Home / server / Questions / 1040902
Accepted
Mark Harrison
Asked: 2020-11-02 15:11:37 +0800 CST

How do I replicate a Cinnamon window manager configuration?

  • 772

I have a master Linux computer with several Cinnamon window manager options set.

How can I replicate this setting to a new machine?

automation window-managers

2 Answers

  1. You can serialize your dconf-based settings to a text format and just copy that over. If you are just interested in specific users, restore to the destination users home:

    # create a human-readable text file with your settings
ssh user@source dconf dump > cinnamon.dconf

# review and delete sections not applicable/appropriate on the other machine(s)
vim cinnamon.dconf

# load the settings on the destination machine
ssh user@destination dconf load < cinnamon.dconf

    (but if you need it system-wide, these dumps can be configured in /etc/dconf as system-wide defaults)

    Note that the dump contains only settings explicitly defined in that users dconf store, meaning if you copy over to a different version (with different defaults) and have never touched a specific setting, the result may still be different on the target.

    Caveat: This will not copy some non-dconf settings that you may also be interested in, e.g. it will only copy the path of the desktop background - not the image file itself.

    • 1
  2. Best Answer

    On the original box:

    dconf dump /org/cinnamon/ >/tmp/cinnamon-$USER.dconf
scp /tmp/cinnamon-$USER.dconf newbox:/tmp

    On the new box:

    dconf reset -f /org/cinnamon/
dconf load -f /org/cinnamon/ </tmp/cinnamon-$USER.dconf

    Ignore warnings about unwritable keys.

    The dconf doc notes that this can crash cinnamon and recommends you restart cinnamon following this step.

    • 0