Hello,
I like a minimalistic desktop with as little “stuff” as possible. Is there a way that I can get rid of the “trash” icon that is in the lower right hand corner of my desktop?
Any help would be appreciated.
Rocky
To give advise about how to configure things in a desktop, people llke to know which desktop.
I am running KDE. Thanks, I’ll remember that.
Rocky
You can change the desktop layout from “Folder view” to “Desktop containment”. Then there won’t be any icons on your desktop.
Alternatively, in a terminal:
cd $HOME/Desktop
rm trash.desktop
Make sure that the desktop plasmoids are unlocked (right click on the desktop and unlock them if needed), then click on the trash icon and keep it pressed, a little toolbar when you can resize and close that plasmoid should appear.
Thanks guys. I will try these methods and report back.
I tried both methods, first the one posted by sekhemty, because it seemed the easiest. It did not work. Then I tried the method that was suggested by nricket, but that did not work either.
rocky@linux-uzke:~> su
Password:
linux-uzke:/home/rocky # cd $HOME/Desktop
bash: cd: /root/Desktop: No such file or directory
linux-uzke:/home/rocky # rm trash.desktop
rm: cannot remove ‘trash.desktop’: No such file or directory
linux-uzke:/home/rocky #
I will try other methods.
Thanks guys, I figured out how to remove it. I wnt into my file manager and found the desktop file and just moved that icon to a different file. It worked perfectly.
Rocky
My suggestion did not mention using “su”. That was a mistake that you introduced.
What you do here is very dangerous.
What you want is all in the realm of the user rocky. Thus user rocky should change things.
When using root to jump around and changing things, you can easily bork your system.
Indeed.
That way you tried to remove it for the user “root”, not your actual user.
I doubt, because he did
su
and not
su -
Which he should have done (when it was eminent to “become root”, which it wasn’t). but violating this rule he now saved himself because $HOME is still pointing to rocky’s home.
IMHO a case of two errors, one undoing part of the bad effects of the first. 
No.
At least on 42.2, in the case of “su” $HOME of root is /root (and I wouldn’t expect anything else… 
).
wolfi@amiga:~> su
Passwort:
amiga:/home/wolfi # echo $HOME
/root
amiga:/home/wolfi #
The current directory is not changed if you do “su” instead of “su -” though.
Wow! I am glad that I posted that output earlier in this thread because you guys are providing me with a very valuable education on su and the dangers involved with using this powerful tool.
I will keep you guys posted on all of my trials and tribulations as I muck my way through configuring my system. I appreciate all of your input.
Rocky
You are obvious correct. It seems that not all environment is kept as is. It is there:
For backward compatibility su defaults to not change the current directory and to only set the environment variables HOME and SHELL (plus USER and LOGNAME if the target user is not root). It is recommended to always use the --login option (instead it’s shortcut -) to avoid side effects caused by mixing environments.
So it is one of the exceptions.
In any case, use the recommended way (or one of it’s shorter versions):
su --login
su -l
su -
and NOT
su
This reminds of a line from the movie Dances With Wolves
Indian 1 (after he falls from a horse): “This is all your fault.”
Indian 2 “No. It was my idea to steal the horses, it was not my idea for you to get hurt.”
That line always cracks me up.
Thanks guys for your patience.
Yes.
If you run “su”, some/many things are taken over from the current user’s environment.
Not $HOME though, as your quote mentions…
If you run “su -” it creates a full root environment, independent of the current user.
So that’s preferred in any case if you want to switch to root.
My advice: rethink what you say here. You are NOT configuring your system in this case. You, as a normal user, are configuring your desktop. That is quite personal for that particular user. Other users on your system will not see this. It is even possible that they do not use KDE.
Always try to determine if something is a system thing or a user thing. And never use root if not strictly required: SDB:Login as root - openSUSE Wiki
You’re welcome. 
Use root privileges with extreme caution. (And if Windows users had followed that principle, there would be a lot less Windows malware around).