I have an icon in the top left of the KDE desktop, a scanner with the name "dynamic_dev_usb_scanner0". I drag it to the bottom right next to one that is also a scanner named "scan dox", and I change it's name to "scan pix" (to match the other one). I found the properties in /usr/share/apps/...esktop/Desktop/dynamic_dev_usb_scanner0.desktop. When I reboot, the icon has gone back to the top left and reverted its name to "dynamic_dev_usb_scanner0" again.
How do I make my changes permanent?

"How do I make my changes permanent?"

Ignore /usr/share/apps/...esktop/Desktop/dynamic_dev_usb_scanner0.desktop.

Instead right click on the icon, click on properties, and edit the properties.

Thanks, but that doesn't work. First of all the scanner icon is on a non-root desktop. Initially it starts life as "Xsane /dev/usb/scanner0". When you right click on it to change properties I can change its name, but I can't save the change because of permissions. Now figuring there's a valid reason for the permissions being the way they are, I opened a konsole as root, tracked down where the file was, edited the "name", and all was OK. That is until I rebooted and the icon moved back to the top left, and changed its name as I originally described. PS this is Mandrake 9.1

" First of all the scanner icon is on a non-root desktop."

Try this:
write down all of the properties of the errant icon
Log into user.
right click on a blank place on the desktop.
Create a new link to application using all of the properties you wrote down, except you may have to give the new icon a different name.
log out of user
log into user and play around with the new icon.
If it works OK then log into root and delete the errant icon.


You might have to change the permissions of your scanner device to allow user access to the scanner.

Hello, - almost there! I did as you suggested and my version of the icon stays where I put it & behaves AOK. *BUT* the other icon cannot be deleted. As a "user" I don't have permission from the desktop right-click. I delete it from the directory:
"/usr/share/apps/kdesktop/Desktop" where it is named:
"dynamic_dev_usb_scanner0.desktop" (and when I exit konsole as root) it's still there on my user desktop. I reboot, and it's back on both the user desktop *and* back in the /usr/share/apps.... directory. Obviously I don't want 2 icons.........
BTW the rest of that directory is currently empty (bar "." & ".." and the rogue "scanner" file)

"the other icon cannot be deleted."

I can only guess at how to get rid of it. So two guesses are:

1. As root delete the entire directory.

2. As root set the permissions of both the directory and the file to 777. Then log in as user and try to delete the icon with right-click.

Success with your guess number #1. I reasoned that since when I delete the thing it gets recreated when I reboot, that if the the directory didn't exist there'd be a fair chance the recreation would fail. What did surprise me was that I saw no error message as the system restarted. Thanks for the help.