Desktop On… Desktop Off… Don’t forget to breathe.

As you can see here, here, over here, here, right here, and also here, losing track of the menu bar in e17 is a first step for many new users of YDL. And if it isn’t that, they’re wondering why their desktop is “out of alignment” after changing resolutions as can be seen here. I had the same problems myself when I first started using YDL. Another current issue with the desktop running on e17 is that it doesn’t layout icons properly and places them all in a single column. Eventually they go off the screen if you have more than a few of them.

The menu bar issue is an easy fix and is listed on the Terrasoft’s HOWTOs for Yellow Dog Linux v 5.x page under How to locate your lost E17 Shelf. The desktop alignment problem occurs after changing resolutions on the PS3, and is also an easy fix with the e17 menu item Windows > Cleanup Windows. For a new user, either of these things can happen easily and can be very frustrating if you don’t know where to look. I don’t know of any fix for the icon issue.

On my system I prefer to run e17 with the “desktop” turned off. A downside to this is you need to load the file manager any time you want to manipulate files with the GUI — the desktop is actually a Nautilus window, which explains why it covers up your e17 animated background and menu bar on virtual desktop 0,0. Fortunately it is very easy to turn the desktop off and back on again if you want.

To turn off the Nautilus desktop on e17, run this command:

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop false

This gets rid of it instantly and it stays off until you turn it back on with this command:

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop true

It takes a moment for it to come back up again, but that’s all there is to it.

A disadvantage of running with the desktop turned off is that it makes it more difficult to “empty the trash” — you need to show the hidden .trash folder in the Nautilus file browser and empty the contents manually. If someone knows an easy way around this, it would be a great time to use the comment function on this blog…

On the positive side, you don’t have any of the associated problems with the desktop and you can better experience the “beauty of e17.”

Reference link:
http://web.mit.edu/answers/9.4_release/9.4_skip_nautilus.html