2

It's very strange, the computer freeze and I restart it. After the restart I saw 3 icons appeared on the desktop.

enter image description here

I can't delete them! Right click - "Delete" is not active, as well as the keybord. When I opened the Desktop folder they are not there as well !

enter image description here

How can I remove them? How they appeared there when I didn't put them there? Why I don't have rights to delete them when I'm administrator. Why the trash doesn't empty when I click on "Empty trash".

So my questions are: How these icons appeared there? How can I delete them, because I don't want them? Why the Trash can not be empty? Simply doesn't work. Why as admin I don't have the rights to delete that icons? Why these icons doesn't appear in "Desktop folder"?

I removed all programs for tuning and installed again Unity tweak tool and Gnome tweak tool. Again nothing ... I still can't remove that icons and I still can't empty the trash.

5
  • 1
    Those are desktop icons, that you can chose to display or not display. Just like you can't delete recycle bin off of the desktop in windows, you have to hide it. What desktop environment are you using?
    – Tim
    Aug 11, 2014 at 7:01
  • (Ok for now, but please make the images smaller next time if possible.) Aug 11, 2014 at 7:18
  • 1
    Is that your normall wallpaper, or did that change too? It may be a second file manager trying to draw the desktop. That could be persistant if it's saved in the session. Aug 11, 2014 at 7:21
  • I've got Ubuntu Tweak and Dconf, all the rest applications that can make that problem has been uninstalled.
    – Rumen
    Aug 12, 2014 at 8:55
  • Tim I just want to choose not to display them, but how? I use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Unity - the standard desktop after the upgrade from 13.10. My wallpaper is the same from 12.04, didn't chage it. OK, I clean the system with the cleaner from Ubuntu Tweak how can I delete the session where that icons has beed saved? They should be saved somewhere. The most important is why I can clean the Trash? From nowhere! Even if I open nautilus as root and go to "Empty trash" nothings happens.
    – Rumen
    Aug 12, 2014 at 9:02

1 Answer 1

0

EDIT: (for 14.04 when using Nemo Desktop to manage desktop icons for Ubuntu Unity)

As revealed in a followup comment, OP is using Nemo Desktop to manage desktop icons on the Unity Desktop instead of the default Nautilus Desktop for Gnome Shell and Unity (back in 2014. note that Nautilus Desktop no longer exists on 20.04+).

To prevent Nemo from managing the desktop icons, open the Startup Applications app and then disable Nemo Desktop from automatic startup.

It should be noted that newer versions of the Ubuntu Desktop and Gnome Shell now use a Gnome Shell extension to manage desktop icons and users will need to adjust the settings for the individual Gnome Shell Extension accordingly (assuming you are not using Nemo to manage desktop icons, of course). Of course this doesn't apply to the question as OP was using the Unity desktop, which was the default Ubuntu desktop in 2014.


20.04 and newer Ubuntu Unity Desktop (does not apply to Gnome Shell or the default Ubuntu Desktop!!!)

The following was tested on the Unity Desktop environment on 20.04 and should apply to newer versions like 22.04, 23.10, etc.

On newer versions of Ubuntu Unity, using Nemo Desktop to manage icons, we have a number of options.

Unity Tweak Tool

Installation (if needed):

sudo apt update
sudo apt install unity-tweak-tool
  1. Open Unity Tweak Tool.

  2. Select Desktop Icons.

screenshot of the unity tweak tool default view window with a red circle around the Desktop Icons option on the lower left hand side of the window, under the System section

  1. Select or unselect an item to display or hide the icon from your desktop view.

In the following screenshot, the selected items are highlighted in blue. The icon for each selected item will show on the desktop. Click on a selected item to unselect and hide it from the desktop.

In this screenshot of the Unity Tweak Tool, the Home and Network options are currently selected, indicated by the fact that these particular options are highlighted. Other items are not highlighted and therefore, these items are not selected and will not be displayed on the desktop. It should be noted that desktop files and directories will still display when no items are selected.

Dconf Tool method:

If needed, install Dconf Editor:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install dconf-editor
  1. Open the Dconf Editor app, click on "I'll be careful" and then navigate to org > nemo > desktop.

  2. Toggle any "icon visible" related options on or off. To disable all icons, including Desktop directory files, toggle the "show desktop icons" option off (there is a note in 20.04 that this option is deprecated).

screenshot showing the deconf editor view under /org/nemo/desktop. options are listed and can be toggled by toggling the toggle button to the right of each option

Lastly, you can always prevent Nemo Desktop from managing the desktop by opening the Startup Applications app and disabling Nemo Desktop.

3
  • This is the problem - it is turned off and they appeare on the screen! Look at the screenshot: Screenshot here
    – Rumen
    Aug 11, 2014 at 18:05
  • @Rumen Did you use sudo gnome-tweak-tool? You should not use sudo.
    – mchid
    Aug 31, 2014 at 3:31
  • No I don't use it with sudo, but I just understand that they dissapeare when Nemo is killed!
    – Rumen
    Sep 1, 2014 at 6:06

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .