Ubuntu 18.04 GUI File Manager Weirdness

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 2019-07-03 at 21:57 +0200, Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users wrote:
> On Wed,  3 Jul 2019 14:34:12 -0400 (EDT), Robert Heller wrote:
> > What is shown on the desktop is what I get when I use a terminal and
> > do a 'ls Desktop' (except with the icons).

I should rephrase this.

In the desktop folder ...
> ... are not the folders of a user's home, there are either regular
> links, files with information about the location or there's nothing at
> all, even if it's shown on the GUI desktop.
> 
> What's the output of
> 
>   ls -Al Desktop/
> 
> ?