[Fedora-join] GNOME settings export/import

[Mathieu Bridon]

Hi Yann,

On Tue, 2013-07-23 at 09:13 +0200, Yann Bane wrote:
> I've already sent an email to Toshio Kuratomi, but he hasn't replied
> so I'll try to ask my questions here...

I'm not sure why you'd send that to Toshio, as far as I know he's not
involved with GNOME at all.

> I'm a person who often switches distributions and PCs. I was wondering
> whether it would be viable to create a GNOME program that would scan
> the computer for settings (mostly GNOME settings), and allow the user
> to export the settings to a file (and maybe cloud storage). It would
> also allow importing of such files. Maybe it wouldn't only work just
> for the DE, but for programs such as Firefox as well, but I haven't
> thought it trough yet...

You could just backup the ~/.config folder?

These days, most settings are in there, at least for GNOME stuff:
 https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/XDGConfigFolders

> 1. Does such a thing already exist for GNOME or GNU/Linux? Other
> desktops? Other operating systems?

Not that I know of.

Although there are backup programs (like Deja Dup) which save both data
and configs, and can upload it to the cloud, an extrernal hard drive,
etc...

> 2. If so, why isn't it included in GNOME and advertised as something
> you must have?

Because most people wouldn't ever need it.

> 3. If it doesn't - is there a specific reason? Has someone already
> tried implementing it but failed? Are there some not obvious obstacles
> that make this sort of thing unpractical or impossible? Is it maybe
> just not as useful as it seems?

We're not experts in Linux history here, so you'll have to search a
bit. :)

Or, you know, just try. ;)

> 4. If I were to develop it and make it reasonably useful and usable,
> how likely is it that the app gets included in the default GNOME or
> Fedora system? (I mean, considering how much useless crap is already
> preinstalled, that wouldn't seem to be a big issue...)

For GNOME, you'd have to ask on desktop-devel-list I'd say:
 https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list

Fedora pretty much follows upstream GNOME, so I don't think the default
desktop would include something like that if GNOME upstream were against
it.

In any case, you should really ask that upstream first.


-- 
Mathieu