[Solved] Duplicate desktop folder (Cinnamon)

[WiltshireJon]

My fault, fat finger and sensitive touchpad problem, I managed to drag & drop my desktop folder from Home into my Templates folder. I copied it back to Home, but couldn't delete the copy under Templates (even with elevated priviledges). So now I have two desktop folders. The system still works fine so it's no big problem but it's sort of "untidy". I guess I could Timeshift back to the original setup as I did a timeshift backup shorlty before, but is there a way I could do this without using timeshift?

Thanks

[Cosmo.]

I guess I could Timeshift back to the original setup

Before you even try this: It will not work. TS (with default settings, which have a good reason) does not touch user's home, so nothing will revert here.

Open a terminal and enter:

ls -la ~/template

Provide the output.

[WiltshireJon]

Thanks for your reply.

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jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ ls -la ~/template
ls: cannot access '/home/jon/template': No such file or directory
jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ 

[Cosmo.]

You got this error message, because I made a - wrong - assumption about the name of the folder. (I use a German locale, so I re-translated).

Try this:

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ls -la ~/Templates

Note, that in case you use also a non English system you have to exchange the name of the folder accordingly.

[WiltshireJon]

Aha:

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jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ ls -la ~/Templates
total 48
drwxr-xr-x  3 jon jon 12288 Feb 12 17:39 .
drwxr-xr-x 30 jon jon  4096 Feb 13 08:30 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 13 09:41 Desktop
-rw-rw-r--  1 jon jon  8964 Dec 21 15:19 Normal.ott
-rw-r--r--  1 jon jon 16214 Feb 10  2017 meme.otp
jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ 

Thanks again

[Cosmo.]

My suspicion was, that there is a permission problem with the Desktop folder inside of Templates, but this is not the case.

Do this in the terminal:

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cd ~/Templates/Desktop
ls -la

You should see for all objects there in the output in column 3 & 4 the same "jon jon" as above.

If this is the case try to delete all objects inside of this folder, afterwards the empty folder itself.

[WiltshireJon]

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jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ cd ~/Templates/Desktop
jon@jon-zenbook ~/Templates/Desktop $ ls -la
total 52
drwxr-xr-x 2 jon jon  4096 Feb 13 09:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 jon jon 12288 Feb 12 17:39 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jon jon  2917 Feb 12 17:41 Calc.desktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jon jon   810 Feb 12 17:41 Chromium.desktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jon jon  3678 Feb 12 17:41 Darktable.desktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jon jon   412 Feb 12 17:42 filezilla.desktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jon jon   793 Feb 12 17:41 Firefox.desktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jon jon  7140 Apr 18  2016 gnucash.desktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jon jon   634 Feb 12 17:41 Thunderbird.desktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jon jon  3037 Feb 12 17:41 Writer.desktop
jon@jon-zenbook ~/Templates/Desktop $ ^C

I could delete the files, but not the folder itself (I think perhaps because the system is using that particular copy of Desktop....to check, I added an app to the desktop, and this is where it showed up (ie not under home/desktop).

Thanks

[Cosmo.]

What is the content of ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs?

[WiltshireJon]

Sorry for the delay, I had to be elsewhere.

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jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
bash: /home/jon/.config/user-dirs.dirs: Permission denied
jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ 

[Cosmo.]

You have a permission issue in your account - and possibly not only on this place. So we will investigate into this at first:
Mark the following command and press ctrl-c

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find $HOME ! -user $USER -type f

open a terminal and press ctrl-shift-V
Mark the complete result inclusive the command with the mouse and press ctrl-shift-C
In the forum click the Code-button above the text box, than press ctrl-v.

Report in case, that there is no output.

[WiltshireJon]

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jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ find $HOME ! -user $USER -type f
find: ‘/home/jon/.cache/dconf’: Permission denied
jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ 

[Cosmo.]

Anything is wrong here. The previous output says clearly, that there is (at least) a permission problem for ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs (~ is a shortcut for your home), so it should get reported with the last output.

We try another thing. Enter in the terminal

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ls -ls ~/.config

Use the same method as described above to provide the output.

[WiltshireJon]

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jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ ls -ls ~/.config
total 144
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Dec  2 16:51 autostart
 4 drwxr-xr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Nov 29 10:36 caja
 4 drwx------ 15 jon jon  4096 Feb 14 10:49 chromium
 4 drwxr-xr-x  3 jon jon  4096 Nov 29 10:39 cinnamon-session
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 13 09:02 darktable
 4 drwxrwxr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 14 10:36 dconf
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Jan 24 17:34 filezilla
 4 drwxr-xr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 13 08:45 geeqie
 4 drwxr-xr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Jan  3 14:48 goa-1.0
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 13 10:13 gtk-2.0
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 14 10:35 gtk-3.0
 4 drwxr-xr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Nov 29 10:36 hexchat
 4 drwxrwxr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Dec 28 16:08 KeePass
 4 drwxrwxr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Dec 28 16:10 keepassx
 4 drwxrwxr-x  3 jon jon  4096 Nov 29 11:34 libreoffice
 4 drwxrwxr-x  4 jon jon  4096 Dec 28 17:31 lsc
 4 drwxrwxr-x  3 jon jon  4096 Nov 29 10:39 menus
 4 -rw-rw-r--  1 jon jon  1282 Jan  8 09:51 mimeapps.list
 4 -rw-rw-r--  1 jon jon   559 Jan  1 16:11 monitors.xml
 4 drwxr-xr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 14 10:35 nemo
 4 drwxr-xr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Dec 19 13:13 pix
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Nov 29 10:39 pulse
 4 -rw-rw-r--  1 jon jon   117 Feb 13 10:13 QtProject.conf
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Dec 15 16:52 Thunar
12 -rw-r--r--  1 jon jon 10097 Dec 28 16:13 Trolltech.conf
 4 -rw-rw-r--  1 jon jon   593 Dec 10 11:55 ufrawrc
 4 -rw-------  1 jon jon   642 Feb 12 17:29 user-dirs.dirs
 4 -rw-rw-r--  1 jon jon     5 Nov 29 10:39 user-dirs.locale
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 13 10:16 vlc
 4 drwxr-xr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Nov 29 17:21 xed
 4 drwxrwxr-x  3 jon jon  4096 Nov 29 14:31 xfce4
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Feb 13 10:13 xplayer
 4 drwx------  2 jon jon  4096 Dec  4 19:58 xviewer
 4 drwxrwxr-x  2 jon jon  4096 Dec  3 16:37 yelp
jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ 

[WiltshireJon]

I guess I had better add that this was (is) a fresh install of mint 18.3 after the upgrade from a previous version failed. Dual boot with WIN10, though I seldom use that these days. Everything appears to works just fine....apart from this

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jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: jon-zenbook Kernel: 4.13.0-32-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3)
           Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine:   System: ASUSTeK (portable) product: UX360UA v: 1.0
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: UX360UA v: 1.0
           Bios: American Megatrends v: UX360UA.300 date: 06/17/2016
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i5-6200U (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 9600
           clock speeds: max: 2800 MHz 1: 2400 MHz 2: 2400 MHz 3: 2400 MHz
           4: 2400 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Sky Lake Integrated Graphics bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 3200x1800@59.70hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 520 (Skylake GT2)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.7 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.13.0-32-generic
Network:   Card: Intel Wireless 7265 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 01:00.0
           IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 512.1GB (24.8% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: HFS512G39MND size: 512.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 213G used: 39G (20%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 8.48GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda6
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 42.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 3700
Info:      Processes: 211 Uptime: 49 min Memory: 1093.1/7873.6MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35 
jon@jon-zenbook ~ $ 

[Cosmo.]

OK, I see now, where the problem with the file user-dirs.dirs is: I did read the post too quickly. So I overlooked, that you simply tried to execute it - what necessarily needs to fail.

Open this file in your text editor; you can simply double click it in the file manager. Now you will get the content of it and you can paste it here.

[WiltshireJon]

My apologies for reading your post too quickly! Content below:

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# This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update
# If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're
# interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run
# Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped
# homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an
# absolute path. No other format is supported.
# 
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Templates/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"

[austin.texas]

You can see that the file shows the Desktop as XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Templates/Desktop"
Change that to XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
Then log out and back in. Test to be sure - but you then can safely delete $HOME/Templates/Desktop
You might have check $HOME/Desktop to make sure the launchers and files that you want there are there before deleting $HOME/Templates/Desktop

[WiltshireJon]

Thanks Cosmo and austin.texas that's fixed it.

I Must Read The Instructions Carefully In Future
x100

[Cosmo.]

Well, this happens. As you see above I did the same mistake, otherwise I would had seen at once, that you tried to execute this file instead of displaying its content and we would have both saved some time. I was rather sure, that the culprit was in this file, but I wanted a confirmation for that. But such is live: Some mistakes get done by the software, others by humans.