How can I run a favourited application with a runtime argument?

Question

I have installed GitHub Desktop for Ubuntu but unfortunately I need to run it with the argument --disable-gpu-sandbox for it to work. This is achievable from the command line but I'd like to simply click it from my favourites bar, how can I achieve this?

Answer 1

You should edit the .desktop launcher file. These text files are what provide the icon on your favorites bar.

1. Find that .desktop launcher first. Depending on how you installed the application, the .desktop file may reside in any of the applications directories under one of the XDG_DATA_DIRS. You can see the list with the command printenv XDG_DATA_DIRS. It will be under /usr/share/applications if you installed the program with the software center or using a downloaded .deb installation file.

   To find the launcher, using find may be quicker and more effective:

    find / -name '*.desktop' ! -path '/run/user*' -exec grep -H "Name=Github" {} \; 2>/dev/null
   

   In this example, I assumed the label of the icon is "Github desktop".

2. Assuming the file is /usr/share/applications/github.desktop, copy it to your local ~/.local/share/applications directory. That copy will override the systemwide copy. Edit that copy and add your option to the command that is defined on the line starting with Exec=.