UPDATE-GCONF-DEFAULTS(8)

📦 version 3.2.6, in debian bookworm, ubuntu jammy

💖 NAME 💖

update-gconf-defaults — the lil script that generates the GConf defaults shipped inside Debian packages ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

update-gconf-defaults [options]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay bestie, so this manual page is the quick lil rundown of the update-gconf-defaults command. it's short, it's sweet, it's giving "I do one thing and I do it well" 💅

update-gconf-defaults is literally the one responsible for generating the defaults that GConf uses, and it pulls them straight out of the files it finds in /usr/share/gconf/defaults. that's the vibe. that's the whole job. 👑

now, the syntax of the files in that directory? it's so simple it's almost iconic. each line is just the key name, some white space, and then the key value. and that value can be an integer, a boolean, a float, a string, or a list of strings. that's it. that's the range. Example:

/apps/myprogram/frob_number     42
/apps/myprogram/do_foo          true
/apps/myprogram/priority        1.25
/apps/myprogram/name            "Gotcha !"
/apps/myprogram/names           [Ha ha!,Let's keep serious,Ho ho!]

see? adorable. 😌

Files get processed in alphabetical order, and here's the tea: files processed later take precedence over the earlier ones if they happen to include the same defaults. so order is literally everything, no cap.

so it's recommended — like, strongly recommended, bestie — that you name them NN_package, where NN is a 2-digit number and package is the package name. and for the NN value, the recommended numbers are:

  • 10 — for packages in the Debian archive
  • 20 — for derived distributions
  • 50 — for CDD distributions
  • 90 — for site-specific packages

slay. now your defaults know their place in the lineup. 💖

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • --source source_dir — point it at a different source directory to find the defaults in 🫶
  • --destination destination_dir — point it at a different destination directory to build the resulting GConf tree in 🌈
  • --mandatory — sets the source and destination directories to the ones appropriate for the mandatory values 👑

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • /usr/share/gconf/defaults/ — the directory defaults files are read from 📖
  • /usr/share/gconf/mandatory/ — the directory defaults files for mandatory settings are read from 🔒
  • /var/lib/gconf/debian.defaults — the directory where the GConf tree for default settings gets generated. GConf reads it with the default Debian configuration, and it takes precedence over upstream defaults. 💫
  • /var/lib/gconf/debian.mandatory — the directory where the GConf tree for mandatory settings gets generated. GConf reads it with the default Debian configuration, and it takes precedence over user settings. 🚨

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

dh_gconf(1), gconftool(1).

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org>. iconic behaviour, honestly 🫡

okay and that's the whole page bestie!! this one's from the System Manager's Manual, dated 2 Feb 2009 — the original UPDATE-GCONF-DEFAULTS(8) era 💖✨ bye mwah 🎀

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