Quirky Codium Icon in Gnome

After an update Codium started launching strange in my Gnome instance. It would launch and show an app in the panel with no icon. If I clicked the Codium icon it would launch a new app, stacking on the “no icon” version. I resorted to grabbing the desktop file from a working system and dropping it into /usr/share/applications.

1. Create the .desktop file

Create a file in /usr/share/applications/ (system-wide) or ~/.local/share/applications/ (current user only):

sudo vi /usr/share/applications/vscodium.desktop

Paste your entry:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=VSCodium
Comment=Code Editing. Redefined.
GenericName=Text Editor
Exec=/usr/bin/codium %F
Icon=vscodium
Type=Application
StartupNotify=false
StartupWMClass=VSCodium
Categories=Utility;Development;IDE;
MimeType=text/plain;inode/directory;
Actions=new-empty-window;
Keywords=vscode;

[Desktop Action new-empty-window]
Name=New Empty Window
Exec=/usr/bin/codium --new-window %F
Icon=vscodium

2. Update the desktop database

sudo update-desktop-database /usr/share/applications

3. Launch the app via gtk-launch

This is the key step on Wayland — it forces GNOME to properly register the .desktop entry and associate the running window with it. Without this, the app may launch as an unrecognized window on the panel with no association to its entry.

gtk-launch vscodium

The argument to gtk-launch is the filename of your .desktop file without the .desktop extension.

4. Pin to dock

Once the app is running and properly associated, right-click its icon on the panel and select “Add to Favorites” (or “Pin to Dash”). It will now persist on the dock.