How to control programs run at startup?

Question

I have wicd, hplib and psensor installed. But they all always a run at startup in KDE environment. How can I stop them running at startup?

Solution 1

KDE provides a wonderful tool in systemsettings ("Startup and Shutdown" -> "Autostart") for managing your personal autostart services (in either of the .kde directories) however it doesn't cover systemwide autostart scripts provided by your distribution packages, or created by the gnome apps.

Sometimes however it can be useful to override your distribution autostart preferences, for example I don't like having the printer-applet running as I don't own a printer, but it seems a shame to uninstall it in case I need it.

The correct way to disable a package installed is actually to copy it to your personal autostart folder. Anything of the same name in ~/.kde/share/autostart and/or /usr/share/autostart/ (also can be ~/.kde4/Autostart) overrides the .desktop file in the default installations. Once we have copied the .desktop file we can make changes. Add the following line to the .desktop file you have just copied:

Hidden=true 

KDE also restores your session when you log in, so if psensor is running when you log out, it will be started up again when you log in. To change that, just close psensor (i.e. actually quit the program, don't just close the window). If psensor is not running when you log out, it should not start up again when you log back in.

Solution 2

I found this useful, taken from David Edmundson's blog:

~/.kde/Autostart
~/.kde/share/autostart
~/.config/autostart
~/.local/share/autostart
/etc/xdg/autostart
/usr/share/autostart

I don't really know why we have so many... Anything inside the /usr/ or /etc folder will have been installed by your distribution.

Comments

[Ruslan Gerasimov]

Did you check systemsettings -> startup & shutdown -> autostart ? What version of Ubuntu do you use?

[user69453]

There's no link for these apps in autostart.

[RCF]

There is an autostart module in Kubuntu (KDE), I believe the startup applications and programs should be added/removed from startup via the "advanced" tab in that module. The system settings in Kubuntu should be called KDE control center.

[KernelPanic]

Ok, but I am using Kubuntu 15.04 and I cannot get rid of skype autostart at boot since there is not skype app to disable in in Autostart options. How do I remove skype startup from terminal?

[Ruslan Gerasimov]

@MarkoFrelih Did you check in Skype->Options->General that Start Skype Minimised in system tray is unticked?

[Mr.WorshipMe]

Can't find .desktop file... @KernelPanic did you find out how to stop Skype from running at startup?

[KernelPanic]

@Mr.WorshipMe nope sorry.

[HighCommander4]

I found I had to put the entry into ~/.config/autostart. Putting it into ~/.kde/Autostart or ~/.kde/share/autostart had no effect.

[Joe]

Since KDE 5.x, this stuff lives in ~/.config/autostart/. You can also put your own scripts in ~/.config/autostart-scripts/. See also: docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/kde-workspace/kcontrol/autostart