Starting Ipython notebook without terminal

One of the nuisance of Ubuntu (otherwise I find it really nice) is that the shell commands need to be run after opening terminal. It is not terribly hard, but it is not fun, especially if you need to frequently open and close the ipython notebook.

Then I found one technique you can use.

user@Minerva:~/Desktop$ cat ipyhon_notebook.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=IPythonNotebook
Comment=GUI for ipython notebook
Exec=/usr/bin/ipython notebook --matplotlib
Icon=/home/user/icons/notebook.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;Application;

Basically, you can make a *.desktop file in your Desktop folder like the above lines using your favorite text editor. I assume that you already have already installed ipython & ipython notebook. If not, you can do it now. http://ipython.org/notebook.html

I found the icon from the ipython org page and downloaded and set the path in the "Icon" line. You can use your own image and path. If you want to see the terminal and debugging messages you can set the "Terminal" as true. I do not wanted to clutter my screen. so I set it false.

Now, you can start ipython notebook by double click the icon on the desktop and even put it in the launcher panel by drag and drop. Just make sure you do not delete the original .desktop file.