Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

apastuszak · 2018-03-25 04:18:28

Can't even turn them on in Tweak Tool. Just a PSA for anyone that upgraded to Gnome 3.28 and is wondering why their desktop icons are gone.

dr34m · 2018-03-25 08:45:14

+1, i know but i like desktop icons, anyone know how we can get icons back?

sultanoswing · 2018-03-25 08:47:32

Last time I complained about this with nautilus/wayland, I got told desktop icons were so 1980's.

Looking forward to a fix, since I *do* use the things!

City-busz · 2018-03-25 09:30:20

You can use nemo instead. You can create an autostart file for this:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Desktop Icons
Exec=nemo-desktop
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;
NoDisplay=true
X-GNOME-Autostart-Phase=Desktop
X-GNOME-Autostart-Notify=true
X-GNOME-AutoRestart=true
X-GNOME-Provides=filemanager

apastuszak · 2018-03-25 11:26:17

Someone was working on a Gnome Shell extension. But I don't think it's ready for prime time.

thorstenhirsch · 2018-03-25 12:18:02

So nemo is a fork of nautilus for the cinnamon desktop, right? When trying to install it, the cinnamon desktop will also be installed:

 $ sudo pacman -S nemo
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (4) cinnamon-desktop-3.6.2-1  cinnamon-translations-3.6.4-1
             xapps-1.0.4-2  nemo-3.6.5-1

Total Download Size:    3,83 MiB
Total Installed Size:  24,57 MiB

Well, it's just a few MiB, but it doesn't look like a clean solution to me. Can anyone find the gnome-shell extension? I couldn't.

apastuszak · 2018-03-25 12:20:57

thorstenhirsch wrote:

So nemo is a fork of nautilus for the cinnamon desktop, right? When trying to install it, the cinnamon desktop will also be installed:
 $ sudo pacman -S nemo
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (4) cinnamon-desktop-3.6.2-1  cinnamon-translations-3.6.4-1
             xapps-1.0.4-2  nemo-3.6.5-1

Total Download Size:    3,83 MiB
Total Installed Size:  24,57 MiB
Well, it's just a few MiB, but it doesn't look like a clean solution to me. Can anyone find the gnome-shell extension? I couldn't.

The gnome shell extension is pre-alpha. The guy who removed the desktop code from nautilus wrote a quick one and asked if someone else could pick it up and no one did. So, I think we're in limbo with this now.

thorstenhirsch · 2018-03-25 12:28:22

Oh my... I really like the Gnome3 desktop and prefer it over the old Windows-type desktop environments. But Gnome 3.26 already reached the minimum functionality that I need. Now it has less. My desktop is my work stack, I strive to move everything away from it. But I cannot work with an empty desktop. And I don't want just a directory for that matter. When I look at my desktop I want to see what I am working on. It's really that simple.

Can you point me to a github repo or the posting from that guy, @apastuszak? Maybe I can take a look...

coruun · 2018-03-25 13:12:22

You can find it on gitlab.gnome.org.

apastuszak · 2018-03-25 13:15:50

https://gitlab.gnome.org/csoriano/org.g … ktop-icons

apastuszak · 2018-03-25 13:17:37

I totally get what they are saying. Desktop icons belong on Gnome Shell and not in nautilus. But don't just rip it out without offering a working replacement. I did the nemo trick and got desktop icons back. But every time I click on Computer it now launches nemo instead of Nautilus, which I don't want.

apastuszak · 2018-03-25 13:26:23

Downloaded the extension as ZIP from Gitlab, launched tweak tool, clicked on Extensions, and the option to manually install an extension is GONE! What the heck?!

Omar007 · 2018-03-25 19:16:16

Put the files from the repository in the following folder:

~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/org.gnome.desktop-icons

(you'll have to create it)

I believe it only adds icons for files though, not for things like Home, Trash, Network (unless you create .desktop files for those I guess).

Last edited by Omar007 (2018-03-25 19:16:44)

stark-dev · 2018-03-26 09:07:53

Unfortunately this was intended as a feature... which made many users unhappy, I guess. Just think that Ubuntu 18.04 will ship with nautilus 3.26 in order to allow users to get back desktop icons xD it's been a very controversial move from gnome team, I would suggest to follow their Twitter channel (or some other news channel) before mouse pointer disappears xD

Batou · 2018-03-26 23:17:02

stark-dev wrote:

Unfortunately this was intended as a feature... which made many users unhappy, I guess.

GNOME has been pulling that kind of crap for years and years. They don't give a damn about what their users think. They have a bunch of people on their UI team who are extremely autocratic and favor form over function. Their mantra seems to be "dumbification over everything else". Their intended user is someone who's never used a computer and they cater to the lowest common denominator whenever there are opposing opinions. I switched away from GNOME in 2012 or so because they pulled something similar. Having to constantly find hacks to revert changes and add back features you like is madness and a pointless waste of time.

Last edited by Batou (2018-03-26 23:17:50)

dimosd · 2018-03-27 01:04:29

My ideal desktop would be something like XFCE with Wayland and some desktop effects.

blispx · 2018-03-27 01:23:06

Since when does XFCE support Wayland? maybe something missed me

XFCE works well and quickly with Xorg you do not need Wayland there but composer is old and is limited by functionality. If it does not bother someone, then DE will be OK

Last edited by blispx (2018-03-27 01:31:24)

dimosd · 2018-03-27 02:56:23

XFCE does not support Wayland now, hopefully it will in the future. What I am saying is that I prefer XFCE's functionality and Gnome's good looks/effects and I wish I could have both.

grufo · 2018-03-27 13:21:13

Hi there!

I uploaded the extension from GitLab to AUR, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work properly.

If I have time I will try to have a look at it and eventually create a fork.

Omar007 · 2018-03-27 14:54:38

I'm not sure what your definition is of 'doesn't seem to work properly' but keep in mind that it's a very early, WIP extension.
As far as I know, it literally only shows files in ~/Desktop and allows you to position them and that's it. So no copy/paste, rename, double-click open, etcetc.

Angelsoul · 2018-03-28 09:26:59

grufo wrote:

Hi there!
I uploaded the extension from GitLab to AUR, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work properly.
If I have time I will try to have a look at it and eventually create a fork.

Hi, I am really interested about this package. But there some things to note here:
1) The current extension doesn't do anything else from display icons from your Desktop folder to your Wallpaper.
2) The Icons cannot be open or arranged around the desktop.
3) No image preview for images
4) It also show hidden files.
5) No way to put a Trash icon on your desktop (the only way is to create a symbolic link to the trash in your home into your ~/Desktop dir).
6) There is a Context Menu that only "says"
* New Folder
* Copy/Paste
* Select All
* Properties

Said that I'm pretty sure this could be a really good extension for who used to work with Icons on its desktop, but the current status is not usable at all.

FYI - To get this work I had to restart (alt+f2 => r) the gnome-shell since I'm still running gnome on Xorg. Not sure what to do with Wayland.

thorstenhirsch · 2018-03-28 11:13:42

I'm not sure if this extension is heading in the right direction. When users complain about their desktop icons being gone - it's not like that they are missing the looks of the icons. The icons without any functionality is worthless. Users are missing file manager functionality on their desktop. I'm pretty sure that I'm not speaking only for myself here.

I switched to nemo.

dewmax · 2018-03-28 20:31:16

God, GNOME 3 remains my favourite desktop but this kind of feature regression is really wearing me down... It will definitely baffle users when it finally ships with Ubuntu.

Thanks for the nemo hack anyway, you cannnot reorganise icons around but it's still better than nothing.

R.F.Buser · 2018-04-02 17:44:13

Because I desperately need to provide some support for launching applications from the desktop on some computers running on Gnome 3.28, I was playing around for the last two days with Carlos Sorianos code. I now have a fork wich suits my minimal needs. It is currently available on my drive.google.com

~~link to download the extension~~ Take the link of post #26 instead.

I think you should fully upgrade your Arch system before testing/using the extension. I encounterd some wierd enable-thrashing (also with the original code of Carlos) before I performed my last system upgrade.

Feedback is of course welcome.

This is from the readme I have added:

Install this extension either as
~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/org.gnome.desktop-icons
or as
/usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/org.gnome.desktop-icons
and enable it in Tweaks. It shows up as "desktop-icons".
You have to log out and log in again. On Xorg you could just do
Alt F2 -> r Enter
The extension works on Wayland and on Xorg.
There are two ways to start an application from the desktop.
Either
double left click
on the corresponding icon or do a
right click -> Open
on it.
The extension is not notified when something changes
in the users DESKTOP directory for instance through
Files (Nautilus). You have to update by hand by doing
right click -> Refresh
somewhere on the background.
The Icons can be rearranged by dragging and dropping them.

And this an excerpt from some comment I have added to the code:

/* This is an emergency fork for poeple who desperately need to provide
* application launching desktop functionality on systems running
* Gnome 3.28. The corresponding work was speedily done without having
* contacted any Gnome developers (yet) and without prior knowledge of
* the internals of the gnome-shell. The extension now provides the
* required minimal functionality. Applications can be launched by
* clicking on them (in two ways) and .desktop files are now interpreted,
* meaning that the values from the Icon= Exec= and Name= directives
* are used instead of the default values. The work is of course not
* completed yet and changes might have to be made to comply with some
* guidelines I am not aware of yet. For instance, not having any idea yet
* how to register on the event system (probably some dbus thing) for
* changes on the users DESKTOP directory, I have temporarely set in
* place a refresh menu item. As soon as I have time I will send the
* patch to the gnome developers to check, whether it should be in one
* way or another merged into mainstream.
*/

Have fun.

Last edited by R.F.Buser (2018-04-03 00:33:17)

R.F.Buser · 2018-04-02 18:22:21

Oh, there is a little defect. When I generate preview icons from images and thumbnails I get squared icons with distorted aspect ratio. I assume I don't have to compute witdth and height and can just set the right attributes at the right spot. But I haven't figured that out, yet.

Arch Linux

#1 2018-03-25 04:18:28

Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#2 2018-03-25 08:45:14

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#3 2018-03-25 08:47:32

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#4 2018-03-25 09:30:20

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#5 2018-03-25 11:26:17

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#6 2018-03-25 12:18:02

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#7 2018-03-25 12:20:57

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#8 2018-03-25 12:28:22

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#9 2018-03-25 13:12:22

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#10 2018-03-25 13:15:50

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#11 2018-03-25 13:17:37

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#12 2018-03-25 13:26:23

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#13 2018-03-25 19:16:16

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#14 2018-03-26 09:07:53

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#15 2018-03-26 23:17:02

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#16 2018-03-27 01:04:29

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#17 2018-03-27 01:23:06

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#18 2018-03-27 02:56:23

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#19 2018-03-27 13:21:13

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#20 2018-03-27 14:54:38

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#21 2018-03-28 09:26:59

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#22 2018-03-28 11:13:42

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#23 2018-03-28 20:31:16

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#24 2018-04-02 17:44:13

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

#25 2018-04-02 18:22:21

Re: Gnome 3.28 removes the option to display desktop icons.

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