Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

ForumUser2 · 2014-09-26 04:17:58

I would like to export my xfce desktop settings to migrate them to another system running an identical Distro release and set of applications.

I searched through older threads and found a dated 2009 posting that said that migrating the following directories could accomplish it:

~/.config/
~/.cache/
~/.local/

That posting alluded to other related threads but I could not find them.

I certainly am no xfce expert, but aren't there a lot of other files that may contain desktop configuration info? (e.g. in /etc/xdg ?)

Ideally, I would like to find a utility to export/import xfce desktop settings, but I have not been able to find any such thing.

cmcanulty · 2014-09-26 11:38:41

Yes I would love that too as I run 14 xubuntu machines and would like them all alike. One issue to be careful of once before I tried copying a system and ruined it. A few files are unique hosts for example and there are probably others.

ToZ · 2014-09-26 13:16:07

This is somewhat a difficult question to answer because it depends on what you consider "settings".
1. All core Xfce settings are located in the ~/.config/xfce4 folder.

2. Keep in mind that Xfce also develops/releases applications like mousepad, gigolo, thunar, orage, ristretto, etc. Their configuration files, if not in ~/.config/xfce4, can be found in either/or ~/.config and ~/.local/share. You'll need to identify which directories they are and migrate them as well.

3. Xfce is also based on some standards that define how certain components work. These include, but are not limited to, the menuing system (~./config/menus & ~/.local/share/desktop-directories), the mime filetype associations and defaults (~/.local/share/applications/mime*), recently-used file information (~/.local/share/recently-used*), application autostart (~/.config/autostart), etc.

4. Customizations that you may have made such as gtk overrides (~/.gtkrc-2.0 and ~/.config/gtk-3.0/*), user-directory customizations (~/.config/user-dirs.dirs), custom themes (~/.themes) and icons (~/.icons), custom-configured applications (~/.local/share/applications/*), custom binaries/scripts (~/bin - or wherever you store them), desktop icons/files (~/Desktop).

5. Other features such as file templates (~/Templates)

6. Personal data (~/Documents, ~/Downloads, ~/Pictures, ~/Videos) which you may or may not want to migrate.

7. Other applications that you might consider a part of Xfce that really are not (web browser, email client, office suite, system utilities) that may be packaged by your distro or installed by yourself that you want to migrate. You'll need to figure out where in your home directory they store their configuration files.

8. Configuration changes that you may have made with root privileges to restricted files that affect the overall configuration of your Xfce user instance. These you should be documenting as you make them.

Generally, the stuff in ~/cache can be ignored unless you want to also migrate saved session information (~/.cache/sessions) or temporary component files (~/.cache/xfce4).

I certainly am no xfce expert, but aren't there a lot of other files that may contain desktop configuration info? (e.g. in /etc/xdg ?)

/etc/xdg or variations thereof (e.g. /etc/xdg-xubuntu) contain distro-specific default configurations that are used to initially populate your ~/.config settings. No need to migrate these unless you've made changes to them (see my point #8 above).

Ideally, I would like to find a utility to export/import xfce desktop settings, but I have not been able to find any such thing.

I am unaware of the existence of such a utility.

Yes I would love that too as I run 14 xubuntu machines and would like them all alike. One issue to be careful of once before I tried copying a system and ruined it. A few files are unique hosts for example and there are probably others.

This is obviously something you would want to test and iron out to make sure you get it right.

If you are looking to migrate an existing system to another exact copy of the system, it may be better/easier to just backup and restore your home directory.

If you are looking at cloning an existing system for deployment on other systems and keeping them similar, you'll obviously need to take a different approach that will require some extra testing and fine-tuning. You can search these forums on the keyword "kiosk" to review some threads that might be helpful.

Note: This is by no means an exhaustive list of the configuration files required for a migration. It really is user/system-specific and only you can decide what is needed for a migration. I would recommend testing any migration attempt in a vm first with copies/backups of actual configuration files/data before attempting the live migration.

ForumUser2 · 2014-09-26 15:52:35

Thank you ToZ for the most excellent explanation. I'm sure it will get me well on my way.

One point of clarification:

8. Configuration changes that you may have made with root privileges to restricted files that affect the overall configuration of your Xfce user instance. These you should be documenting as you make them.

I am assuming that any changes I made through the Xfce GUI tools (e.g. Settings Manager, Settings Editor, etc.) on the source system would not result in 'root modification' to configuration files outside of the user's home directory. In other words, if I have only used the Xfce GUI tools to set up the desktop on the source system, then I need only worry about hunting down the appropriate configuration files _within_ my user's home directory (plus custom templates/wallpaper/icons/etc.). Is that correct?

Thanks much for enumerating so many of the files/directories for me to look into.

Last edited by ForumUser2 (2014-09-26 16:06:52)

Jerry3904 · 2014-09-26 17:34:05

I am unaware of the existence of such a utility.

We are looking into creating such a utility, and will keep you all informed of any progress.

ToZ · 2014-09-26 18:00:41

ForumUser2 wrote:

Thank you ToZ for the most excellent explanation. I'm sure it will get me well on my way.
One point of clarification:
8. Configuration changes that you may have made with root privileges to restricted files that affect the overall configuration of your Xfce user instance. These you should be documenting as you make them.
I am assuming that any changes I made through the Xfce GUI tools (e.g. Settings Manager, Settings Editor, etc.) on the source system would not result in 'root modification' to configuration files outside of the user's home directory. In other words, if I have only used the Xfce GUI tools to set up the desktop on the source system, then I need only worry about hunting down the appropriate configuration files _within_ my user's home directory (plus custom templates/wallpaper/icons/etc.). Is that correct?

Yes. If you use the Xfce settings dialog then those changes will only be made to your user profile found in your home directory.

Thanks much for enumerating so many of the files/directories for me to look into.

No worries.

ToZ · 2014-09-26 18:01:41

Jerry3904 wrote:

I am unaware of the existence of such a utility.
We are looking into creating such a utility, and will keep you all informed of any progress.

Sounds very interesting. Would definitely be something I think a lot of people will be interested in. Please share it when it is complete.

helix · 2014-11-10 19:54:10

Hi all. This is one of my first posts here so first I'd like to say a bit about why I ended up in this forum. I have emerged into world of opensource operating systems on behalf of small primary school which is faced with kinda problem now that Win XP support is no longer available. I used to work in corporate environments where M$ platform is enforced and don't have huge experience in gnu/linux systems. I do learn now new os, and I decided to go the FreeBSD way (PCBSD exactly). Now after digging and initial tests I made on hardware currently running WinXP, xfce turns out to be perfect solution for 10yrs old machines. Now to fully transit to only opensource desktops is not yet possible, because the students and teachers use MS Office suite too extensively. That is why I installed both Linux and Win7. Now the Linux part could be just more interesting for students, because the system is so much more responsive compared to Win7. And for students to be able to customize the looks could sparkle some new kid to join the world of opensource wink Now all those previous instructions look very rich, but some export utility would be greatly appreciated. This "export" could be then used by some system for automatically deploying configs (I'm just looking into Ansible)

Jerry3904 · 2019-03-23 13:20:23

Sorry to say that our project got quickly buried by other, larger concerns. We do have an MX Tool called "MX User Manager" that allows copying from one user to another, but never got around to adding Xfce specifically to the list of options. ToZ's pointing at this thread inspires me to crack the whip a bit...

cmcanulty · 2019-03-23 17:45:49

I run xubuntu 18.04 on 13 computers at our public library. Libre Office is very full featured and you can set it to save files as the microsoft type, for example .doc or .docx. Also I think as soon as they get used so a slightly different (and I think more intuitive interface) I would expect very few complaints. Feel free to email me if I can help in any way.

Skaperen · 2019-09-11 22:10:25

when i set up a new user to perform one very simple task, i decided that i should keep this one user as simple as possible so i could readily create yet another user to be a minimal template. that would not cover all files but it would at least cover most of the basics.

after reading recent posts, here, my intent is to put together a list of files that would need to be copied between users. normally, when backing up or transferring users, you would want to do that for all files (with tools like rsync and rdiff, depending on your needs and resources). but for making xfce feel the same on other users, you don't want to be copying unnecessary files that could impact other aspects of the new user. my plan is to create a few template-like file trees for new users. one of them would be the graphical aspects of xfce. another will be xfce applications such as Thunar. i plan to make scripts to import and export these files. maybe i'll learn enough by then to make GUI apps to run them.

Jerry3904 · 2019-10-20 00:50:11

As we get near the release of MX-19, many users are reporting good success with aptik(-gtk). Available for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch.

jaders · 2019-11-23 13:30:20

We are looking into creating such a utility, and will keep you all informed of any progress.

Thanks.

plu · 2020-02-09 21:13:04

Any news or progress on this?

I'm using Mint 19.3 XFCE and am finding the layout+theme of VNC sessions different from that of the main desktop, and would like the VNC sessions to duplicate the main one. Even worse, depending on whether one started vncserver for the first time from the main desktop or an SSH session, one gets a different layout (that persists for subsequent sessions).

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=297855

Where are the layout+theme information for different desktops stored?

Thank you for educating me.

Magnus B · 2020-02-09 23:05:11

The simplest way is having the same system on all computers by just copy the hole system.

Hove To (I run Devuan):
Run from another partition or a dvd or cd or usb memory. Mount the system you want to clone on /mnt. The run "cp -a /mnt/* /to/the/partition/or/media/you/want/to/clone/the/system/to/". If you didn't clone the system to the artition there you want it use the same command to put the system to the partition there you want it "cp -a /from/somewhere/* /to/somewhere/".
Then you have to change the /etc/fstab so it fits with the systems new environment. You found out about that with the command "blkid". Then you also have to change in /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume to the root filesystem. Then you have to make a new initrd.img. The simplest way (because I don't know the right way :-)) is to reinstall the kernel. Then you have to install grub (if it is installed on the cloned system "grub-install") and/or update grub ("update-grub2") on the running system on the same computer, until you are up and running with your cloned system.
Then you have to take care about different drivers that you specially need on this computer. For instance Nvidia or wifi drivers.

Then it comes to config files you can do much of the same: clone them and put them on all your computers. The systems are copies so the config will be close to the same. The window size can differ for example but it's no major problem.
Another way is to make links to config files and have the real files in a place (among your ordinary files) that you sync then you sync your files between your computers. I have configs for Darktable, Emacs, Deluge, Libreoffice and some more synced between my two computers (a laptop and a desktop). I use Devilspie2 to make the window size fit between the computers.

I use Grsync (a GUI to Rsync) to synk my files (not system files, but all that there is under my Documents folder, inclusive the config files I mention before) between my two computers, with a NAS as the hub.

If I do same big change in one of my computer systems, and think it's hard to remember hove to do the same on my other computer I just do a clone on the updated systems and put on the not so update computer, and they are similar again.

Last edited by Magnus B (2020-02-09 23:05:58)

ibob · 2020-06-26 06:34:47

I'd like to ask if the detailed reply from ToZ (and later answers) needs any updating for 2020 / Xfce 4.14 / gtk3.

ToZ · 2020-06-26 10:27:59

ibob wrote:

I'd like to ask if the detailed reply from ToZ (and later answers) needs any updating for 2020 / Xfce 4.14 / gtk3.

It is still relevant for 4.14.

tomyo · 2021-03-03 23:38:10

Jerry3904 wrote:

I am unaware of the existence of such a utility.
We are looking into creating such a utility, and will keep you all informed of any progress.

Looking forward for this tool, it's the third machine I install XFCE and would love an easy way to export/import my configurations.

Thanks!

deanr · 2021-04-08 16:44:13

tomyo wrote:

Jerry3904 wrote:
I am unaware of the existence of such a utility.
We are looking into creating such a utility, and will keep you all informed of any progress.
Looking forward for this tool, it's the third machine I install XFCE and would love an easy way to export/import my configurations.
Thanks!

MX-Linux includes a snapshot tool. Set up their XFCE as you like and then run the snapshot. It creates a bootable iso which you can us to install on any other machine.

vstubbs · 2022-02-19 00:09:52

Just a thought, try using syncthing. It once you get it going, and truly understand hoe it works, it's really quite marvelous. It's free to use, doesn't require much other that a copy of it on each machine that is going to partake in the "sharing" of files directories, or what ever. I have two openSUSE (tumbleweed) machines running XFCE, (got tired of the excessive waste of compute time spent running a DM), and a raspberry pi that is acting as an "off site" storage. and all of the .config, .local/share, .conky, and desk desktop folders is kept in sync, just as if you had rsynced it your self.

tortilla · 2022-08-09 15:27:38

Hi,

in the search for a solution "Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system" I landed here here in this thread. I suggest that commenters pay attention to the topic "Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?" in the opening post.

I think it would be harmful to both topics if there are now two solutions mixed up in this thread:
1) Export the xfce desktop settings & move them to another system.
2) Copy/clone of ISO resp. complete installations

I suggest to talk about the 2) topic in a separate thread.

Thanks!

Xfce Forum

Sub domains

#1 2014-09-26 04:17:58

Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#2 2014-09-26 11:38:41

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#3 2014-09-26 13:16:07

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#4 2014-09-26 15:52:35

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#5 2014-09-26 17:34:05

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#6 2014-09-26 18:00:41

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#7 2014-09-26 18:01:41

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#8 2014-11-10 19:54:10

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#9 2019-03-23 13:20:23

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#10 2019-03-23 17:45:49

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#11 2019-09-11 22:10:25

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#12 2019-10-20 00:50:11

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#13 2019-11-23 13:30:20

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#14 2020-02-09 21:13:04

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#15 2020-02-09 23:05:11

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#16 2020-06-26 06:34:47

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#17 2020-06-26 10:27:59

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#18 2021-03-03 23:38:10

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#19 2021-04-08 16:44:13

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#20 2022-02-19 00:09:52

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

#21 2022-08-09 15:27:38

Re: Export xfce desktop settings & move them to another system?

Board footer