How to add custom startup applications in GNOME??

Hello, I need to start “redshift -l 55:12” when my computer starts. But in the Gnome Tweak Tool, under Startup Applications, I can only choose from what I assume is GUI applications. Furthermore I can’t add any arguments/flags, which I need.

This is 2016 and Gnome is supposed to be a mature, user-friendly piece of software, or am I wrong? Don’t tell me that I have to edit arcane script files, or install extra 3rd party software just to do this most basic of tasks. It surely must just be some option somewhere I have overlooked.

Hi
Yes, command line stuff only :wink: :wink:

If you fire up Nautilus, then press ctrl+h to expose the hidden directories, you need to browse into .config/autostart select your application desktop file with right-click -> properties. In there you can add you bits to the ‘Command line’.

My what…? Inside .config/autostart, I only have a xterm.desktop file.

Hi
What ever application you require to be autostarted, add via Tweak tool, then it will appear in the directory indicated, from there you can edit as required.

I’m a command line junkie, I would open a terminal, copy it from /usr/share/applications, then use vi to edit… :wink:

It’s not in the tweak tool either… As I said, it’s only got GUI programs, and redshift doesn’t have a GUI.

On Wed, 06 Jan 2016 19:36:01 +0000, Langley wrote:

> It’s not in the tweak tool either… As I said, it’s only got GUI
> programs, and redshift doesn’t have a GUI.

It does - I do exactly what you’re looking to do.

Install redshift-gtk. :slight_smile:

Jim


Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

What a crappy workaround. So I had to install redshift-gtk, a package I don’t need, but is the only one I can add as an autostart application. I must then, despite my plea, edit an arcane and obscure configuration file to change the exec to redshift -l 55.7:12.5 (Just running redshift-gtk doesn’t work since the geolocator feature is broken). I guess I can remove the redshift-gtk package now, but what the hell.

The next time I want to do a completely elementary task with my computer, why don’t the Gnome developers just come over and break my index fingers instead. Would probably save us both some time and effort.

But thanks for your help, guys!

Hi
Your welcome, but please if your wanting to use a package that is only packaged to be run from the command line, then that’s as it’s built, nothing to do with the DE in use…

FYI, I see that a) there is a systemd unit file option (but the maintainer doesn’t know how it works *), b) it uses geoclue2, not geoclue.

I would suggest a visit to openSUSE:Submitting bug reports - openSUSE Wiki and raise a bug against redshift for a missing desktop file, or perhaps a systemd unit file and the geoclue issue.

Note: Just looked at the source and there is a systemd unit, so that could be used system wide if packaged. The packager could also add a system config file so one could pop into YaST /etc/systemconfig editor and provide an end user options to fire it up, that would provide your command line only program with the desired GUI tools (which are not DE centric) to configure.*

You’re going on about a completely different topic, whether Redshift has a bug or is missing this or that is irrelevant, my despair is how Gnome is lacking the option to add your own startup commands, like you know, every single DE/operating system ever. Gnome itself included, in the past at least…! I assume they removed the option to make everything more simple and straight-forward, but they’ve gone too far. There’s no excuse for removing this.

On Thu, 07 Jan 2016 17:56:01 +0000, Langley wrote:

> What a crappy workaround. So I had to install redshift-gtk, a package I
> don’t need, but is the only one I can add as an autostart application.

It’s probably not the only solution, but I find that I like having the
icon in the bar at the bottom of the screen to enable/disable redshift.
<shrug>.

There’s probably a way to do this (create a .desktop file with just the
redshift executable and its command-line parameters, most likely).

> I
> must then, despite my plea, edit an arcane and obscure configuration
> file to change the exec to redshift -l 55.7:12.5 (Just running
> redshift-gtk doesn’t work since the geolocator feature is broken).

What I did when I set it up on my system was install gtk-redshift and
then used the command-line parameters that I would have used on redshift.

> I
> guess I can remove the redshift-gtk package now, but what the hell.
>
> The next time I want to do a completely elementary task with my
> computer, why don’t the Gnome developers just come over and break my
> index fingers instead. Would probably save us both some time and effort.

The use of .desktop files isn’t that unusual, IME - it’s just a question
of learning a particular desktop’s way of doing things.

Freedesktop.org provides a standardized way of doing this - which is the
way GNOME uses:

http://standards.freedesktop.org/autostart-spec/autostart-spec-latest.html

That spec hopefully will help you understand the system. :slight_smile:

> But thanks for your help, guys!

You bet - glad to be able to help you get to where you wanted to be.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

What does the technical details about .desktop files have to do with Gnome not providing (or rather, having removed) a GUI for adding commands to autostart? Consider if redshift-gtk didn’t exist (or that I want to start a program that doesn’t have a GUI child program), then what? And what is it with stubbornly defending even obvious bad designs and faults? “No no, it’s not a problem that you can’t do standard feature, just go to /etc/session/guesswhat/cryptic, edit line 743 in hex to include your zodiac sign written in pascal, mkbuild package this, this and that, and symlink it to your future place of residence. Nothing to complain about here.” Gee thanks, I guess a GUI option really is unnecessary.

On Thu 07 Jan 2016 08:16:01 PM CST, Langley wrote:

You’re going on about a completely different topic, whether Redshift has
a bug or is missing this or that is irrelevant, my despair is how Gnome
is lacking the option to add your own startup commands, like you know,
every single DE/operating system ever. Gnome itself included, in the
past at least…! I assume they removed the option to make everything
more simple and straight-forward, but they’ve gone too far. There’s no
excuse for removing this.

Hi
Alacarte is still there, I thought it had gone by the wayside…


Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1|GNOME 3.10.2|3.12.51-60.20-default
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Where do I add autostart commands in alacarte?

On Thu 07 Jan 2016 09:46:02 PM CST, Langley wrote:

malcolmlewis;2747392 Wrote:
> Hi
> Alacarte is still there, I thought it had gone by the wayside…
>

Where do I add autostart commands in alacarte?

Hi
Unless you first add a desktop file (shortcut, text editor, alacarte)
the desktop environment doesn’t know anything about a command line
application (again a packager choice, raise a bug). You can then start
it and use the gnome tweak tool or nautilus to copy to the autostart
directory.


Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1|GNOME 3.10.2|3.12.51-60.20-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

On Thu, 07 Jan 2016 21:36:01 +0000, Langley wrote:

> What does the technical details about .desktop files have to do with
> Gnome not providing (or rather, having removed) a GUI for adding
> commands to autostart? Consider if redshift-gtk didn’t exist (or that I
> want to start a program that doesn’t have a GUI child program), then
> what? And what is it with stubbornly defending even obvious bad designs
> and faults? “No no, it’s not a problem that you can’t do standard
> feature
, just go to /etc/session/guesswhat/cryptic, edit line 743 in
> hex to include your zodiac sign written in pascal, mkbuild package this,
> this and that, and symlink it to your future place of residence. Nothing
> to complain about here.” Gee thanks, I guess a GUI option really is
> unnecessary.

I feel I should point out that I’m not a GNOME developer - I’m just a
user like you - so yelling at me isn’t going to ease your frustration.

I’m just trying to provide you information so you can accomplish your
goals.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

Well guess what, my trick of editing the file for redshift-gtk into just redshift isn’t working, it’s not starting up. I guess I could try to mess around with strange configuration files, but if I wanted to spend my time in vi editing text files, I wouldn’t have bothered installing a desktop environment in the first place.

I don’t know anything about any desktop file for Redshift. This isn’t making any sense, automatically executing commands on boot is an OS job, what does it have to do with packages? How would I even know how to create a desktop file that just executes the very simple command of “redshift -l 23:23” ?

I appreciate your attempts at helping, it just sounds like you’re defending whatever braindead decision the developers have made. If you at least acknowledged that there exists a problem, like by saying “Wow yeah what a stupid design, I guess you could try blabla until they fix it”, it would help. I guess that you might not wish to badmouth other software, it just sounds like you think that everything is fine and in order, and all the hoops the users have to jump through can’t be helped.

On Fri, 08 Jan 2016 17:36:01 +0000, Langley wrote:

> I appreciate your attempts at helping, it just sounds like you’re
> defending whatever braindead decision the developers have made. If you
> at least acknowledged that there exists a problem, like by saying “Wow
> yeah what a stupid design, I guess you could try blabla until they fix
> it”, it would help. I guess that you might not wish to badmouth other
> software,
> it just sounds like you think that everything is fine and in order, and
> all the hoops the users have to jump through can’t be helped.

I’ll agree that it’s stupid - but I can’t magic up a solution for you
that doesn’t involve editing the files. Maybe there is one out there
that I don’t know about - I can’t claim to know everything about GNOME or
about Linux.

I’m not defending it at all - I’m just trying to help you by providing
you with the information that will help you get to where you want to be.
It doesn’t achieve the goal of helping you achieve your goal by throwing
my opinion in, especially if it’s an uninformed opinion. I prefer to
just stick to the facts of what I can find and what I know.

I also find that throwing strong opinions out like “well, that’s a stupid
design decision” is a great way to get developers to not listen to me
when I have an informed opinion. It doesn’t really add anything to the
discussion, so I don’t tend to include that.

Sorry if you took that personally - it wasn’t meant that way. My
intention was simply to provide you with the information you needed to
accomplish your goals, not to get embroiled in a discussion of the merits
of one approach vs. others that may or may not exist.

We all can only provide help based on our own experiences, and that’s
what I try to do.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

On Wed, 06 Jan 2016 19:36:01 +0000, Langley wrote:

> It’s not in the tweak tool either… As I said, it’s only got GUI
> programs, and redshift doesn’t have a GUI.

It does - I do exactly what you’re looking to do.

Install redshift-gtk. :slight_smile:

Jim


Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

On Thu, 07 Jan 2016 17:56:01 +0000, Langley wrote:

> What a crappy workaround. So I had to install redshift-gtk, a package I
> don’t need, but is the only one I can add as an autostart application.

It’s probably not the only solution, but I find that I like having the
icon in the bar at the bottom of the screen to enable/disable redshift.
<shrug>.

There’s probably a way to do this (create a .desktop file with just the
redshift executable and its command-line parameters, most likely).

> I
> must then, despite my plea, edit an arcane and obscure configuration
> file to change the exec to redshift -l 55.7:12.5 (Just running
> redshift-gtk doesn’t work since the geolocator feature is broken).

What I did when I set it up on my system was install gtk-redshift and
then used the command-line parameters that I would have used on redshift.

> I
> guess I can remove the redshift-gtk package now, but what the hell.
>
> The next time I want to do a completely elementary task with my
> computer, why don’t the Gnome developers just come over and break my
> index fingers instead. Would probably save us both some time and effort.

The use of .desktop files isn’t that unusual, IME - it’s just a question
of learning a particular desktop’s way of doing things.

Freedesktop.org provides a standardized way of doing this - which is the
way GNOME uses:

http://standards.freedesktop.org/autostart-spec/autostart-spec-latest.html

That spec hopefully will help you understand the system. :slight_smile:

> But thanks for your help, guys!

You bet - glad to be able to help you get to where you wanted to be.

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

On Thu 07 Jan 2016 08:16:01 PM CST, Langley wrote:

You’re going on about a completely different topic, whether Redshift has
a bug or is missing this or that is irrelevant, my despair is how Gnome
is lacking the option to add your own startup commands, like you know,
every single DE/operating system ever. Gnome itself included, in the
past at least…! I assume they removed the option to make everything
more simple and straight-forward, but they’ve gone too far. There’s no
excuse for removing this.

Hi
Alacarte is still there, I thought it had gone by the wayside…


Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1|GNOME 3.10.2|3.12.51-60.20-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!