applications without desktop entry [LWN.net]

applications without desktop entry

Posted Jul 28, 2026 5:23 UTC (Tue) by dtardon (subscriber, #53317)
In reply to: applications without desktop entry by ballombe
Parent article: Save and restore may be coming to GNOME

It's simple. If an application doesn't have any deskop entry, the desktop doesn't know how to start it. It might need some options, environment variables, etc. It seems fair to exclude experimental/development stuff that the user started from a terminal from session management.

I'd rather invert the question: if an application is intended for general use, why doesn't it have any desktop entry?

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applications without desktop entry

Posted Jul 28, 2026 7:48 UTC (Tue) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link]

It might be time to retire "desktop entry" as terminology. It evokes the idea of an icon on a desktop or maybe in a menu when in reality it is more along the lines of an all purpose metadata storage location for applications now.

As a user of a window manager and later compositor which neither has a desktop nor a menu using desktop entries to display stuff I always assumed they don't matter to me at all purely based on the name.

applications without desktop entry

Posted Jul 30, 2026 9:32 UTC (Thu) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link]

For instance, because it is installed with `uv tool`, very typical of some Python IDEs for instance.