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I was reading today the latest Canonical design blog post where I was kind of surprised that one should be able to right click on the desktop to change the wallpaper. I am running the most updated version of natty and have the latest unity package installed (3.8.10) but right clicking on the desktop brings nothing on my machine. On the other hand, when I right click on any launcher icon I do get a quick list, so I know it's not a problem with my mouse or something. Is this a known bug?

I tried to kill Nautilus as Nathan suggested using Alt+F2 and then killall nautilus. Just to be sure, I then opened a terminal window and typed the same command again. Got the response nautilus: no process found (I figured that my first try to kill nautilus worked then. Just to be on the safe side, I clicked the "Home" icon on my launcher to start Nautilus, and then killed it again (same command). Still nothing happened.

Following some of the comments below, I should specify that I do have ubuntu-desktop installed (and updated version 1.220) and nautilus is indeed installed (Version: 1:2.32.2.1-0ubuntu13). (Used to have nautilus from the elementary PPA, but removed it following the comments below - still no luck).

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  • Do you have nautilus managing your desktop? Or have you disabled that option?
    – RolandiXor
    Apr 22, 2011 at 21:33
  • Roland, thanks for the quick reply. How do I know if I have nautilus managing my desktop? As I was unaware of this option, I guess I never changed that. Following yours and Nathan response below, I should mention that I am using nautilus-elementary. Can this be the culprit?
    – S B
    Apr 22, 2011 at 21:46
  • I removed my installed version of nautilus (from the elementary PPA) and reinstalled nautilus (Version: 1:2.32.2.1-0ubuntu13). Logged out and back in, and still - right clicking has no effect whatsoever
    – S B
    Apr 22, 2011 at 22:19

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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It is highly unlikely the N.E. is a real problem.

Ensure that:

/apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop enter image description here (run gconf-editor) Is set to true. If it is, also ensure that nautilus is set to launch on login.

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  • @Roland, you solved it for me! Thanks!! I also realized why was this turned off on my machine. I am using Ubuntu Tweak which gives you an option to have a desktop "without icons". I guess this option turns off the "show desktop" setting of nautilus. Thanks again! Heading back to reinstall nautilus from the elementary PPA... :-)
    – S B
    Apr 22, 2011 at 23:18
  • @SB: I figured you had used Ubuntu-Tweak, but I didn't want to mention it if you did not have it.
    – RolandiXor
    Apr 23, 2011 at 4:23
  • posted a bug report on the Ubuntu Tweak launchpad page.
    – S B
    Apr 24, 2011 at 11:38
  • @SB: this is not a bug in ubunu-tweak, but in Nautilus.
    – RolandiXor
    Apr 24, 2011 at 12:10
  • @Roland, actually, I thought this wasn't actually a bug, but a desired behavior. The bug report which I posted against Ubuntu Tweak is not of some malfunctioning code, but just a suggestion that when a user unchecks the relevant chackbox he is notified that his desktop will no longer be clickable. See bug report for details of what I suggested. Why do you see it as a bug with Nautilus? Maybe Nautilus should differentiate between not showing icons, and making the desktop unclickable?
    – S B
    Apr 24, 2011 at 20:05
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The desktop is actually provided by Nautilus, just like it was in previous versions of Ubuntu. If you press Alt+F2 and type killall nautilus without the quotes and then press Enter, this will stop (and automatically restart) Nautilus.

What happens when you right-click on your desktop then?

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  • Nathan, thanks for the quick response. I tried what you suggested and nothing happened - did not get any feedback from the system, and right clicking the desktop still did not work. Just to be sure, I then opened a terminal window and typed the same command again. Got the response nautilus: no process found (I figured that my first try to kill nautilus worked then. Just to be on the safe side, I clicked the "Home" icon on my launcher to start Nautilus, and then killed it again (same command). Still nothing happened. One last thing that may be important. I am using nautilus-elemenatary
    – S B
    Apr 22, 2011 at 21:42
  • @SB It is likely nautilus is not installed, ensure that the ubuntu-desktop package is installed, that should install everything you're supposed to have.
    – Jorge Castro
    Apr 22, 2011 at 21:44
  • @SB You're quite welcome! I should've mentioned that, too. You can run nautilus from Alt-F2 as well, although I recommend opening a Terminal and running it from there. 'nautilus &' should work. Running nautilus from the launcher runs it in windowed mode. And as Jorge said, installing the ubuntu-desktop package could help. You can do that in a Terminal with 'sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop'
    – Nathan Haines
    Apr 22, 2011 at 21:48
  • @Jorge, @Nathan, thanks for looking into this. I do have ubuntu-desktop installed (and updated version 1.220) and nautilus is indeed installed (1:2.32.2.2-0ubuntu3~ppa170 - from the elementary PPA). So, let me ask again, can this be the probable cause?
    – S B
    Apr 22, 2011 at 21:55
  • @SB Add the version information to your question. I'm guessing N-E is the cause but someone with more expertise will at least have the information up front.
    – Jorge Castro
    Apr 22, 2011 at 21:57
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Check the "Mouse Click Emulation" settings in the Gnome Tweaks tool (under the keyboard and mouse tab).

You may find that your mouse is set up to emulate a right click by clicking the touchpad with 2 fingers.

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If you have gnome tweak tool installed, go ahead and press Alt+F2, type in "Gnome Tweak" and you should see a tweak tool. Open that, go to the desktop section and turn on Desktop. Worked for me.

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