D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

Re: [LUG] GNOME focus?

 

Grant Sewell wrote:
>
>> You mean gconf?
> 
> Yes, that's what I mean.  It looks like a registry and it smells like a
> registry... it's just not quite so ugly.

I always suspected it was ugly, but I'm more mellow when I found out
more.....

It isn't a registry in the same sense as Windows because;

 It doesn't store the data in machinable form (by default).
 It isn't monolithic (many files are used).
 (It only stored user settings - I'm not sure this is a plus)

gconf is more an agreement on how to retrieve user settings, so they can
be exposed in a predictable way.

By default the data is stored under "~/.gconf" using XML, so you can use
your regular file tools like "grep" to figure out where something is
being found if the GUI doesn't help.

It has been proposed before (half jokingly I think) that all Linux
configuration information (currently in /etc in various weird file
formats) might be better stored in XML with a standardised machinable
interface similar to gconf. I don't think these plans are going to fly,
because no one cares enough to do the work, but I understand the
frustration behind the idea, and I think writing apps from scratch now
folk might well follow this advice.

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

-- 
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html