How to find path of program launched from dock (not visible in software manager)

Question

I'm using the VPN client "Cisco Anyconnect" and it was installed via a .sh script provided by my university, thus not visible in the Software Manager.

Most of the time I launch it from the search bar or from the dock, where it has an icon. But sometimes the Unity GUI stops working and I cannot access the search bar or the dock. When this happens, I cannot start the Anyconnect client because I don't know where it is.

I'm assuming that there is a config file for the dock somewhere which points at the actual executable which I could run from a terminal if I just knew the path. How to find it?

Answer 1

It will be in a .desktop file.

Run this command:

gsettings get com.canonical.Unity.Launcher favorites

it will give an output like this:

['application://ubiquity.desktop', 'application://nautilus.desktop', 'application://firefox.desktop', 'application://libreoffice-writer.desktop']

If you have locked it to the sidebar, it will show in that list.

There are two places it could be, /usr/share/applications/ or ~/.local/share/applications.

We will look in both of them will the ls command, and grep for the name we found above, e.g. cisco.

ls /usr/share/applications/ | grep cisco

You may find a file. If not, use the command again in the other folder:

ls ~/.local/share/applications | grep cisco

-->

Now, when you find the file (if you do), use the cat command:

cat /usr/share/applications/cisco.desktop

It will give output like this (this is the file for idle3):

[Desktop Entry]
Name=IDLE 3
Comment=Integrated DeveLopment Environment for Python3
Exec=/usr/bin/idle3
Icon=/usr/share/icons/Ultra-Flat/apps/scalable/idle3.svg
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Development;
StartupNotify=true

Notice the exec line:

Exec=/usr/bin/idle3

That shows us where the executable file is. Run it in the same way it is written there.