can't hide desktop icons neither with dconf-editor nor with gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons

[Albert Cardona]

In attempting to hide all desktop icons, I can't.

1. With dconf-editor, org/gnome/desktop/background/show-desktop-icons , I set the value to False, and yet the icons show.

2. With gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons, despite disabling it, it still doesn't work (can change the size of the icons, but can't hide all icons when deactivating the extension).

What's the appropriate approach to disable desktop icons?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons 20.04.0-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-31.35-generic 5.4.34
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-31-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri May 22 22:24:44 2020
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-06-24 (1428 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160420.1)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-05-20 (2 days ago)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

To hide all desktop icons just disable the whole extension by running 'gnome-shell-extension-prefs'.

[Albert Cardona (albertcardona)]

Thanks @vanvugt, so there are 3 UI ways of hiding the desktop icons, but only one works:

$ gnome-shell-extension-prefs

... then switch off the desktop-icons extension.

(Nevermind that gnome tweaks, under "Extensions", listed the desktop-icons gnome shell extension as disabled.)

The bugs are then the mere existence of the other two UI ways of hiding desktop icons.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Yes I agree. The main bug people will hit is bug 1718850.