DaleAmon
September 1st, 2015, 06:10 PM
About every month or two, my entire desktop gets scrambled. Icons are resorted and put into columns, some icons which are in Desktop/ suddenly don't appear at all, although I can drag it from a nemo file manager window to the desktop and have it appear again.
I am running a Lenovo W520, set to a mode that allows for two screens, one on the VGA connector. I have Acer screens at work and at home that look
the same outwardly but are in actuality slightly different. I often go out to a Starbucks and run single screen. I am running the current LTS (I hate upgrading on Ubuntu because they always break my work environment and cost me weeks of fixing); I use gdm. I have a top bar and I used to have a bottom bar until a so-called 'security' update a couple months ago destroyed my work setup... so now I don't even feel particularly safe with LTS updates, but that is another story.
I have a *large* number of icons, mostly file folders and launchers to do ssh xterm connections to servers at various facilities, and a bunch of launchers that run various set up scripts. I organize them for my work flow so that the things I always need are on the laptop primary screen and everything else is grouped in sections on the secondary screen. It takes time to set things up the way I want them, so it is a severe annoyance when some application decides it knows better than I and *changes* them.
I understand the problems inherent in systems that have icons set for a secondary screen that might not be the same or might disappear. But that is no excuse for scrambling them with out asking permission and without even backing up the configuration which I have set.
I am of the school of thought that says a computer does what you tell it to do and does not try to be secretely helpful... because it can't. Computers are stupid and will invariably do the wrong thing when they go their own way.
So my question is, are there workarounds? Can I freeze the location of icons on a screen in a way that tells the application, NO, YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO MOVE THIS. Or alternatively have it ask me which configuration best suits my taste for this screen or screen setup, and which always, always lets me backup through a couple previous configs. It would be preferable if I found there were real Unix ascii configs somewhere, but I believe in a previous effort to figure this out I found they are instead stuffed in a non-editable database. Just to make life 'easier'. Not.
It really is an annoyance and I need to find a way to make it stop happening. A computer is a tool, like a screwdriver. It should do what you tell it to do and not get uppity.
I am running a Lenovo W520, set to a mode that allows for two screens, one on the VGA connector. I have Acer screens at work and at home that look
the same outwardly but are in actuality slightly different. I often go out to a Starbucks and run single screen. I am running the current LTS (I hate upgrading on Ubuntu because they always break my work environment and cost me weeks of fixing); I use gdm. I have a top bar and I used to have a bottom bar until a so-called 'security' update a couple months ago destroyed my work setup... so now I don't even feel particularly safe with LTS updates, but that is another story.
I have a *large* number of icons, mostly file folders and launchers to do ssh xterm connections to servers at various facilities, and a bunch of launchers that run various set up scripts. I organize them for my work flow so that the things I always need are on the laptop primary screen and everything else is grouped in sections on the secondary screen. It takes time to set things up the way I want them, so it is a severe annoyance when some application decides it knows better than I and *changes* them.
I understand the problems inherent in systems that have icons set for a secondary screen that might not be the same or might disappear. But that is no excuse for scrambling them with out asking permission and without even backing up the configuration which I have set.
I am of the school of thought that says a computer does what you tell it to do and does not try to be secretely helpful... because it can't. Computers are stupid and will invariably do the wrong thing when they go their own way.
So my question is, are there workarounds? Can I freeze the location of icons on a screen in a way that tells the application, NO, YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO MOVE THIS. Or alternatively have it ask me which configuration best suits my taste for this screen or screen setup, and which always, always lets me backup through a couple previous configs. It would be preferable if I found there were real Unix ascii configs somewhere, but I believe in a previous effort to figure this out I found they are instead stuffed in a non-editable database. Just to make life 'easier'. Not.
It really is an annoyance and I need to find a way to make it stop happening. A computer is a tool, like a screwdriver. It should do what you tell it to do and not get uppity.