HOW TO: Replace the GNOME menu bar foot icon (the RIGHT way)

There are lots of (mostly Linux) how-tos out there about how to do this which instruct you to replace ${LOCALBASE}/share/icons/gnome/24x24/places/distributor-logo.png. This, of course requires root access and will make pkg_delete complain about checksums. Oh... and you will have to redo it after every upgrade. On multiuser systems, people might also complain if they don't approve of your new system wide selection.

Then there is the gconf-editor method that you can do as a user, which requires you to check /apps/panel/objects/menu_bar/use_custom_icon and set /apps/panel/objects/menu_bar/custom_icon to the full path of the icon you want. This method just happens to not work at all.

So, here you go. The fast way. The easy way. The right way.

$ mkdir -p ~/.icons/gnome/24x24/places/
$ mv ${YOUR_24X24_ICON}.png ~/.icons/gnome/24x24/places/start-here.png

That's it. Done. Just stick an icon under your home directory.

You might want to restart gnome-panel (`pkill gnome-panel`) or log out and back in for it to take effect.

Also, since some of you are FreeBSD fan boys like me, here's a ready made icon that you can use to test this out for yourself.

http://people.FreeBSD.org/~jsa/share/start-here.png

Remember, if it seems like there should probably be an easier way to do something, there probably is. Enjoy!

Works great!, thank you.

Fantastic!!!

Worked perfectly for me on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.
:e

Worked perfectly for me on Plan9.

good,works great!, thank you.