Hi all
I was installing the driver for my printer and my pc crashed. I had downloaded the file to my desktop and was executing the sh ****.run from there and it crashed.

no dramas I thought, I restarted mandriva, but my desktop is littered with files from the build. I have since done a successful driver install, but my desktop is a war zone. Is there any easy way to clear my desktop of these files? or do I delete them one by one?


[moved from Hardware by spinynorman]

As far as I know you will have to do it one at a time.The usual trick of holding down Ctrl and selecting all the items to be deleted by clicking on them and finally right clicking on one of them to get the menu to select delete WILL NOT WORK. It will only delete the one you right clicked on.

So yes you have to do each one in turn. A real pain in the **** (bottom, rear, buttocks, posterior, derrière, aft end, etc.).

Cheers. John.

Works for me, either hold CTRL and select, or lasso select, whatever, then right click/select delete, deletes how ever many you had selected. (or selection, then shift+delete)

If you are using kde you can open the desktop folder to remove all the unwanted bits. If you have only a few icons you want to keep select them and then in the edit menu invert selection. Better than clicking on a lot of others one at a time.

If there's nothing else you want, you could always do a ctrl-a and delete the lot.

Or do ctrl-a and then unselect the ones you actually want to keep if they're in the minority.


Or open the command line

Hello Aphelion.

What do you mean by lasso effect ???.

I just did a retry by putting 6 pics on the desktop and found that if I selected all the Pics the right clicked on one of them that only the one I right clicked on was deleted,.......HOWEVER if instead of clicking on the Last one to complete the selection, I right clicked on it and selected Delete then it deleted all of them and not just the last one.

It seems the first routine works in Konqueror. But on the desktop you need the second routine.

SilverSurfers idea is by far the best one so you can use Konqueror and its edit menu.
It is so obvious that I had even forgotten it.

Cheers. John.

How about sorting by date? Might make it easier to find all the bits and pieces.

Lasso, you know, left click and drag around the files you want to select multiple files.

For me It doesn't matter which file I right click on, I can click on any of the selected files, select delete and they will all be deleted, I can't imagine it being any other way, it seems strange to me that it would be any other way.

Thanks for that. I didn't know of that technique. I tried and it works as you said. Another handy hint for my Notebook. (a real one, not a digital one )

Cheers. John.

I stupidly accidentally deleted my Home icon as well.

Cheers. John.

Ok thanks guys. I'll have to get on it.

As for this:



Nice to know this kinda thing happens to experienced users. Sorry John, but that is funny.

Thanks to FFI , I was able to fix it easily and quickly.

Cheers. John.