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How can I remove the entire messaging menu for one particular user (and not all other users) under Unity or Unity-2D in Ubuntu 11.10?

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  • not an answer to your question ... however the designers did think of doing this but it looks like it was never implemented! wiki.ubuntu.com/…
    – fossfreedom
    Jan 23, 2012 at 23:41
  • @fossfreedom - dang. Still, I'm hoping there's a configuration key or something hidden away somewhere.
    – detly
    Jan 24, 2012 at 0:12

1 Answer 1

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Please backup your important files. I tried my suggestion that follows and the result is that it shows the "message" icon, but it doesn't have any sub-options when clicked. I don't know if it affects the system though.

enter image description here

What I would suggest is to change the group of allowed users for this service. I think you can set who can run the command (indicator-messages-service):

$ ls -l /usr/lib/indicator-messages/indicator-messages-service
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 65016 2011-09-29 03:02 /usr/lib/indicator-messages/indicator-messages-service

r = read, w = write, x = execute (open folder or run program) - rwx r-x r-x = r/w/x for owner (currently root), r/x for group "root", r/x for the rest (users not root and not in group root)

  1. Create a group:

    sudo addgroup msgok
    
  2. Add the users for whom you want to allow the message indicator:

    sudo adduser myuser msgok
    

    Change "myuser" with your user. Repeat for other users. Users have to logout/login for changes to take effect.

  3. Change the group of :

    sudo chgrp msgok /usr/lib/indicator-messages/indicator-messages-service
    sudo chmod 754 /usr/lib/indicator-messages/indicator-messages-service
    

"754" would basically allow execution of messages service for user root and users in group "msgok". It would also disable the execution of this service to other users, not root nor in group "msgok".

To undo the changes:

sudo chmod 755 /usr/lib/indicator-messages/indicator-messages-service
sudo chown root:root /usr/lib/indicator-messages/indicator-messages-service
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  • So the emblem for the menu is still there? Because that's what I'm aiming to remove.
    – detly
    Jan 30, 2012 at 10:16
  • Yes, but as you can see, it's not functional. There are no options for the user to choose. Jan 30, 2012 at 10:19
  • It's not just the functionality within the menu, it's having it present and visible on the desktop.
    – detly
    Jan 30, 2012 at 15:27
  • That probably requires patching/hard coding. Have you filed a bug report with your feature proposal? On the other hand, try using the same for /usr/lib/indicator-application/indicator-application-service - I cannot try it at the moment, but I presume that it will hide the whole indicator (including keyboard icon, network manager applet etc.) Jan 30, 2012 at 18:09

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