removing desktop icons...i searched


Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: removing desktop icons...i searched
started by: phlapjack77

Posted by phlapjack77 on Jan. 16 2005,03:03
i'm trying to remove some of the desktop icons, i searched this forum and found the /home/dsl/.xtdesktop thread, so basically i deleted the files from my .xtdesktop directory that i didn't want (for example, beaver.gif and beaver.lnk)

i then added a line to my filetool.lst that reads: home/dsl/.xtdesktop

this doesn't seem to work, because on restart my desktop is back to normal.  Does it matter when in filetool.lst i put the reference to the desktop?  or is there another solution for this?

thanks,
Phillip

Posted by Frem on Jan. 17 2005,03:12
DSL uses xdm, right?
type 'ps x' in a term and look for the number next to xdm. then, type 'kill ' and the number. Then, look for a boot script or something that makes xdm start up and delete the line that does it.

hope that helps somewhat.

Posted by phlapjack77 on Jan. 17 2005,07:06
i don't think DSL uses xdm...

the 2 reasons i think that, is i can't find it in the process list like you said, and if my understanding is correct (big chance it's not) it uses fluxbox instead of xdm...

btw, been fuxting around with filetool.lst, doesn't matter where the .xtdesktop line is placed, still doesn't work...made sure it wasn't a typo etc. etc.

thanks anyway,
phillip

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 17 2005,07:31
xdm doesn't exist in DSL.  xdm is a graphical session manager which is basically pointless in a 'damn small' system.  The only reason you automatically boot into a grapical system in DSL is because 'startx' is in bash_profile.

It doesn't really matter what you put in filetool.lst if you aren't backing up your system.  filetool.lst is just a list of files used when you do the backup/restore process.  If you boot from a liveCD with no backups available, you'll get the same thing every time.

Posted by phlapjack77 on Jan. 17 2005,07:39
thanks for the info...

i'm booting off of a usb pendrive, so i'm doing a backup/restore to that.   other settings (like the .fluxbox/init) stay changed, not sure why this one doesn't...

oh well, gonna keep plugging away...

thanks,
phillip

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 17 2005,17:22
I think I know what's happening (although it's just a theory).

When you backup files in .xtdesktop you are adding all the files which are in there at the time.
The key word here, however, is 'adding'.  You said you removed icons from the directory, but what you are overlooking is that these icons are automatically installed into ramdisk when the system is started up.  Your backup cannot remove files...it can only overwrite or add to them.
If you want to remove things from the system you can do that from /opt/bootlocal.sh
For example, if you want to remove the Dillo icon you can do something like this in bootlocal:
rm -f /home/dsl/.xtdesktop/dillo.{lnk,gif}
or
rm -f /home/dsl/.xtdesktop/dillo.*
or
rm -f /home/dsl/.xtdesktop/dillo.lnk
rm -f /home/dsl/.xtdesktop/dillo.gif

You'd think it would be easier just to remove the whole directory and let the backup put in fresh ones, but that won't happen.  bootlocal.sh isn't run until after your backups are restored (or so i assume, since bootlocal can be included in filetool.lst)

Posted by phlapjack77 on Jan. 17 2005,18:51
ah, you are very wise sir...your intuition was correct, i put the rm lines in my bootlocal.sh file and everything worked as planned...makes sense with your explanation and now that i think about it from that angle...

thanks for the help,
phillip

Posted by clivesay on Jan. 17 2005,19:36
Might be messy but couldn't you put the command to remove the dir contents in bootlocal and then add the restore command again to the end of bootlocal? That would be running it twice but would give you the desired result.

Also you could make a .dsl package of the .xtdesktop dir and have it load it at the end of bootlocal. You could store it in a /icons dir or something on the root of the partion and then at the end of bootlocal you could have something like 'mydsl-load icons.tar.gz" or something like that.

Or even have a command at the end of bootlocal that opens the backup.tar.gz and copies the contents of .xtdesktop to the .xtdesktop you just cleared out from the remove command.

There's probably many ways to do it.

Chris

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 17 2005,19:44
Quote
Might be messy but couldn't you put the command to remove the dir contents in bootlocal and then add the restore command again to the end of bootlocal? That would be running it twice but would give you the desired result.

Interesting.....I thought that would start a loop at first, but no, it makes sense.
Bash is great...there are many ways to get things done through some simple scripting.

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