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I'm running Cinnamon on a Devuan GNU/Linux 3 (Beowulf) machine - which is essentially the same as Debian 10 (Buster).

My distribution uses the wicd daemon for network connection management; and I have an applet on my panel. But - an applet for NetworkManager is also present, even though I don't need it. I tried to get rid of it, but couldn't figure out how. Haven't found where its presence is configured, and it also doesn't seem to be its own separate process which I could avoid having run.

What can I do to get rid of the applet?

enter image description here
Don't want: NetworkManager, The applet to the right of the "US".
Want to keep: wicd, The applet to the left of the clock.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Solutions as presented by Archwiki - this is a mere recitation.

In short the nm-applet package cannot be removed as it is essential part of cinnamon but you can suppress loading it by creating a custom cinnamon configuration.

cp /etc/xdg/autostart/nm-applet.desktop ~/.config/autostart/nm-applet.desktop

And append the line

X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false

Alternatively block it by overriding the command itself:

ln -s /bin/true /usr/local/bin/nm-applet

Notably usr/local/bin of course must precede the standard location of nm-applet in the PATH in this case.

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  • The link suggestion depends on your path seeing /usr/local/bin before the actual applet executable and might be prone to error. Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 15:05
  • I agree, but it should be common practice to put local and user-defined settings so that they override global/system-wide/default settings. Otherwise the whole idea of adjusting systems to user preferences and local needs would be corrupted. Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 15:17
  • Hidden=true also works. Commented Oct 12, 2023 at 20:45
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Why don't you just disable the network-manager service if you rely on wicd, and simply disable the autostart of nm-applet with:

$ sudo systemctl disable network-manager.service $ sudo echo "Hidden=true" >> /etc/xdg/autostart/nm-applet.desktop

You can also check your autostart configuration for .desktop files with dex in dry mode (you may need to sudo apt install dex first)

$ dex -ad ... Executing command: gsettings-data-convert Executing command: light-locker --late-locking Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-a11y-settings Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-color Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-datetime Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-disk-utility/gsd-disk-utility-notify Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-housekeeping Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-keyboard Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-media-keys Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-power Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-print-notifications Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-rfkill Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-screensaver-proxy Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-sharing Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-smartcard Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-sound Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-wacom Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-wwan Executing command: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gsd-xsettings ...

Unless you are proficient in configuring your wifi connection - including edits to the wpa_supplicant.conf for key-mgmt - from the terminal, you should definitely not mess with the network-manager's GUI wrapper nm-applet executable itself in /usr , because if for some reason your installation of wicd happens to break (user-error, accidentally, bug in an update etc.) you will still have all of your network-manager package files, including nm-applet GUI as a fallback, allowing you to apt update && apt [install/upgrade/full-upgrade]

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  • The service is disabled. I'll try your suggestion regarding the use of Hidden. Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 14:22
  • One other important point: while systemctl disable network-manager.service disables the service (removes its symlinks hence no automatic start at boot) it does not prevent the network-manager.service from being reactivated either manually or by some system process with appropriate permissions. If you rely on wicd completely, you may want to systemctl mask network-manager.service instead which both disables and hides the service preventing any type of start while it is masked. Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 20:08
  • systemctl? Is that a systemd thing? I don't use that abomination, thank you very much - and neither should you! :-) Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 20:10
  • Sorry, I'm confused now because you stated that your system is essentially a Debian 10 in the first post. What is your service manager then if you do not use systemd Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 20:18
  • Devuan is Debian without systemd. You can use sysvinit, openrc and maybe upstart. Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 20:54

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