Linux Mint – How to Start Desktop Launcher from Command Line

desktoplinux-mintterminal

Can I start a desktop launcher from command line? E.g. I have a desktop launcher for slack in my ~/Desktop directory:

vadim@my-pc ~/Desktop $ cat slack.desktop 
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Slack
Comment=Slack Desktop
GenericName=Slack Client for Linux
Exec=/usr/bin/slack --proxy-server="10.1.50.8:8080"
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/slack.png
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Network;InstantMessaging;
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/slack;
Name[en_US]=slack

In the Exec parameter I can specify various options to start application with, for instance proxy server. I find it convenient to specify proxy exactly in the parameters of desktop launcher.

Now I'd like to be able to start slack from command line using all start options from the desktop launcher. I know I can create a shell script file and specify in it all start options I want and run this file both from desktop launcher and from command line, but is there a way to just run slack.desktop file from command line?

Best Answer

You can use a tool like xdg-open (Broken currently), kde-open, gnome-open, gtk-launch or the equivalent for your desktop-environment. (xdg-open seems to be supposed to be the universal one...)

(It seems like just about everything other than gtk-launch (more similar tools might exist for other toolkits) suffers from the same bug as xdg-open - it opens the .desktop file in an editor instead of running it)

Packages: (Exact name will differ betweem distros) (this is based on CentOS 7)

  • gtk3 for gtk-launch
  • xdg-utils for xdg-open
  • kde-runtime for kde-open
  • libgnome for gnome-open
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