Monday, November 2, 2009 at 1:44 am

Ubuntu: Autostart for Empathy IM Client

So Empathy is the new default IM client in Ubuntu Karmic. I personally like the tight integration of IM and my online status in the Gnome desktop. It’s just strange, that it does not automatically start when I log in or at least offer me a convenient way to make it so. So here’s a clean way to fix this:

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/empathy.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart
sudo chmod a+r /etc/xdg/autostart/empathy.desktop

Now you have an item for Empathy in “System – Preferences – Startup Applications” to en- or disable. I then also added the “-h” switch to the command to hide the contact list when it starts.

empathy

Edit: added sudo to command line to prevent confusion like this ;)

Edit2: added the chmod line as suggested by Steve-o in the comments, thanks!

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The entry 'Ubuntu: Autostart for Empathy IM Client' was posted on November 2nd, 2009 at 1:44 am and last modified on December 13th, 2009 at 6:02 am, and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “Ubuntu: Autostart for Empathy IM Client”

  1. David writes:
    No. 1 — November 12th, 2009 at 1:39 am

    Thanks for that! Useful information.

  2. Mercutio22 writes:
    No. 2 — November 25th, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    Thanks!

  3. Steve-o writes:
    No. 3 — December 11th, 2009 at 7:25 am

    I also had to update the permissions for anyone read,

    sudo chmod a+r /etc/xdg/autostart/empathy.desktop

  4. Forrest writes:
    No. 4 — December 29th, 2009 at 12:11 am

    Thanks, this was just what I was looking for!

  5. Darkbyte writes:
    No. 5 — March 10th, 2010 at 3:45 pm

    Nobody sees the big ADD button in the right ???
    Maybe easy ???

  6. Florian writes:
    No. 6 — March 10th, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    Sure, we see it; and it would work by just adding a new application entry with “empathy” as command as well.

    However, since Ubuntu actually HAS a .application for empathy with descriptions in x languages and a nice icon and what not… why not use it? and why isn’t it in the list in the first place?

    That is one small but significant detail Canonical has to take more care about when they want average users to adopt Linux on their desktops.

  7. M. Hogerheijde writes:
    No. 7 — April 14th, 2010 at 9:31 am

    I would suggest linking to the .desktop files. That way, when an upgrade changes the /usr/share/applications/*.deskop file (for example new translations are added or something) the /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop file changes automatically!

    Also when programs are uninstalled, the link will become invalid. Don’t know if the startup manager picks up on this, but still.

  8. Raoul Bhatia writes:
    No. 8 — June 5th, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    thanks! :)

  9. Brandon writes:
    No. 9 — August 21st, 2010 at 8:48 pm

    I’m completely new to Linux and this worked great except can someone inform me what an ‘”-h” switch’ is/or how I would use it in this context (so I can hide the contact list but still sign in).

    Thanks

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