Plasma – How to remove the cashew

One of the major complaints of Plasma is that you can’t remove the annoying icon from your panels or desktop. Oh yes, I’m talking about the infamous Cashew of Plasma.

Before

This is a small guide on how to get rid of the cashews. You probably need version 4.1 of KDE or higher and know a little bit about how to use the terminal.

Panel Cashew

The cashew here let’s you configure the panel by clicking on. If you feel that you’re satisfied with your setup and don’t need the cashew anymore, you can hide it be choosing “Lock Widgets”. This option can be found in many places, such as the right click menu, when you configure the panel or by clicking on the cashew in the upper right corner.

See, I’m not completely useless

Once you’ve locked your widgets, they can’t be moved, resized/rotated or removed anymore. The option to add new widgets will also be gone. If you want to change anything, simply unlock the widgets in the same way as you locked them.

Desktop Cashew

Edit 16 October, 2012: If you use a relatively new version of KDE Plasma Workspace, which you really should do, the instructions below probably won’t work. Instead I recommend that you install Stealth Cashew:

1. Right click on your desktop -> Add widgets… -> Get new widgets -> Download New Plasma Widgets.
2. Search for “Stealth Cashew” and then click on “Install” next to it.
3. Also make sure that plasma-scriptengine-ruby (or equivalent) is installed; you usually install it using your distribution’s package manager.
4. Now you can add the widget to your desktop, adjust the transparency levels, and suddenly you have invisible cashews! (May require that you log out and log in again.)

Original: This one is a little bit tougher. You’ll notice that it won’t go away when you lock the widgets, which has caused frustration among many KDE4 users. One particular person decided to do something about it, and thus the I HATE the Cashew plasmoid was born.

Note: The preferable way to install this widget is through your package manager if it’s in the repositories. The steps below describe how to compile it from source.

1. Download the plasmoid here and save it somewhere in your home directory.
2. Extract the tbz file with the following command:

tar -xjvf filename


where filename is the name of the downloaded file, for example 91009-iHateTheCashew.tbz.



3. Run the following commands:

cd iHateTheCashew


mkdir build

cd build

4. Now we’re ready to compile the plasmoid:

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix` ..


make

If you run into errors in this step, it’s most likely a dependency problem. Check that you have all necessary packages installed.

5. In most cases, you need root access to install the widget:

sudo make install

When you’ve typed your password and hit Enter, the plasmoid will be installed – you should now be ready for step 6. Below are some corner cases.

If the sudo command isn’t available, you can use the regular su command:

su
<type root password>
make install

Sometimes your user has write access to the directory where KDE4 is installed, for example if you have a KDE development environment set up according to this Techbase Tutorial. In that case, you can run make install without using sudo or su.

If you use the .bashrc in the link above, you can compile and install the plasmoid with a single command:

cmakekde ..

6. You should find your new plasmoid in the Add Widgets dialog. Add I HATE the cashew to your desktop (remember that you have to unlock the widgets first).

And we’re done! Lock your widgets again and all cashews should have disappeared.

After

If you want back on your desktop, simply remove the I HATE the cashew plasmoid by clicking on in the Add Widgets dialog. Nice, isn’t it?