SUMMARY Please allow overriding an autostart program's command by creating a user-owned copy of the desktop file if the original desktop file is not writable by the user. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Add slack as a program to autostart 2. Modify the command to add the -u switch to start slack minimized in systray 3. Try saving the program dialog OBSERVED RESULT Alert box saying "Cannot save properties. Insufficient permissions to save /home/<user>/.config/autostart/slack.desktop." (backtranslated from Polish). EXPECTED RESULT It should just work. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux 5.3.8-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT x86_64 GNU/Linux Operating System: Arch Linux KDE Plasma Version: 5.17.2 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.64.0 Qt Version: 5.13.2 Kernel Version: 5.3.8-arch1-1 OS Type: 64-bit Processors: 8 × AMD FX(tm)-8320 Eight-Core Processor Memory: 15,6 GiB ADDITIONAL INFORMATION The error message refers to the location of the symlink. You cannot "save" a symlink, and attempt to save its target obviously hits insufficient permissions as the file is actually /usr/share/applications/slack.desktop and is owned by root.
To clarify the first sentence: I want the creation of user-owned copy to be performed automatically by systemsettings. It is of course possible to do that manually, but it shouldn't be necessary.
Works for me. Can you verify the permissions of ~/.config/autostart/slack.desktop Does that file exist and is it writable by your user? And are you running System Settings as your own user?
At this time I have a copy of the .desktop file in autostart, and I can freely modify the command using systemsettings autostart page. I may have simply copied it there in the meantime. But I distinctly remember that the file was originally a symlink to /usr/share/applications/slack.desktop, which is probably how Slack installs it when you configure autostart in Slack's options. And in THAT case the behavior was wrong. Systemsettings was unable to detect the "this file is a symlink to a file I don't own" condition. It should be able to do so, and create a "copy-on-write" of the unwritable file, replacing the symlink. The whole operation should be entirely transparent to the user who may not be a symlink-savvy technical person.
Thanks, confirmed. The bug is probably somewhere in here: https://cgit.kde.org/plasma-desktop.git/tree/kcms/autostart/autostart.cpp#n274