Background image can no longer be set independently of org.gnome.background show-desktop-icons=true

Gnome-panel does not draw desktop icons, it is done by Nautilus.

I see you have some third-party PPAs enabled, do you use the Ubuntu package of Nautilus or a PPA one?

Must be the Ubuntu package, right?

# apt-cache showpkg nautilus
Package: nautilus
Versions:
1:3.10.1-0ubuntu9.3 (/var/lib/apt/lists/at.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_trusty-updates_main_binary-amd64_Packages) (/var/lib/dpkg/status)

Ok, I understand what's going on here:

- Starting nautilus via nautilus-classic.desktop doesn't work because it has
   OnlyShowIn=GNOME;

- Starting nautilus via XDG autostart file doesn't work because it has
   AutostartCondition=GSettings org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons

But I am afraid that I can't fix the issue properly in Trusty/Utopic (without introducing regressions), and in Vivid we will be (likely) using gnome-flashback to draw the desktop, instead of nautilus.

As a workaround, open /etc/xdg/autostart/nautilus-autostart.desktop and remove the whole AutostartCondition line.

Ubuntu is patching desktop drawing back to nautilus. Probably that patch needs to be extended now...

I think that nautilus used to sit down in background process even if it was not drawing background and/or desktop icons. Now nautilus will close desktop background window when show-desktop-icons will be set to false. At least this is how it is working with 3.14.

Why do you want to disable desktop icons? Leave it enabled and make sure that home-icon-visible, network-icon-visible, trash-cion-visible and volumes-visible are disabled under org.gnome.nautilus.desktop. That way desktop window won't be closed and there will be no icons on desktop. Of course if you have not added any extra icons on desktop.

@dimitry hmm, removing AutostartCondition didn't change a thing. However, it definitely worked fine until i upgraded a few days ago. Will probably go for Alberts dirty solution if you can't fix it.

> Why do you want to disable desktop icons?

@Alberts pointing the desktop to an empty directory feels quite dirty as a fix imho ;-)
I don't really need a desktop but for a nice background image (transparent terminal)

Thanks for your concern guys!

How it is dirty?

1. Keep show-desktop-icons enabled.
2. Make sure home, trash, network and volume icon showing are disabled.
3. Don't store file is ~/Destkop direcotry.

You have background image, no icons on desktop.

> How it is dirty?

There's an empty directory in my home just for the purpose of not showing icons on the desktop, in my book that's not a clean solution. But i can live with that (Pointed XDG_DESKTOP_DIR in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs to an empty, hidden directory now)

I checked again, and according to (Ubuntu's patched) Nautilus code it either draws both background and icons, or nothing. So it is definitely a bug in Nautilus package.