Qubes 4.1 XFCE4: Menu entry modification

User Support
1

Hello,
I have an issue where disposable VMs are generating qubes menu entries that I do not want in the menu. Something is auto-populating them, I’ve tried removing them and chattr +i on a 0-size file, however the entries still continue to appear.

My disposable vm was changed in a recent update (in the image it contrasts with a renamed whonix-ws disposable vm, which hasn’t experienced the same modification). Basically it is creating an extra entry under the TemplateVMs with a “Template (disp): tag” and I would like to remove the entry, possibly by modifying the script that is creating it?

Here is an album to demonstrate what I mean:

qubes-menu-1
qubes-menu-1439×800 111 KB
qubes-menu-2
qubes-menu-2602×800 145 KB

I’ve tried deleting every entry in ~/.local/ that matches the text, to no avail… could someone please give me advice? I don’t want the out of order menu items.

Thank you,

2

Tried setting internal to 1 and it removes both entries…

I am getting frustrated trying to resolve this, I guess I am just removing the entire dvm structure and not using disposable vms this way for the time being. Really, one of the most useful features of Qubes and it is bugging out my nice ordered menu list in a way that is impossible to fix or revert as far as I can figure out.

If someone has any idea, please share, I feel like I am fighting my os and not getting anything done because it’s unordered and bothers my ocd into a rabbit hole every time I open the menu.

3

You can simply remove the menu with :

[51lieal@dom0 ~] rm ~/.config/menus/applications-merged/user-qubes-vm-directory-<qubes_name>.menu

in your case it should be :

[user@dom0 ~] rm ~/.config/menus/applications-merged/user-qubes-vm-directory-dvm-util.menu

For futher modification, read how it work first :

4

Tip: Uploaded the images to the forum so we don’t loose them. You can do so as well in the future :slight_smile:

1 Like
5

I’ve finally been able to see your album.
It would have been helpful if you could have described the issue.

The Menu entries you see are deliberate
Every disposable is based on a disposable template, usually a normal
Template based qube.
The Menus you see allow you to open an application in both the disposable
and the disposable template. You might want to do this if you want to
customise the disposable template, so that all those changes will be
reflected in disposables.
If there were not a separate menu entry, you would have to open the
template from the command line - this was the old position. The entries
you don’t like allow you to do this from the menu.

I hope that’s clear, and now you understand why the entries are
there, you will find them less offensive. (If you want to be able to
edit the menu you can find menu editors for Xfce, or KDE has one built
in.)

6

I understand the concept of the Template (disp) section and they contain the Qubes Settings, but with a large monitor, it strains the wrist to get to Disposable section. I liked the old menu better. If I ever needed to edit a template, I use the Qube Manager.

7

I find new entries useful, but if we’d have context menu entry “Applications” for each qube in Qube Manager, like we have for dom0 when on desktop, I’d probably never use any app menu.