Problem with ~/Desktop/ recreation

[Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski]

Ubuntu 7.10. GNOME.

It seems that removing ~/Desktop/, going to GDM, logging in (now GNOME uses ~ as Desktop folder), recreating Desktop won't do the trick. User will still end up with visual clutter and no easy way to go back. There's a file in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs that is being rewritten as you login, so you end up with Desktop var being set to $HOME. But it won't be reverted once Desktop is back. Yes, editing it helps. No, I don't think it's very good way to do it.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. That's not a bug, don't delete the directory if you don't want the configuration to get changed

[Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski (opi)]

But there's no easy way to revert changes. 'For human beings' is Ubuntu's tagline. "Don't delete it" would be OK if ~/Desktop/ was some super-protected meta-directory. You can see it browsing your home. You can delete it. There's no warning and there's no coming back.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

there is no way currently to know if you changed the option manually or if that was changed because of one action you did so changing it the other way would be wrong for people who selected the option. That's the first request we got about that so I don't think user go and delete this directory that often, and there is ten of thousand ubuntu bugs open so this one something we consider working on right now

[Tomasz 'Zen' Napierala (tzn)]

I strongly agree with Emil. He didn't change anything except for deleting Desktop folder. Obviously there should be some fallback option as making your $HOME a desktop, but once ~/Desktop is recreated it should go back to previous settings. Choosing your $HOME as your desktop knowinglly is a different case