[SOLVED] Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

[chconnor]

Hi there - getting my 10.04 tightened up (upgrade from 9.10)... I can't for the life of me figure out a few things that are probably very simple:

- how to disable KNetworkManager (i've unchecked it in "Autostart") so it doesn't show in the system tray (i use wicd)

- how to disable the printer applet so it doesn't show in the system tray (i've unchecked it in "Autostart")

- how to disable the bluetooth applet so it doesn't show in the system tray (i've unchecked it in "Autostart")

Thanks!
-c

[Snowhog]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

As to Knetworkmanager and Wicd in Lucid. Do an Advanced Search here in KFN, deleselect all the forums (bottom left of the page), and then select - check - the Lucid and it's sub-boards. Then search on "networkmanger wicd" (without the quotes). Review the posts. There are several, and at least one, that describes the problem with both managers being installed, and how to fully remove knetworkmanger, which you need to do if you are using Wicd.

[chconnor]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

Thanks, sorry for not searching the forums better.

KnetworkManager gone, per instructions in thread at: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3110183.0

- wicd was already installed (and working fine, incidentally)
- connected via ethernet cable
- ran these commands:
sudo apt-get remove modemmanager network-manager network-manager-openconnect network-manager-openvpn network-manager-pptp network-manager-vpnc knm-runtime network-manager-kde plasma-widget-networkmanagement
sudo apt-get install python-urwid python-wicd wicd wicd-cli wicd-curses wicd-daemon wicd-gtk
- rebooted

1 down, 2 to go!

Anyone have thoughts on the printer or bluetooth applet?

Thanks,
-c

[Snowhog]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

1 down, 2 to go!

Anyone have thoughts on the printer or bluetooth applet?

You're welcome.

Well, I though that both of these would be 'services' that are set to start at boot/login, but appears that is not the case. Looking in System Settings > Advanced > Services neither of these two is there. As they are also not in the Autostart (System Settings > Advanced > Autostart), I'm inclined to think that they are being started via /etc/rc.local or such. Hmm.

[chconnor]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

Well, I though that both of these would be 'services' that are set to start at boot/login, but appears that is not the case. Looking in System Settings > Advanced > Services neither of these two is there. As they are also not in the Autostart (System Settings > Advanced > Autostart), I'm inclined to think that they are being started via /etc/rc.local or such. Hmm.

Yeah, this is the process i've gone through. I realized after the fact that the control panel for the network manager does have a "show in system tray" option, and since wicd was working for me i would have just done that rather than uninstall KNM, but no matter, it's gone now. :-)

I assume there's a script or config somewhere that gets these things going, but every time i search around for documentation on the KDE session startup process i come up pretty empty. I guess i'm surprised that there's no easy/obvious GUI place to turn off something like a bluetooth applet, since lots of us never use it...

I also have gnome installed, and i believe (for other reasons) that that's the reason these things are in fact in my "Autostart" section. I was disappointed when turning them off there had no effect on the KDE instances running. I haven't tested whether or not that list affects Gnome...

grep -Hr blue ~/.kde/.

...turns up nothing of interest.

grep -Hr blue /usr/share/kde4/.

...turns up these:

./services/solidbackends/solid_bluez.desktop:X-KDE-Library=solid_bluez
./services/solidbackends/solid_bluez.desktop:Icon=preferences-system-bluetooth
./services/settings-bluetooth.desktop:X-KDE-System-Settings-Category=bluetooth
./services/settings-bluetooth.desktop:Icon=preferences-system-bluetooth

Not sure what to do with that. I don't know where else to search for this kind of stuff...

Thanks again for any ideas,
-c

[Snowhog]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

dir /etc/rc* | grep blue
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2010-05-02 09:17 K74bluetooth -> ../init.d/bluetooth
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2010-05-02 09:17 K74bluetooth -> ../init.d/bluetooth
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2010-05-02 09:17 S25bluetooth -> ../init.d/bluetooth
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2010-05-02 09:17 S25bluetooth -> ../init.d/bluetooth
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2010-05-02 09:17 S25bluetooth -> ../init.d/bluetooth
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2010-05-02 09:17 S25bluetooth -> ../init.d/bluetooth
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2010-05-02 09:17 K74bluetooth -> ../init.d/bluetooth

[chconnor]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

I was just coming back to post that as well. :-)

So i guess it's safe to just back up and move out those files? Is there some "cleaner" way in terms of future package updating, etc? I suppose i can take it from here in terms of researching how to manipulate the rc files... i know some distributions have automated ways of doing that.

Anyway, i'll poke around with it. And i'm hot on the tail of a solution for the printer applet as well...

Thanks,
-c

[Snowhog]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

Read the files. It is likely that all you need to do is remove the execute bit from the correct link/file. I'm not an expert with these rc files, so I'm speculating. But, one or more of those is what is launching the Bluetooth daemon (?) that is appearing in the System Tray.

[chconnor]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

Thanks; i found another way, which seems marginally cleaner to me (?):

sudo mv /usr/share/autostart/kbluetooth.desktop ~/some/backup/location/.
sudo mv /usr/share/autostart/printer-applet.desktop ~/some/backup/location/.

Restarted, and voila. :-)

/usr/share/autostart. Who knew. (Which is different then the Autostart set in the system settings, which are apparently different again from ~/.kde/Autostart, which are different again from some other autostart i saw somewhere and can't even keep track of anymore.)

Weird that:

a) those are system-wide startups, not per-user
b) there's no way to turn them off through the GUI
c) i think gnome uses /usr/share/autostart too, which is weird again given that they are KDE apps?

Anyhow, shows what i know about all of this.

There are a number of other things in there that seem turn-off-able, like "konqy_preload.desktop" (Konqueror preloading), nepomukserver.desktop (i have nepomuk turned off, as well as the related Nepomuk Search Module service, and apparently this is a third thing to disable...)

I do have a line in /etc/rc.local that turns off the daemon:

/etc/init.d/bluetooth stop

...dumb to have it start and then stop, yes, but i figured that if i ever wanted to use bluetooth it might be better to keep the system mods to a minimum. I added that rc.local line a while ago because my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop blinks a bluetooth LED constantly unless the daemon is killed, but it wasn't sufficient to remove the system tray icon.

Thanks for your help!
-c

[Guest]

Re: [SOLVED] Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

/usr/share/autostart...odd and seemingly undocumented (which is terrible, if true). I've been trying to figure this out every so often for months, now!

So thanks.

Also, there's a readme in the /etc/rc* directories that tells you the standard for disabling startup services.
The gist is that those are symlinks to scripts in /etc/init.d/ and to "turn them off", you rename the link from S20fancontrol (or what have you) to K80fancontrol. S means start, K means kill, and the number if you're killing it is 100 minus the number following S. This is so that you can have different sets of services running at different runlevels and the process for changing runlevels knows services to run the stop script for in case it was running at a different runlevel.

Cheers.

[Raffles10]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

Thanks; i found another way, which seems marginally cleaner to me (?):

sudo mv /usr/share/autostart/kbluetooth.desktop ~/some/backup/location/.
sudo mv /usr/share/autostart/printer-applet.desktop ~/some/backup/location/.

Restarted, and voila. :-)

This didn't work for me. After removing kbluetooth.desktop & printer-applet.desktop from /usr/share/autostart and rebooting they were still in the systray. There must be something else that's starting them. I think you have to use 'update-rc.d -f app remove' to remove them from the startup sequence.

man update-rc.d

[kubicle]

Re: Easy one: system tray icons... disabling related applications?

There must be something else that's starting them. I think you have to use 'update-rc.d -f app remove' to remove them from the startup sequence.

man update-rc.d

You're mixing system low level services with tray icon applets/front-ends. The rc.d services start long before you log into kde (and are not related to the tray icon applets)

This didn't work for me. After removing kbluetooth.desktop & printer-applet.desktop from /usr/share/autostart and rebooting they were still in the systray.

Did you close the applets before rebooting? If you use session restoration it'll likely restore these applets if you have them running when logging out (even if you remove the autostart files)