The Academic Site of Velonis I. Petros

Updated: May 20, 2009. The following is for Ubuntu Jaunt

sudo rm ~/.recently-used.xbel -rf
sudo mkdir ~/.recently-used.xbel
sudo chown root  .recently-used.xbel/

Updated: Dec 4, 2008. It is not working on Ubuntu Intrepid but works on any previous version

The easiest way to disable the Recent Documents menu is this:

sudo rm -rf .recently-used

sudo mkdir .recently-used

The above commands will make the folder read only so if you  want to enable it you must use chmod.