Xubuntu: Disks utility (palimpsest) and Gparted not showing up anywhere after installation

As in AJefferiss's answer, it's gnome-disks, nowadays.

Compare the file contents list of the package in 12.04 with the one in 12.10. It appears that palimpsest has been renamed to gnome-disks, without leaving a symbolic link behind. I'm surprised to see that last part has happened.

Usually, the developers leave a link there to preserve compatibility. Well, my feeling about this is right, because, there you go, it's a bug!

• LP Bug #1041665: gnome-disk-utility is missing palimpsest (renamed to gnome-disks)

^{Make sure to mark yourself affected there by this bug if you feel this should be solved. At the moment of writing this has a very low priority and is unassigned...}

You should be able to find this utility as "Disks" under the Settings Manager. Otherwise, the command you want is gnome-disks.