Question: There is not an `Edit | Preferences` option. How do I get the files to display in a list view with details, and not as icons?

Answer: 
To change the default for **all folders** \*, Open the file manager and when the window is active move the mouse pointer to the top left of the top panel and you will see:

![Nautilus toolbar options](https://i.stack.imgur.com/R7ZaP.png) 

Select `Edit -> Preferences -> Views (tab) -> View new folders using` then select your preferred view type (in your case it would be 'List').

To change the default view for **just that folder**, select `View -> List` from the menu, or use the keyboard shortcut `Ctrl` + `2` 

\*Note that in the first step the default preferences will not be used for any folders you have manually changed view type on in the past. To reset this, see [this question](https://askubuntu.com/q/164551/12864) then apply the new default preference.
From a command line you can list what is in a directory with `ls -la`

For example 

```
warren@min:~/workspace/crc8$ ls -la
total 52
drwxrwxr-x  4 warren warren  4096 Apr  3 10:41 .
drwxrwxr-x 14 warren warren  4096 May 22 13:39 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 warren warren 31048 Jun 10  2011 .cproject
drwxrwxr-x  3 warren warren  4096 Apr  3 11:22 Debug
-rw-r--r--  1 warren warren  2380 Jun 10  2011 .project
drwxrwxr-x  2 warren warren  4096 Apr  3 10:41 src
warren@min:~/workspace/crc8$ 

```

Its also possible to get a tree like view by installing **tree**

To install `sudo apt-get install tree`

Typical output.

```
warren@min:~/workspace/crc8$ tree
.
├── Debug
│   ├── crc8
│   ├── makefile
│   ├── objects.mk
│   ├── sources.mk
│   ├── src
│   │   ├── crc8.d
│   │   ├── crc8.o
│   │   └── subdir.mk
│   └── txt
└── src
    └── crc8.c

3 directories, 9 files
warren@min:~/workspace/crc8$ 

```