The Case for Gconf

The first thing that is wrong with it is that the config files are stored in the home directory; display properties are associated with the display, however, and therefore belong on the display.

Neither of these is entirely true. Firstly both system overridden and default values come from the installation directories. Further display properties simply do not belong to the display. If, when I log in, I want to run my monitor at 1600x1200 with gross interlacing that should not affect anyone else.

I'm going to ignore the second point since xrdb so hopelessly inferior to gconf I don't know quite where to begin.

The third thing that is wrong with it that dumping kilobytes of XML into files is a lousy format for anything that humans need to look at, and humans need to look at their configuration files because they may not, in fact, want to use gconf tools.

XML is an easily grepped pure text format that can be modified with a simple editor. In combination with find you can easily search the entire tree. However why you would want to do this when the gconf tools (both the command line tool at the GUI editor) are as good as they are I could not say.

The last thing is: they just don't work. Every time Gnome gets upgraded, something breaks substantially enough with preferences for me that I just have to erase them all and start from scratch.

This is:

1. Not a problem with gconf. Any failure of this form represents bugs in the application.
2. Not provided with any examples or links to bug reports. I've not seen anything like this since Nautilus was being maintained again (and even then the problems didn't happen when you upgraded.
3. Outrageously over the top. Nuking the entire directory 'cos of a bug in one (or maybe two) applications? Perhaps you should try using the gconf tools to fix the problem.

While its authors may think it's not like the Windows registry, in all important aspects it is

Rubbish. gconf is documented (with translatable strings). For a properly written application, that is just about everything in the GNOME distribution, the effect of all its keys is documented.

Of course if you bloody mindedly refuse to use the fine tools available to modify gconf it is possible you might not realize this ...