –fileman=thunar –hidden –path=%f

The first time I open Thunar (the default XFCE file manager) in fedora 17 it takes up to 30 seconds to show up. This is most likely due to Thunar trying – without being able – to mount a remote network folder, to solve the issue just open <em>/usr/share/gvfs/mounts/network.mount</em> and set <em>AutoMount=false</em>.