How to Create Desktop App Launchers in Linux

If you happen to belong to the category of users who prefer to make the desktop a quick access launch point for applications, you’re in luck. Most of the popular Linux desktops allow you to create application launchers on the desktop. With these in place, you have even faster access to opening your favorite apps.

Let’s find out how to add desktop application launchers in three of the most popular Linux desktops: GNOME, KDE Plasma, and Cinnamon. Of these three, only one desktop offers the slightest challenge to making this happen.

We start out with one of the more complicated desktops for this purpose. Although it used to be quite easy to add a desktop application launcher in GNOME, it is now a bit more cumbersome (although not terribly challenging). Fortunately, you no longer have to manually create a launcher using a text editor (which could easily scare off some new-to-GNOME users).

Before we actually create a launcher, the first thing to do is to install the GNOME extension Desktop Icons. To do this, follow these steps:

Next, you need to install the GNOME Tweak Tool and enable the Desktop Icons extension. To do that follow these steps:

Now it’s time to add the launcher. Let’s add a launcher for the Firefox web browser. To do that, follow these steps:

The KDE Plasma desktop makes this process significantly easier. How much easier? Let’s find out. From the KDE Plasma environment, follow these steps to add a launcher to the desktop (we’ll demonstrate adding Firefox):

The Cinnamon desktop takes a similar approach to that of KDE Plasma. With a few quick clicks, you can add a launcher to your desktop. Here’s how (again, we’ll demonstrate with the Firefox web browser):

Fortunately, removing launchers from the desktop is the same on all three environments. To do this, simply right-click the launcher to be removed and select Move to Trash.

If you’re looking for a way to make the Linux desktop as efficient as the environment you migrated from, adding application launchers to the desktop is a great way to make this happen. If you’re one of those who prefers a desktop littered with launchers, you can add them as needed, so your Linux desktop works in a way that suits your style.