The Case for Gconf

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.

Thanks for demonstrating with your example your complete ignorance of how X11 resources work.

Of course, you get your own properties with X11 when you log in. But the important thing is: when you run an application on a 1600x1200 screen, you get fonts for that screen, not for whatever machine the application happens to be run from.

X11's resource database isn't perfect, but it is more functional, less buggy, and less complex than gconf.

It's pretty apparent, unfortunately, that the kind of ignorance of the design of X11 is pretty common among Gnome developers; Gnome developers end up recreating an implementation of Windows on top of X11, which doesn't work as well.

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. 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.

I log in after an upgrade, my desktop is unusable, and I need to get work done. You want me to play detective with gconf tools? Forget it, I don't have time for that. Besides, why would I want to invest any time in learning gconf tools? They are just going to change in a couple of years again anyway, when the Gnome developers obsess with some other fashionable idea. This year, it's XML, next year, maybe it's something XPath based, or an XML database, or a relational database, or who knows what.

As for bug reports, what kind of bug report am I going to submit? "It doesn't work?" The usual response to that is that a year later comes a message "works for me, try again". Well, I can save myself the bug report.