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I wanna change program icons. I previous versions I just went into /usr/share/applications and changed the icon of what I wanted. In 14.04 I repeat this and it doesn't work. Moreover, if I enter in /usr/share/applications being superuser I see that the picture has been changed, but if I enter without being superuser i see that there is no icon.

What's wrong?

PhoenixPerson
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  • A few questions; 1) How did you exactly edit the .desktop file(s) 2) what was the application? 3) Did you edit it with sudo or as root? In the last case it would make sense. 3) An application has no other icon than the one defined in the .desktop file. Is there a possible duplicate .desktop file? 4) Could you paste the .desktop file or at least the Icon= line? – Jacob Vlijm Nov 24 '14 at 20:34

2 Answers2

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The /usr/share/applications consist of .desktop files which are owned by root.

Eg :- For gedit, the default text editor.

enter image description here

Here, the Icon field shows the name of the .png or .svg file present in /usr/share/icons

Therefore, to change the application icon, you can either edit the .desktop file in /usr/share/applications to point to a new image by specifying its path or replace the .png or .svg file in /usr/share/icons with the icon image you wish to see.

Once you have done either of the above steps, refresh the icon cache using the command

gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/<name of icon theme>

Alternatively, it is easier to use Main Menu or alacarte -

  1. Install Main Menu (package name is alacarte) alacarte Install alacarte
  2. Open Main Menu (alacarte)
  3. Click on a program and select Properties in the right menu.
  4. Click on the icon
  5. Browse for your new icon and click Open
  6. Close your programs properties
  7. Close Main Menu

enter image description here

You do not need to reboot to see the changes.

Community
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Rohith Madhavan
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Well, for me alacarte allowed to choose any icon, but that icon could not be shown. Finally, a 128x128 jpg worked, and symbolic links in the path are no problem.

(If you use Gnome, alacarte may be invoked as: in the main menu of the desktop, right-click on Applications, and choose "Edit Menus")

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