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There was a directory /home/mybrother/Desktop , until today when I was at work, but now it is gone from my brother's Cinnamon Mint 64-bit 17.2 machine.
All the subdirectories which were beneath it now appear on Cinnamon's GUI of the desktop, but are actually now under /home/mybrother - how may I restore /home/mybrother/Desktop and move those directories back? Thank you all.
K7AAY
Posted 2015-12-03T05:07:38.597
Reputation: 6 962
0
Something deleted the old Desktop folder, and moved all the files out of it and into the home folder. That's strange, may want to look into that, ask your brother, run fsck, etc, since it may happen again.
Tried just re-creating /home/mybrother/Desktop and log out/in? If the Cinnamon GUI Desktop then shows files in the new Desktop folder, proceed to move the files/folders that were in the "old" Desktop folder back to the "new" Desktop folder. [And now's as good a time as any to make backup copies of any important data you wouldn't want to lose.]
Or, from this Linux Mint forum post [ http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=143745 ] I think you'll need to change some settings. Apparently the GUI switched to using the home folder as the visible "Desktop".
First I'd try looking at ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs (where ~ should be /home/mybrother/ ) for the XDG_DESKTOP_DIR parameter.
If it's not pointing at the ~/Desktop or "$HOME/Desktop" or /home/mybrother/Desktop folder then changing it to XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop" should work.
Also:
You might check the current value by running this command:
gsettings get org.nemo.preferences desktop-is-home-dirIt should return false. I suspect it may return true in your case. This would mean that Nemo does not consider /home/brianrh your home directory, but /home/brianrh/Desktop.
Provided this is the case the command
gsettings set org.nemo.preferences desktop-is-home-dir falseshould correct this problem.
Xen2050
Posted 2015-12-03T05:07:38.597
Reputation: 12 097
-1
It sounds like your brother deleted his Desktop/ directory.
Opening a terminal, your brother needs to complete the following commands:
###change directory to home folder, same as 'cd ~' or 'cd /home/yourBrother'
#>$ cd
###create the directory "Desktop" in your brother's home directory
#>$ mkdir Desktop
###move wanted files/folders/etc from current directory to Desktop/ folder
#>$ mv <files/folders/etc> ~/Desktop
If you are needing to add desktop icons in addition to moving these files back to their original locations, see the following post, adjust for flavor of linux being used:
0111
Posted 2015-12-03T05:07:38.597
Reputation: 17
2What does this do? How does it do it? Adding why this is a solution would make this answer stand out better. – Raystafarian – 2015-12-03T17:51:01.357
Moving all files from home results in a black screen, no icons, at next boot. Not a good solution, and dangerous. – K7AAY – 2015-12-04T21:41:05.550
You obviously didn't understand the context of "<files/folders/etc>." You shouldn't have moved everything, only the things you wanted to be in the desktop folder. So, your hidden folders, such as ".kde" which contains your graphical configuration for the KDE environment (I know you're using cinnamon...). Frankly down-voting the answer, because you didn't ask a clear enough question is ridiculous. If you want icons on your desktop see this: http://superuser.com/questions/453617/creating-application-desktop-shortcuts/453619
If that answers your question, this is a duplicate thread.
"Use comments to ask for more information or clarify a question or answer." - as https://superuser.com/tour states.
If the context of my question was not complete enough for you to craft a bulletproof answer, you ask for more, as the rules here specify.
The answer broke his system; the GUI shows an utterly black screen with the curor pointer on it, which I could not recover from.
Not good at all.
You haven't specified exactly what you entered to break your brother's system. Also, for future reference, you should fully understand any shell commands you use before you use them. None of those command I provided would have done anything but create a folder. If you crafted your own move command (mv) without knowing what it did, you broke the computer, not I. Windows OS is more foolhardy proof. – 0111 – 2015-12-10T03:38:18.410
$ cd && mkdir Desktop && mv * ~/Desktop – K7AAY – 2019-07-16T18:31:06.013
This is exactly what broke your brother's system.
Mainly due to mv * ~/Desktop! If you're curious what all you moved run ls -la that will show you all the hidden folders I mentioned above. – 0111 – 2019-09-06T21:59:47.257
The suggestion below trashed his system, and I had to reinstall the entire OS which, of course, solved the problem. Like using a nuke to drive a nail. – K7AAY – 2015-12-12T04:26:25.877