Why does Ubuntu's Nautilus display a folder called "Examples" while the console displays "examples.desktop"

Question

These folders occur at /home/username.

How does this name discrepancy arise? (Uppercase E versus lowercase e.)

It seems to be a shortcut to /usr/share/example-content.

How can I delete /usr/share/example-content/Ubuntu_Free_Culture_Showcase without using the command line?

One possible answer is to make a privileged Nautilus using something like these SUSE instructions (link below). Unfortunately "gnomesu nautilus" gives me a "gnomesu: no such file" message and "sudo nautilus" does not do anything when added to the properties of the Launcher. Update: "sudo nautilus" from the console let's me delete but there is a mess of error messages.

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-forums/unreviewed-how-faq/426153-how-nautilus-super-user-mode-gnome.html

Answer 1

A .desktop file is a shortcut to an application, URL, or directory on the file system. It is just a simple text file with standard format. The text that appears under the icon is defined in the content of the .desktop file; the filename is not used.

To run nautilus as root on Ubuntu, use this command:

gksudo 'nautilus --no-desktop'

The files that show up in new users' home directories are kept in /etc/skel, and the default desktop is in /etc/skel/Desktop. You can delete the icon from future new users' desktops from there.

You can also delete the shortcut from all users' desktops from the command line:

sudo rm /home/*/Desktop/examples.desktop

Answer 2

".desktop files" in Linux are used different things (see the Desktop Entry standard at freedesktop.org). You can open up the examples.desktop file in an editor (like gedit) to view it; you will probably see the word "Examples" in it (that's how it shows that name :) )