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Description of problem: Nautilus is missing autostart file, which prevents it from actually showing desktop icons when dconf key is set. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 3.0.1.1-1.fc15 Steps to Reproduce: 1. gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons true Actual results: Desktop icons will not be shown. (Note that it does kind of work if you already have a file browser window open, but that shouldn't be expected). Expected results: Desktop icons should be shown when that dconf key is set. To fix: Store a nautilus.desktop in /etc/xdg/autostart/. The Exec line should be nautilus -n. You will probably also want to add a patch for https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=649063 which I believe won't be fixed until 3.1.1.
Jeremy: the patch will be in upstream 3.0.2, due in ~10 days. Nautilus should not ship any kind of autostart files. It's up to e.g. gnome-tweak-tool to install such a file in ~/.config/autostart (or up to the user, in case he wants to set the gsettigns key manually from a terminal or dconf-editor).
Well I disagree with the design then. Until Gnome 3, Gnome showed desktop icons; now a user will not only have to set the dconf key but also create an autostart file. I'll report this against gnome-tweak-tool I guess.
It also means that the desktop icons won't show until the user logs out and logs back in since nautilus -n is not able to monitor the gsettings key since it won't be running.
Yes, all of this is expected. Desktop icons are off by default, and there's no UI in GNOME3 to turn them on, except gnome-tweak-tool, for those who really want to turn them back on.