Hi,

For some years I've been frustrated with this ugly icon on my desktop, on all os'es. I am not using it at all (and used very rarely before) and now that there are things like snapshots (time capsules) don't you think that ideologically it is obsolete?

It makes perfect sense for a DE to have it, along with all the other desktop and panel icons. One of the reasons I use a WM is I hate a screen cluttered with icons.

By the way. If you do not use the trash can icon, you can remove it from the display.

I remember when the Trash (or, on Windows, recycle) bin was created. It was done so that persons who delete stuff by accident would be able to retrieve it.

I don't use Trash myself. In Konqueror, which is my preferred file manager, I set Settings-->Configure Konqueor-->File Management to Show a delete option that bypasses the Trash Bin to yes.

Nevertheless, I think the presence of a Trash/Recycle Bin serves a purpose for many persons and would be hesitant to remove it as an option because anyone can get a case of WDB ("Wrong Darn Button").

Some DEs might give you an option to change the icon to something easier on your eyes.

1 members found this post helpful.

I can't live without the trashcan. I'm a real typer, so never look at the keys, and trust to muscle memory to get the correct key. More often than I like, I miss. I don't have a trash can on my desktop though (in fact, I have no icons on my desktop, ever), and put a trashcan widget on my panel (using KDE4 or 5). Works for me, quick access without moving windows, always available while small and unobtrusive.

Hi...

Not at all. I still find it very useful.

Regards...

I usually delete stuff via cli and I've learned to think twice before rm'ing anything.

Snapshots are fine, but don't serve the purpose of a trashcan. Imagine this scenario: You write a text, close the text editor, and right afterwards accidentally delete it by pressing the wrong key/button/whatever. With a trashcan in place you can simply retrieve it from there, reliably, every time something like this happens. Snapshots would only help if you create a new snapshot basically after every action.

Slightly different but I have known of people who store email in Outlook's deleted items folder -- when the servers were upgraded they all rang the helpdesk in horror that their email was deleted.
Like others I don't have icons on my desktop but I do understand why the trashcan is there even though I don't use it. I think the movement now is that nothing is ever deleted straight away but becomes marked as expired and if the space it takes up is needed the oldest data is removed first -- much like a TIVO? I don't know how far this has gone though but I know it's not mainstream yet.

It certainly seems to be on my systems -- I can't find it anywhere

I always delete rather than moving to Trash, but then since I do daily backups I can generally recover from accidents. As for icons on the desktop, who need them?
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/8290/1am8.png

I was thinking about this today.

It might be a good thing for desktops to provide an option to display or not display the trashcan desktop icon, even if they prefer not to disable the "trashcan" functionality altogether.

I do not like desktop icons and avoid them as much as possible, but that's a matter of taste. Maybe that's one reason I like Fluxbox so much.

I like the trash can concept (easily undelete), but I absolutely never drag anything to my desktop to drop it into a trash can.

I'm using Gnome Shell and there's no trash bin icon on the desktop. (Frankly, I wonder why there's a desktop at all?) There is, however, a trash icon available from my file manager. I use it all the time.

I actually wish I knew how to send things to the trash, easily, from the terminal, because I always end up making a Trash directory and just mv things into it, but that option obviously lacks a lot of functionality of most trash setups. And then, of course, I would also want to easily manipulate the trash from the terminal, because feature creep.

As for snapshots, I'm not sure if they replace the trash can. I think there's some trade offs to be made with either direction taken. We're using computers to get things done, and tools like rm, the trash can, fs snapshots and so on are tools to help, and none of them need to obsolete each other.

https://github.com/PhrozenByte/rmtrash

For me it's outdated, I use the rm command from a terminal or if I'm at a file manager and it has the option to delete as well as move to trash, I choose delete.

But I don't know if it's applicable for other users who are just users and sometimes oops stuff.