What is the command to run System Settings from a terminal?
System Settings can be run from the launcher (pinned by default), the Dash, or the power cog. But what command would I enter in a terminal window if I want to run it from there?
9 Answers 9
Note: for versions between 14.04 and 17.04 (when Unity was used instead of GNOME), the command is unity-control-center .
You can still install the unity-control-center on newer versions (17.10+) if you don’t like the newer gnome-control-center
if you run gnome-control-center and get command not found , you can install it with:
sudo apt install gnome-control-center 14.04 and greater may use the command unity-control-center instead, which was forked from it. There’s no need to install gnome-control-center as well.
Thanks a lot. Sometimes I cannot find the settings icon anywhere in GNOME, perhaps for my own mistakes. With this command, I got it back.
For Ubuntu Mate the command is mate-control-center .
I found a different solution.
- I tried removing/installing gnome-control-center ; this did reinstall the application I still couldn’t open it.
- Later I found that it would start up on the side of the screen and I couldn’t access it
- I changed the display mode to single display and it came back. Hope it helps.
In Crouton, you must run anything that would require a password from the terminal, such as update manager, software center, synaptic, etc. So, to get to system settings you would enter in the terminal:
That will bring up the system settings GUI.
To check for updates, or if the update manager appears in the Unity Launcher, run it from the terminal, not by clicking on it:
The same applies to synaptic, the software center, etc. Anything which requires a password, must be run from the terminal in Crouton with a sudo .
AFAIK GNOME Control Center does not need sudo permissions to run. Also, using sudo to run GUI apps is potentially a bad idea.
Yeah well I ran it without sudo and only three of the setting icons showed up. I ran it with sudo and all the setting icons showed up. What does that tell you?!
Well, in KDE NEON 5.16.4 (Ubuntu 18.04), it is written in the «System Settings Handbook»:
- By selecting Settings → System Settings from the Application Menu.
- By pressing Alt + F2 or Alt + Space . This will bring up the KRunner dialog. Type systemsettings5 , and press Enter .
- Type systemsettings5 & at any command prompt. All three of these methods are equivalent, and produce the same result.
In my case, I needed to configure my HP LaserJet settings. Doing this as user, after applying and saving, they were ignored. So I think I had to do this as root and the settings are stored normaly now, so, each time the user opens the print dialog, the system remembers that I want log side binding and 1200 resolution :=)
I thought that sudo systemsettings5 & was enough, but as Zanna suggests: It should also be recommended to use ‘sudo -H’ if opening a GUI app with sudo.