EDIT to comment #23: Please excuse my newbieness with Linux systems but the shell script that I was intending had to be (and also if someone didn't know its executable bit must also be enabled by using chmod):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #!/bin/bash # gsettingsdaemonfix.sh pid=$(pgrep gnome-settings-) # if [ -n "$pid" ] # then # ps $pid &> /home/sanjeev/Desktop/gnomesettingsdebug1.txt # else # echo "No previous instance of gnome-settings-daemon running!" &> /home/sanjeev/Desktop/gnomesettingsdaemondebug.txt # fi while [ -n "$pid" ]; do pid=$(pgrep gnome-settings-) sleep 0 done exit 0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turns out 'wait' only works for child processes. I wonder why. Enabling the 'if' comments will output some useful information about previously running instance (be sure to change the path as according to your system). I also changed the name of the script from 'gnome- settings-daemon-fix.sh' to 'gnomesettingsdaemonfix.sh' as pgrep couldn't distinguish between process name of the running script and process name of the daemon as it compares only 15 characters of process names (Again, I cannot explain this). Hence, the edited 'gnome-settings- daemon.desktop' should be: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=GNOME Settings Daemon Exec=bash -c 'bash /etc/xdg/autostart/gnomesettingsdaemonfix.sh ;/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon' OnlyShowIn=GNOME; NoDisplay=false X-GNOME-Autostart-Phase=Initialization X-GNOME-Autostart-Notify=true X-GNOME-AutoRestart=true X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-settings-daemon ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I captured the following about the previously running instance of settings daemon: PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND 1514 ? Ds 0:00 [gnome-settings-] Collision between this instance and the instance run by '.desktop' file may be the cause of the theme problem in my system. This solution seems to be working for me. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/574296 Title: Gnome theme not applied on session start -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs