Desktop Entry Requires "bash" in Exec Value

Question

I recently began messing with Desktop Entries in order to run some scripts at Gnome startup.

I've read through some freedesktop documentation, as well as this post on creating a startup script. I currently have a desktop entry working on startup, but it is not behaving in the way I was made to understand it should.

Some system info: this is CentOS7 running on VirtualBox in Windows

This is my desktop entry:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=fixres
GenericName=Resolution Fixer
Comment=Changes resolution to 1920x1080
Exec=bash /home/detroitwilly/scripts/fixres.sh
Terminal=false
Type=Application
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

The script being executed uses xrandr to add a new resolution mode and apply it to my virtual display.

Now, the first line in the script has the shebang #!/bin/bash. My understanding is that if the shebang is on the first line of the script, I shouldn't need to specify bash in the Exec= line of the desktop entry. Note that if I remove bash from the Exec= line, the application will not run.

I've also verified that /bin is in my $PATH variable, so I should automatically have access to bash.

Any ideas as to why i need to prepend the path to my script with bash?

Thanks!

I am confused, are these comments to the answer, bellow? (if so then it is better to attach them to the answer) or to a deleted comment? — ctrl-alt-delor, Jan 10 '19 at 20:06
@ctrl-alt-delor the answer below was submitted after the comments above were posted — detroitwilly, Jan 10 '19 at 20:31
So what are they commenting about, they make no sense without a context. It may be better to remove them. — ctrl-alt-delor, Jan 11 '19 at 07:46

Christopher · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-10T19:32:08.600

2

There are two portions required to execute a BASH script directly:

the shebang
the executable bit

The shebang should look as follows.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

(Using env is a best practice. It can also be written as the full path, e.g. #!/bin/bash.)

Then set the executable bit as follows.

chmod +x /home/detroitwilly/scripts/fixres.sh

edited Jan 10 '19 at 19:32

answered Jan 10 '19 at 19:27

Christopher

15,911

It may be better to do #!/bin/bash (pronounced “hash bash slash bin slash bash”) , as it is more stable, not prone to changes in users PATH variable. – ctrl-alt-delor Jan 10 '19 at 20:09
There are advantages and dis-advantages: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/29620/4778 – ctrl-alt-delor Jan 10 '19 at 20:13

Desktop Entry Requires "bash" in Exec Value

1 Answers1