Can't create anaconda shortcut to launch from desktop on ubuntu 17.10?

Following steps work in Ubuntu 16.04, but I don't know if it works in 17.04.

1. Create a shell script /home/paygilant/bin/anaconda.sh

   export CONDA_PYTHON_EXE=/home/paygilant/anaconda3/bin/python
   export PATH=/home/paygilant/anaconda3/bin:$PATH
   python /home/paygilant/anaconda3/bin/anaconda-navigator
   

2. Create a desktop file /home/paygilant/anaconda.desktop

   [Desktop Entry]
   Version=1.0
   Type=Application
   Name=Anaconda-Navigator
   GenericName=Anaconda
   Exec=/bin/bash "/home/paygilant/bin/anaconda.sh"
   Icon=/home/paygilant/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/static/images/anaconda-icon-256x256.png
   Terminal=false
   StartupNotify=true
   

3. Run sudo desktop-file-install anaconda.desktop. After 10~20 seconds, you can see Anaconda shortcut in dash.

First check if anaconda3 is installed on your system or not (Sometime the package may be broken due to network issues during installation). And whether you are able to launch anaconda-navigator without a desktop entry or not (See how to launch anaconda-navigator without a desktop-entry, later in this post).

For creating a desktop entry

Step 1. Open your text editor and save the following content as Anaconda.desktop to your home directory.

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Anaconda-Navigator
GenericName=Anaconda
Comment=Scientific Python Development Environment - Python3
Exec=bash -c 'export PATH="/home/jishan/anaconda3/bin:$PATH" && /home/jishan/anaconda3/bin/anaconda-navigator'
Categories=Development;Science;IDE;Qt;Education;
Icon=/home/jishan/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/static/images/anaconda-icon-256x256.png
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
MimeType=text/x-python;

Change the user-name to your username in Icon=/home/jishan/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/static/images/anaconda-icon-256x256.png i.e. replace jishan by your username.

Step 2. Copy your Anaconda.desktop to /usr/share/applications/ as root (Because you might need permission to copy at /usr/share/applications/)

sudo cp Anaconda.desktop /usr/share/applications

This will create a desktop entry named Anaconda in /usr/share/applications/.

Step 3. Check if Anaconda is added to your application dock. If you didn't find it, search it in search-bar. Or you can run directly from /usr/share/applications/Anaconda.desktop.

Launch Anaconda-navigator without a desktop entry

Your user (not root) may not have access to anaconda-navigator or it is not activated it yet.

Source ~/anaconda3/bin/activate root

This will result in single line showing (bash), if installed. If it is not installed, install it from here.

If installed, you can launch now by

anaconda-navigator

This will result in opening anaconda-navigator. (For each time you've to activate root as soon as your session is destroyed).

Tried and tested. You need to give it the full path for some reason:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Anaconda
Exec=bash -c 'export PATH="/home/paygilant/anaconda3/bin:$PATH" && /home/paygilant/anaconda3/bin/anaconda-navigator'
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true

Then to add it to the Unity/Gnome dash:

cp -t ~/.local/share/applications ~/Desktop/anaconda_launcher.desktop

Note: I did not add an icon here and I am not sure the path you use for it is a good one (didn't check).

The answer has two steps:

1. Create Anaconda.desktop

   Open your text editor and save the following content as Anaconda.desktop to your home directory.

   Anaconda.desktop contents:

   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Name=Anaconda
   Exec=anaconda-navigator
   Terminal=false
   Icon=/home/ganeshan/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/static/images/anaconda-icon-256x256.png
   

   Use your icon path instead of the one here.

2. Move your .desktop file to the application folder /usr/share/applications/, now search for Anaconda in dock and click.

This method works for me (Ubuntu 18.10)

Do you have the ownership over the file? A common mistake I see in this case is people using chmod +X as root or sudo.

Can you give the output of the following comment?

ls -l /path/to/file

Second question is are you using Unity or Gnome3? Normally you should be using gnome3 instead of Unity in 17.10 you may want to look up a guide for gnome3 instead of older versions. This should work How can I create launchers on my desktop?

To run anaconda with launcher icon you need first to add the path to the root environment PATH

sudo echo "PATH=$PATH:/home/user/anaconda3/bin" >> /etc/environment

restart your PC,

then surprise surprise the icon you created would work

This is working in Ubuntu 18

Go to /usr/share/applications/

Create a file using sudo Anaconda.desktop

e.g:

sudo vi Anaconda.desktop

Paste the following:

[Desktop Entry]
 Version=1.0
 Type=Application
 Name=Anaconda-Navigator
 GenericName=Anaconda
 Comment=Scientific Python Development Environment - Python3
 Exec=bash -c 'export PATH="/home/superman/anaconda3/bin:$PATH" && /home/superman/anaconda3/bin/anaconda-navigator'
 Categories=Development;Science;IDE;Qt;Education;
 Icon=/home/superman/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/static/images/anaconda-icon-256x256.png
 Terminal=false
 StartupNotify=true
 MimeType=text/x-python;

Change superman to the your user folder.