[GTALUG] Heads up: Ubuntu 21.10 kills your desktop icons

[Stewart C. Russell]

GNOME have finally made good on their threat to remove all support for 
icons on the Desktop. Any files in ~/Desktop no longer produce icons on 
the screen. The GNOME Shell plugin that was the last thing that allowed 
it is no longer supported. GNOME Shell itself seems broken: what was the 
Shell Preferences browser page now bring up a 404 page from gitlab.

As someone who needs constant visual reminders of what he needs to be 
doing, this is a huge blow for me. Desktop icons are a kind of todo list 
for me. My own actual real desktop seldom has flat space on it*: right 
now it's relatively clear, with only 7 different MicroPython development 
boards on it. But in real and virtual life, my desktop is my work in 
progress. I guess GNOME's telling me my work's done now?

I'm not even sure if there are other desktops for Ubuntu any more that 
aren't KDE.

cheers,

  Stewart

*: a real picture from a month ago: 
https://twitter.com/scruss/status/1439765045257383940