The GNOME desktop makes use of GConf for configuration. It is a hierarchically structured database or registry where the user can change his own settings and the system administrator can set default or mandatory values for all users. You reach GConf settings by specifying access paths such as /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename—this, for example, is the key holding the file name of the desktop background picture.
Use the graphical gconf-editor if you want to browse through all options conveniently. For a short usage description of gconf-editor, see Section 4.1.1, The Graphical gconf-editor. If you need a scriptable solution, see Section 4.1.2, The gconftool-2 Command Line Interface.
WARNING: GNOME Control Center Dialogs
Accessing the Gconf System directly can result in an unusable system, if done inappropriately.
Inexperienced users who want to adjust some common desktop features
only, are recommended to use the GNOME Control Center configuration
dialogs. To start the GNOME Control Center, click . For more information, see
Section 3.1, The Control Center,
(↑ GNOME User Guide ).
The GNOME application gconf-editor lets you browse through GConf settings and change them interactively. To start gconf-editor in the normal view () click and then in the group click .
In the normal view the user can change settings for his or her own desktop and the administrator can prepare settings for specifying default or mandatory values. For example, if you want to enable the typing break feature as a mandatory feature for all users, proceed as follows:
As root start gconf-editor.
In the tree pane on the left side, expand /desktop/gnome/typing_break.
Right-click and select . Once this is done, you can actually enable it.
Open the window by clicking .
In the tree pane of the window expand /desktop/gnome/typing_break click .
Close the window to save the setting by clicking .
For more information about gconf-editor, see the Configuration Editor Manual at http://library.gnome.org/users/gconf-editor/stable/.
To change settings from the command line or within scripts, use gconftool-2. Here are a some examples:
As root, use the following command to list the values of all keys:
gconftool-2 --recursive-list /
If you are interested in a subset only, specify an access path such as /desktop/gnome/typing_break:
gconftool-2 --recursive-list /desktop/gnome/typing_break
To list mandatory settings:
gconftool-2 --recursive-list \ --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory /
To set a mandatory setting such as typing_break:
gconftool-2 \ --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory \ --type bool \ --set /desktop/gnome/typing_break/enabled true
To unset a mandatory setting:
gconftool-2 \ --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory \ --unset /desktop/gnome/typing_break/enabled
For default settings, use /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.default.
For more information about gconftool-2, see the GNOME Desktop System Administration Guide, Section GConf Command Line Tool at http://library.gnome.org/admin/system-admin-guide/stable/gconf-6.html.en and the gconftool-2 manpage (man gconftool-2).