How to make the ubuntu internet symbol look like its disabled, even though it's not

Solution 1:

Currently, you have several files containing different icons, with different names, for different statuses of your network. To do what you want, you need copies of the same icon (e.g. network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg) with different names.

This is that icon (it's a bit vague because I can't upload svg images):

If you want a different icon to be displayed at all times, replace network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg in the following by the filename of that icon.

The following will work, but please, don't blindly copy and paste bash scripts without knowing what you are doing. And anyway you need to locate the icons first: that depends on which icon theme you are currently using. I use the Yaru icon theme so in my case, the icons are located in /usr/share/icons/Yaru/scalable/status/.

# first, backup the icons. Create a backup directory:
mkdir ~/icons-backup

# navigate to the icons directory within your theme
cd /usr/share/icons/...path to your icons/

# move the wired and wireless network icons over to the backup directory (needs sudo)
# this will move all icon files starting with "network-wire" 
sudo mv network-wire*.svg ~/icons-backup

# copy the real "disconnected" icon back to the icons folder
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg .

# copy the disconnected icon back several times using different names
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wired-acquiring-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wired-disconnected-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wired-no-route-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wired-offline-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-acquiring-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-connected-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-disabled-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-encrypted-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-hardware-disabled-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-hotspot-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-offline-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-excellent-secure-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-excellent-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-good-secure-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-good-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-none-secure-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-none-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-ok-secure-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-ok-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-weak-secure-symbolic.svg
sudo cp ~/icons-backup/network-wireless-no-route-symbolic.svg ./network-wireless-signal-weak-symbolic.svg

At this point you have messed up the icons to the effect that whatever the network status, all icon files will contain the same icon, so the no route icon will be displayed at all times. I can't imagine why you would want this, but there you go.

If you want to restore the original situation, do

sudo cp ~/icons-backup/* /usr/share/icons/...path to your icons/