How can I save the changes I made in "settings"? I do not want to back up the personal data (documents, pictures, music, etc.), but only the system settings. In Linux Mint XFCE is on the first window of the settings a botton (the last one) where all settings are summarized. The explanation says it is a graphical interface for the xfconf file. So when I want to save and then restore those settings, what do I have to do?
The simplest way is to make a copy of your ~/.config directory, as that is where they are saved.
You can do this graphically using your file manager or terminal:
mv ~/.config ~/.config-bak
To restore it, just delete the new ~/.config directory and rename the ~/.config-bak to ~/.config
rm -rf ~/.config
mv ~/.config-bak ~/.config
Using the GUI file manager to do this is easy and fine too and it avoids that frightening rm -rf command, as well.
Once you have created a new config or restored an old one, you must log out and back in to see the changes.
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@Aravisian Thank you very much.
Log out didn't work. There were still the same settings. Only after a restart was the old saved configuration (backup) available again.
Very odd... Did you fully log out? Or set to Sleep like the lock screen thinking that would log you out?
I clicked on "log out" and didn't turn my computer off. Then I loged in.
I have never known that to not work... Very odd. When you log in, the system checks for your ~/.config directory in order to load your settings.
Using the first command didn't create a copy; it renamed the original ~/.config to ~/config-bak. I just tested and watched to see if Plasma would recreate ~/.config and it didn't. Rebooting in this state would create a new, default ~/.config I imagine.
To actually back up rather than rename, the first command should be cp -r ~/.config ~/.config.bak, unless I've missed something big.
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I did not use the commands, but did it according to the instructions in Thunar: First copied the .config file, then renamed it to .config-bak. I then changed many settings. Then I deleted the .config file and renamed the config-bak file to .config. Then logged out.
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You're right - I was typing on autopilot... Usually when I suggest these commands, it is in helping a user reset their settings.
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Oha, well, thanks, now I know how to restore the default settings! Simply rename the .config file
and then restart, then a new .config file will be created.
Important to know: This method also resets the settings of all programs, e.g. brave browser.
[Edit: All programs which save users settings at ~/.config]
But just renaming ~/.config/dconf is not enough to restore the default settings.
Many programs, but not all. Steam makes ~/.steam and ~/.local/share/Steam and Genymotion makes ~/.Genymobile. Meanwhile, my all time favorite open source application, Calibre, does put its config in ~/.config.
If this method resets a program you didn't want to reset, you can copy that program's config back into the new, default ~/.config. For example, cp -r ~/.config-bak/brave ~/.config
(It's a real pain to type a tilde on a mini-keyboard...)
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