# Howto: Disable most gnome default applications (and what they are)

**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/howto-disable-most-gnome-default-applications-and-what-they-are/13505
**Category:** Guides
**Created:** [June 8, 2021, 12:05am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/howto-disable-most-gnome-default-applications-and-what-they-are/13505 "2021-06-08T00:05:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 14

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### Author: ![jtojnar](https://discourse.nixos.org/user_avatar/discourse.nixos.org/jtojnar/32/70_2.png) [@jtojnar](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/jtojnar)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2023, 5:03pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/howto-disable-most-gnome-default-applications-and-what-they-are/13505/14 "2023-11-26T17:03:51Z")

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> [@vccs](#):
>
> I expected that I can somehow prevent the files linked to current-system but it seems impossible.

`current-system` is just another immutable package that symlinks stuff in `environment.systemPackages` ([built with `buildEnv`](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/a3a38f810bd9e327282d21da781fc8f96faee81b/nixos/modules/config/system-path.nix#L168)).

You could inject extra code to [`environment.extraSetup`](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/unstable/options.html#opt-environment.extraSetup) NixOS option to remove the desktop files from the symlink tree. But that might require manual reification of symlinks if you are unlucky and the files you want to remove are inside a symlink to a directory in another package. And it will not help you if a package looks directly to g-c-c Nix store path, you would need to update the references in the package. At that point, you might want to use [`system.replaceRuntimeDependencies`](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/unstable/options#opt-system.replaceRuntimeDependencies) hack but that is a bit tricky.

Alternately, you could install a package with higher priority to `environment.systemPackages`, that would contain a dummy version of the files you want to remove. But again, that will not work if a package looks directly to g-c-c Nix store path.

Anyway, this is getting off-topic so please open a new thread if you want discuss this avenue further.

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