Ubuntu – Don’t have desktop icons lock to grid

I found a solution on the Ubuntu forums (it's a link from the link Michael Barlach provided).

• First run this in a terminal:

  sudo chattr +i ~/.config/xfce4/desktop/icons*
  

• This will lock your icon placement, so that when the desktop is resized, your icons technically remain in the same place.

• When your desktop gets resized, press F5 to reload it.
• Optionally, you can create a launcher on the panel with this command: xfdesktop --reload which will reload the desktop.

If you need to reverse the lock on your icon placement run:

sudo chattr -i ~/.config/xfce4/desktop/icons*

Since some previous versions of Ubuntu..

Desktop Icons are handled by desktop-icons gnome-shell extension.

you can achieve the sizes and spacing you mentioned in Question by editing the extensions prefs.js file. Take backup of the file before editing.

the extensions directory is /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/desktop-icons@csoriano

Original Content:

const ICON_SIZE = { 'small': 48, 'standard': 64, 'large': 96 };
const ICON_WIDTH = { 'small': 108, 'standard': 116, 'large': 116 };
const ICON_HEIGHT = { 'small': 86, 'standard': 102, 'large': 134 };

Edited Content:

const ICON_SIZE = { 'small': 48, 'standard': 64, 'large': 96 };
const ICON_WIDTH = { 'small': 52, 'standard': 116, 'large': 116 };
const ICON_HEIGHT = { 'small': 60, 'standard': 102, 'large': 134 };

I Have Configured the sizes for 'small', you can achieve with other sizes 'standard' and 'large' also.

Above method requires root privileges.. If you need to make changes locally..

Disable the system extension desktop-icons.

gnome-extensions disable desktop-icons@csoriano

create the local extensions directory.

install -d $HOME/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions

Copy the system extension desktop-icons to local extensions directory and rename it as desktop-icons@csoriano-local

cp -r /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/desktop-icons@csoriano $HOME/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/desktop-icons@csoriano-local

Edit the metadata.json file of the local extension like below contents. Observe that "local" is the main change

{ we need to edit the metadata.json file because extensions directory name and the UUID field in the metadata.json file must match }

gedit $HOME/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/desktop-icons@csoriano-local/metadata.json

Already Edited Content:

{
    "name": "Desktop Icons-local",
    "description": "Add icons to the desktop",
    "uuid": "desktop-icons@csoriano-local",
    "shell-version": ["3.34.0"]
}

Enable the local extension with below command

gnome-extensions enable desktop-icons@csoriano-local

Refresh the gnome-shell with Alt+F2 'r' Enter method.

Make sure you never turn on both the extensions desktop-icons@csoriano (System Extension) and desktop-icons@csoriano-local (Local Extension)