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This question is closely related to other two questions: "How to Add a Shortcut On Desktop" and "How do I add icons to the desktop in 10.04?" (this being a closed question). And I know the answers mentioned there! The problem is it is not working.

I just made a fresh Ubuntu 10.04 install a couple of days ago. Everything works fine for the main user: I can paste anything to the desktop, and it just works.

But I have created another user - as simple as it can be (no special settings; I just created a non-admin user and set its password).

Then, I logged in using this other user account. I just want to create a link for a "Games" folder, for my son, and I simply can't! It doesn't accept "paste", and the right button mouse click does nothing.

I have made several Ubuntu installations, several user accounts, and this never happened to me before! I tried to search some configuration/setting to fix it, but found nothing. I had to use the "Preferences" menu to be able to change the background/wallpaper image.

If I paste files / folders / links to the "Desktop" file system folder, it works (i.e., the files are copied / moved to the "Desktop" folder), but nothing appears in the desktop screen!

And, what impressed me most, I found nothing searching on Google and Ask Ubuntu - I thought this would be a common issue... has anybody experienced this? Any clue to make the desktop just working normally?

Remembering: all works fine for the first user (the admin user created when installing the system).

Thanks.

Community
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J. Bruni
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1 Answers1

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Did you disable showing the desktop? As your regular user that is missing the shortcuts, run gconf-editor. Then navigate to Apps -> nautilus -> preferences and toggle the show_desktop option.

Also, make sure your regular user owns his desktop folder. i.e. 

sudo chown -R regularuser:regularuser /home/regularuser/Desktop
reverendj1
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  • Well... this is very crazy. I have not disabled showing the desktop and by using the gconf-editor app, the "show_desktop" option was appearing "checked". But, by unchecking it and then checking it back again, then the missing "Games" shorcut appeared in the desktop, which started "working" as I wanted. Problem seems to be solved. Thanks! – J. Bruni Jul 02 '12 at 19:42
  • Yes! Really solved! I restarted the computer, and the icon remains there, as it should. Thanks a lot! – J. Bruni Jul 02 '12 at 19:47
  • No problem. I'm glad it worked. I have seen that happen a lot (regardless of OS or application) where something gets mucked up and unsetting/resetting an option causes it to actually set the setting. – reverendj1 Jul 02 '12 at 19:52