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Unlock the Desktop and Panel in elementary OS

By default, elementary OS has no Desktop.  Sure, there’s a pretty wallpaper, but try to create a new folder on the Desktop (or what should be the Desktop), or save an item there, and you’ll find that it just doesn’t exist.
No Desktop In Sidebar
To change this, we’ll need to tweak a couple settings with the Configuration Editor, which we can run from the Terminal or the Run Dialog.  To access the Run Dialog, hit Alt-F2 on the keyboard, and then type gconf-editor as shown.

Run Gconf Editor
Once the Configuration Editor is running, double click the apps folder in the left sidebar, which will show you all the applications that have their configuration files stored here.  Now scroll down to the nautilus entry, double-click it, and then double-click the preferences folder.
Nautilus Prefs in Gconf Editor
There are two changes we need to make.  The first is to have Nautilus actually display the Desktop.  To do this, scroll down in the list of Nautilus preferences to the show_desktop option, and make sure it is not selected.
Show Desktop
This should immediately change your Desktop, and a row of folders should appear.
Home Folder Used As Desktop
This isn’t quite what we want, as elementary OS is now using our Home directory as the Desktop, which means every file, every folder you would normally place in your Home directory will now appear on the Desktop.  If you want this, great.  Skip the next step.  If, on the other hand, you want an actual Desktop folder, scroll back up in the Nautilus preferences to the desktop_is_home_dir option and make sure it is unchecked.
Uncheck Desktop is Home Directory
You’ll likely need to restart Nautilus (either by rebooting or by typing killall -9 nautilus into a Terminal), but the next time Nautilus starts, you’ll have your regular desktop back.  Now, when right-clicking, you’ll get the standard Desktop menu.
Right Click Desktop Menu

Unlocking the Panel

As mentioned, the Panel is the other locked-down aspect of elementary OS.  To unlock it, stay in the Configuration Editor, but navigate to the panel folder, and then the global options.
Panel Prefs in Gconf Editor
Once here, simply find the locked_down option and uncheck it.
Unlock Panel
Before we did this, here is the menu that would appear when right-clicking on the Panel.
Panel Before Unlocking
After unlocking the Panel, this is the menu we get.
Panel After Unlocking
As you can see, we now have more options, including the ability to create more panels, modify their looks, size and behavior of the existing panel, as well as add new items to it.
This last part – adding new items – will allow us to take advantage of something that comes standard with pretty much every Linux distribution, and that is a calendar attached to the Panel clock.  In elementary OS, clicking the clock gives you this menu.
Clock Without Calendar
By choosing the Add to Panel option in the menu shown above, we can easily add the Clock applet, which when clicked shows us a calendar.
Clock Calendar Applet
Note: because elementary OS uses the Complete Indicator applet, you’ll have two clocks showing in your Panel.  To rectify this, you will likely need to remove the Complete Indicator applet and replace it with the Me Indicator, Messaging Indicator and Session Indicator applets.  In the end, however, you should have all the functionality stipped out by default.
And that’s it!  As mentioned, there were some choices made for elementary OS that while they won’t limit the behavior of someone experienced enough with Linux to know how to customize it, could potentially be frustrating for inexperienced users.  But as you can see, all it takes is a few Configuration Editor tweaks, and you’re back to the freedom you’d expect from Linux.

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