Help, my icons disappear!

This is a common problem when enabling the advanced desktop. Following the instructions from other sites (laptopmag, downloadsquad, etc.) seems to be the main reason. If you carefully read the wiki page Enable Advanced Desktop Mode, you will have all the information you need.

There is a bug in the script that Asus supplied with the EeePC. In attempting to back up your desktop, they deleted it.

The backup of the desktop is intended to copy your desktop (/home/user/Desktop) to /home/user/.Desktop (a hidden folder), and that in turn is backed up to /home/user/.Desktop.bak.

So if you have recently lost your shortcuts, they may be still in one of these two folders. Either use the terminal (cd /home/user/.Desktop) or open the file manager and show the address bar or show hidden files.

Follow the instructions on the Enable Advanced Desktop Mode page for enabling the community repository

You should FIRST BACK UP YOUR FILE.

Edit /usr/bin/startsimple.sh (from terminal: sudo kwrite /usr/bin/startsimple.sh)

Find this section (about halfway down):

else 
    sudo /usr/bin/sessreg -a -l :0.0 -u /var/run/utmp user 
    if [ -d /home/user/Desktop ]; then # if the desktop exists
        if [ -d /home/user/.Desktop.bak ]; then # if there's a backup desktop
        rm -rf /home/user/.Desktop.bak # delete the backup
        fi
        if [ -d /home/user/.Desktop ]; then # if the hidden desktop directory exists
        mv /home/user/.Desktop /home/user/.Desktop.bak # back it up
        fi
        mv /home/user/Desktop /home/user/.Desktop # remove the desktop to the hidden desktop directory
    fi # this simply has the effect of killing your desktop, since the restore doesn't work. This whole section can be removed, starting from if [ -d /home ...
    if [ -f /home/user/.easysession ]; then
     # we are switching from full to easy mode
     for i in /sys/block/s[dr]?/uevent ; do # for each drive (sda, sdb, etc)
         sudo /bin/sh -c "echo add > $i" # ???
     done
    fi   

The comments (portions on each line after # ) won't be in there, but they indicate what can be removed. You should FIRST BACK UP YOUR FILE, then only comment out the lines you want to remove.

The result should look like:

else 
    sudo /usr/bin/sessreg -a -l :0.0 -u /var/run/utmp user 
#    if [ -d /home/user/Desktop ]; then 
#        if [ -d /home/user/.Desktop.bak ]; then
#        rm -rf /home/user/.Desktop.bak 
#        fi
#        if [ -d /home/user/.Desktop ]; then 
#        mv /home/user/.Desktop /home/user/.Desktop.bak 
#        fi
#       mv /home/user/Desktop /home/user/.Desktop 
#    fi 
    if [ -f /home/user/.easysession ]; then
     # we are switching from full to easy mode
     for i in /sys/block/s[dr]?/uevent ; do # for each drive (sda, sdb, etc)
         sudo /bin/sh -c "echo add > $i" # ???
     done
    fi   

Remember, this is only a portion of the file, so the above simply illustrates the changed part, not the entire file.

Save your work.

Reboot.

ALTERNATIVELY you can change the command identified as the source of the problem above from

mv /home/user/Desktop /home/user/.Desktop 

to

cp /home/user/Desktop /home/user/.Desktop 

Remember you'll need admin permissions to change this file (open a console and run: kdesu kate).

You can search the forum for MANY threads on this topic.