Hi everyone, I wanted to know why if I change the icons at every reboot the icons return to the system ones.
Thank you
Thread moved to General Help as this is about icons, but not about customizing a system that is good repair - it is about seeking a solution to the desktop behaving in an unintended away.
1 Like
Welcome to the forum!
By "change the icons" what exactly do you mean? Are you specifically changing just a couple icons on the desktop to something else? Or are you changing the entire icon set to something different? Or something other than those two options?
in zorin appearance, theme, other, icons, I select a set of icons downloaded and inserted into the /home/local/share/icons folder, when I restart the PC, everything goes back to how it was before the change.
a long shot. Try put the icons in ~/.icons instead.
1 Like
Just curious as someone new to this system, what is the difference between ~/.icons and ~/.local/share/icons? Also, is it considered bad practice to install themes at a global level?
I could be wrong, but I believe ~/.icons is mostly for backwards compatibility compared to ~/.local/share/icons. But I could be wrong on that front. As for global vs local, I don't think it's bad practice to do either, it's strictly what you want set on the system. Maybe you don't want your kids to have your Doom Man kills Demons icon set, but they (multiple, perhaps) can have their Playtime Kitty sets, and instead of installing the icon set multiple times, you can do it once.
I literally couldn't think of any better example than either Doom or Hello Kitty, something's wrong with my brain this morning.
2 Likes
Thank you for the explanation. I was wondering if ~/.icons was higher up in the search order. As for Doom vs. Hello Kitty, that clears it up - I don't have kids so I don't think that would have crossed my mind.
I notice some inconsistencies when using a Zorin accent color theme with different icons. The behavior seems to expect that if you choose an icon set on other, you must also choose a theme from other. @animal77 what theme do you have above Icons, the Applications one?
I left the default one, but the problem recurs even if I use a modified theme.
I followed the guide in Zorin Appearance
in any case, I'm trying with a new installation of the system, considering that I use the PC to learn the Linux world with a simple approach, but sometimes I'm afraid of upsetting everything, so I prefer to do a new installation.
Very interesting. Does this affect all icons, or just certain ones?
When your computer starts and the icons are wrong, you can reset them by choosing your icon theme again?
I hope you update the topic with results if the reinstall solves it.
all the icons, in any case as soon as the restored PC starts I try to create the .icons folder.
Question, should I create it in /home/.icons or in another path?
in any case I will keep the topic updated.
Yes, that would be the correct location.
1 Like
If the /home/.local/share/icons/ Path not works, you could try it with that, yes. AnotherOption would be to use the usr Path: /usr/share/icons/
There is the whole Zorin Icon Stuff put in.
1 Like
You are not wrong, the Icon Theme Specification states that $HOME/.icons is there for backwards compatibility, but it doesn't specifically say that $HOME/.local/share/icons should be used. Instead, it's left up to the distribution to decide which locations should be used.
For reference, Zorin OS does not include $HOME/.local/share inside the default location of the variable XDG_DATA_DIRS which is why often times including icons in this location doesn't work (I've learned that the through trial and error myself), but using /usr/share/icons will.
As a workaround to the issue at hand, I would suggest installing Gnome Tweaks and updating the icons from there. That was the previous solution to this before Zorin Appearance had this option as well, but since this was just introduced it may still have a few rough edges.
3 Likes
I did a new installation, created the .icons and .themes folders. I changed it to zorin appearance and when I restarted the icons remained.
I also tried with tweak, but in that case the icons changed in a few seconds, returning to the default ones.
But now I would like to understand why by changing the icons I am deprived of the possibility of having the automatic light/dark theme change
Many distros do not by default. However, user creating ~/.icons or ~/.themes create this reference. It really should work, every time.
If it does not work - that is a bug that needs troubleshooting.
Themes / icons placed in root - /usr/share/icons /usr/share/themes apply system-wide.
Themes / icons placed in Home directory ~/icons ~/.themes apply to the user account containing the directory.
Both placed in Home are prioritized when that account is logged in. They get first priority; so placing them in the home directory or using a custom gtk.css in ~/.config/gtk... will be applied in preference over what is in /usr/share/...
@animal77 can you please relay which icon set you are using or downloaded? Icon sets tend to be very forgiving, so issues with them are rare... But maybe that particular set has something in its index that forces the system to revert to default.
That would be unusual but... clearly, that is not supposed to happen. I have used broken sets and still the icon theme did not reset itself.
1 Like
I'm using these icons WhiteSur icon theme - pling.com, but at the moment the icons remain, only the problem of the automatic theme change remains
That icon set is fully compatible and nothing about it should reset it to default.
Is that this?
Deprived in what way? Are the settings not present or are they grayed out but present or present and selectable but nothing happens? Or does it change, but revert?
Please provide as many details as you can, including any customizations that you did post-install.