Things on this page are fragmentary and immature notes/thoughts of the author. Please read with your own judgement!

Tips and Traps

1. Autostart *.desktop configuration files are located in directories /etc/xdg/autostart and ~/.config/autostart/ . By default, autostart applications in /etc/xdg/autostart are not shown to users in "Startup Applications Preferences" while autostart application in ~/.config/autostart are shown to users in "Startup Applications Preferences".

2. If you use multiple Linux desktop environments, you can customize desktop configuration files for different Linux desktop environments. Please refer to Desktop Entry Specification for details.

3. By default, a *.desktop file enables an application to autostart. There are 2 ways to disable autostart of the application.

   • Add a line X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false (or similarly for other Linux desktop environment) into the desktop file. This is the recommended way.
   • Remove the desktop file. This is not recommended, generally speaking.

4. If you want to disable an autostart application defined by a desktop file in /etc/xdg/autostart, you'd better make a copy of the desktop file into ~/.config/autostart and then disable it unless you want to disable it system-wide .

5. For a must-have autostart application (e.g., Dropbox), it might help to configure a delay to launch it so that your Linux machine can boot faster.

   X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=30
   

A List of Autostart Applications to Disable

• /etc/xdg/autostart/org.gnome.DejaDup.Monitor.desktop
• /etc/xdg/autostart/org.gnome.Evolution-alarm-notify.desktop
• /etc/xdg/autostart/org.kde.kdeconnect.daemon.desktop
• /etc/xdg/autostart/sogoupinyin.desktop
• /etc/xdg/autostart/sogoupinyin-watchdog.desktop
• /etc/xdg/autostart/ubuntu-report-on-upgrade.desktop
• /etc/xdg/autostart/update-notifier.desktop
• /home/dclong/.config/autostart/im-launch.desktop