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please help me why same application have two icon.

In this image, why do Rhythmbox and Software Update have two icons?

Is there something wrong with my system?

Cristiana Nicolae
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Arman H
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  • Do you have more than the default number of desktop environments installed? Post the output of ls /usr/share/xsessions. Do so by editing your question. – DK Bose Mar 30 '17 at 12:59
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    Did you upgrade your system (no fresh install)? – Jacob Vlijm Mar 30 '17 at 13:06
  • @Jacob Vlijm I find your question to be interesting as I intend to do a version upgrade myself. Are you implying that such duplicates can occur after a distribution upgrade? Makes me think... – Cristiana Nicolae Mar 30 '17 at 13:24
  • no i didn't. i installed ubuntu few days ago. today when i check this folder i am seeing this. @DKBose – Arman H Mar 30 '17 at 13:24
  • yes i upgrade my system. @jacob . no fresh install mean?? – Arman H Mar 30 '17 at 13:25
  • @CristianaNicolae Theoretically, on an upgrade, old versions of applications are replaced, and so their corresponding .desktop files. In reality however, things occasionally go wrong. Software Center is a good example of that; on an upgrade, many users had two versions of it on their system. Some applications however have multiple .desktop files, like nautilus. I always prefer fresh installs, also to prevent issues with local files. – Jacob Vlijm Mar 30 '17 at 13:28
  • There is no issue, and this is perfectly normal, even for a completely new install. – dobey Mar 30 '17 at 13:31
  • @dobey like i mentioned, Some applications however have multiple .desktop files. Not in the case of Software & Updates though, not on my system that is. – Jacob Vlijm Mar 30 '17 at 15:11
  • @JacobVlijm I don't know about "your system" but there are two different .desktop files installed by default for that, one from software-properties-gtk and one from app-install-data. – dobey Mar 30 '17 at 17:01

2 Answers2

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No, there's nothing wrong with your system.

The duplicated launcher icons explained:

The different icons are different commandline options. Some context applications with call the associated *.desktop icon. The exec option of the icon will depend on how the application is called.

Some of the Icons you show in your image may be obvious because of the difference in the way they are named. You can see the difference in the way the app is called by right clicking and clicking on properties to see other differences.

Some of the *.desktop files have a %U argument, used so the application will accept arguments.

Some of the Launchers are different commands that are called differently and are named differently often by a symbolic link.

Some exampes from the list in you image are:

Name: Online Accounts
Command: unity-control-center credentials

Name: Online Accounts
Command: Online account credentials and settings


Name: Personal File Sharing
Command: gnome-file-share-properties


Name: Rhythmbox
Command: rhythmbox %U


Name: Rhythmbox
Command rhythmbox-client --select-source %U

The specific Rhythmbox and Software Update icons:

In the particular cases of the Rhythmbox. The icons are provided for the specific method it'll be called in context-sensitive usage by the command. This is consistent with most of the launchers.

In the particular case of the Software And Update launcher, those two are installed by different packages. They also have different file names:

software-properties-gnome.desktop package source  app-install-data
software-properties-gtk.desktop   package source  software-properties-gtk
Community
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L. D. James
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Because you are looking directly at the file system contents via the file manager, which does not fully follow the XDG Desktop File specification for presenting these files for viewing.

Rhythmbox has a secondary .desktop file which is for a secondary service, and this file specifies it should be hidden from menus, however you are looking directly at a few of the file system, and not of the menus.

Likewise, the Software Properties tool has a couple of .desktop files for running it slightly differently under different environments, and the secondary one specifies it should be hidden from menus. But you are not looking at a menu.

This is not a problem, and completely normal, even for a completely new install of Ubuntu, or most any Linux distribution really.

dobey
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