clean up desktop

[Pinkie_B]

Hi Ubuntu-ers,

I know this question has been asked at least twice before, but the solutions posted don't work for me, or are otherwise not complete.

I have "links" to [home] and [computer] and [trash] on my desktop and I can't make them go away. someone said to type alt+f2 then gconfig then nautilus and i did that, but nothing happens. a menu shows up with stuff that I can click on, but it does nothing.

In the terminal, the Desktop appears to be empty.

Can someone help?

[jim_deadlock]

It should really be possible to do this out of the box, but it's not. You need to install/run Tweak Tool > Desktop

[grahammechanical]

What version of Ubuntu are you using? I have not seen icons for home, computer & trash on the Ubuntu desktop for years. But I have seen such things on distributions built on Ubuntu such as Xubuntu & Lubuntu,

Unity Tweak tool is only useful when using Ubuntu with the Unity user interface.

Regards

[jim_deadlock]

There's Tweak Tool and Unity Tweak Tool, they're 2 different things.

[PaulW2U]

Can someone help?
According to other posts that you've made recently you're using Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS

I have not seen icons for home, computer & trash on the Ubuntu desktop for years.
That's because you've chosen not to put them there. :)

Pinkie_B, I've just checked with Unity Tweak Tool on Ubuntu 16.04 and your're just a couple of mouse clicks away from adding or removing such icons from the Unity desktop.

You shouldn't have to resort to using gconf-editor or dconf-editor to make such changes. Installing Unity Tweak Tool from the official repositories allows you "tweak" your Unity desktop quickly and easily.

[RobGoss]

In Ubuntu 16.04 with Unity Tweak Tool installed Just open up Unity Tweak Tool and click on Desktop icons and you should be able to add them or remove them from that screen

[Pinkie_B]

Hi Paul!

Thanks! You have my utmost respect for figuring out my system when I don't remember how to.
So, could you let me know what those mouse clicks are?

Best

Pink

[Pinkie_B]

Hi All,

So it seems that "Unity Tweak Tool" is the thing I need to hide these icons.

Thank you.

Next step: can anyone tell me what that is and how I get and use it?

Best

Pink

[vasa1]

See http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/02/introducing-unity-tweak-tool. I know it's an oldish link but you're on 14.04. So there's not much point linking to articles about the application version for 15.10 or 16.04.

Please disregard "Unity Tweak Tool can be easily installed by adding the daily build PPA to your software sources, simply by pasting the following in your favourite terminal application: ...". The application is now in the standard repository and you can install it as described below.


If you decide to install it, just run sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool after you've run sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade without any errors appearing. If you're not sure, post the output of these two commands here for people to look at and guide you further.