Ubuntu – How to remove Wine program entries from the menu

You can use the following command to list application icons that link to nonexistent programs:

for i in {/usr,~/.local}/share/applications/*.desktop; do which $(grep -Poh '(?<=Exec=).*?( |$)' $i) > /dev/null || echo $i; done

I suspect you'll find that most of yours are customized icons in your home folder, since these are not automatically cleaned up by the package manager. If this is the case and you'd like to trash them all at once, you can use a modification of the previous command:

for i in ~/.local/share/applications/*.desktop; do which $(grep -Poh '(?<=Exec=).*?( |$)' $i) > /dev/null || trash $i; done

Or, of course, browse to ~/.local/share/applications/ in Nautilus and trash them via the graphical interface.

I wasn't satisfied with the answers so I compared the 11.10 Unity-2D source with earlier versions. It can be done. Here's how to do it:

(for 11.04/11.10)

gksudo gedit /usr/share/unity-2d/launcher/Launcher.qml

(for 12.04)

gksudo gedit /usr/share/unity-2d/shell/launcher/Launcher.qml

Scroll down until you find the following section:

    Component.onCompleted: {
        items.appendModel(bfbModel);
        items.appendModel(applications);
        items.appendModel(workspaces);
        items.appendModel(devices);
        shelfItems.appendModel(trashes);
    }

items.appendModel(bfbModel); is the offending line of code. Remove this line (or comment it out). Save your changes and close the file.

Restart Unity-2D with:

killall unity-2d-launcher

(12.04)

killall unity-2d-shell

Let's hope someone adds a way to toggle this feature in the upcoming Unity settings manager. Cheers!