Recently, I encountered a minor but annoying issue with Local (by Flywheel) on my Ubuntu machine. After an update, the text inside the app—especially in the sidebar—started to look fuzzy and low-quality. I discovered it was related to a Chromium flag called FontationsFontBackend, which could be disabled to fix the rendering.
Sure, I could launch it from the terminal using:
1 | /opt/Local/local --disable-features=FontationsFontBackend |
But I didn’t want to open the terminal every time I needed to launch the app. Instead, I wanted to patch the desktop shortcut itself so the flag gets applied automatically, without touching the terminal again. Here’s how I did it, and this works not just for Local but any Linux app with a .desktop file.
🛠️ Step-1: Locate the .desktop file
Most desktop apps on Linux use .desktop launcher files, and they can usually be found in one of these locations:
/usr/share/applications/(for system-wide apps)~/.local/share/applications/(for per-user custom launchers)
In my case, Local had an entry in:
1 |
|
You can directly edit this file with root permissions:
1 | sudo nano /usr/share/applications/local.desktop |
However, a better approach is to copy it to your local applications folder first:
1 | cp /usr/share/applications/local.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/ |
Then edit the copy instead:
1 | nano ~/.local/share/applications/local.desktop |
This way, the change is limited to your user and won’t be lost during a system update or overwritten by package upgrades. It’s cleaner and safer in the long run.
🔧 Step-2: Modify the Exec line to add launch flags
Open the .desktop file using your favorite text editor:
1 | nano ~/.local/share/applications/local.desktop |
Find the line that starts with Exec= and update it like this:
1 | Exec=/opt/Local/local --disable-features=FontationsFontBackend %U |
You can replace /opt/Local/local with the actual path to your app’s binary. The --disable-features=... part is the flag you’re injecting, and %U at the end handles file or URL arguments passed by the desktop environment.
Once you’re done editing, save and close the file.
✅ Step-3: Restart your desktop shell (no reboot needed)
Instead of rebooting, you can simply restart your desktop shell to make the updated shortcut take effect. On GNOME, the easiest way is:
- Press
Alt + F2 - Type
r - Hit
Enter
Alternatively, just log out and log back in.
📝 Final Result
After applying this, launching Local from the system menu now starts it with the custom flag. The blurry text issue is gone, and I don’t need to run it from the terminal anymore.
This approach is generic and works for any app that accepts command-line flags — whether you want to disable experimental features, enable GPU acceleration, or set up debugging options. Just edit the appropriate .desktop file and you’re good to go.
🎉 Conclusion
This was a small tweak, but it saved me time and hassle in the long run. If you’re ever in a situation where an app needs special launch flags but you’re tired of opening a terminal each time, just patch the .desktop launcher — it’s a quick and effective fix.