A look at GNOME Shell [LWN.net]

A look at GNOME Shell

Posted Jun 11, 2010 9:49 UTC (Fri) by farnz (guest, #17727)
In reply to: A look at GNOME Shell by rahulsundaram
Parent article: A look at GNOME Shell

That link raises concerns for me that ksyscoca does not. In particular, if I get a random bitflip in my ksyscoca database that renders it unusable, I can recover easily - I just erase the ksyscoca database, and let it rebuild from the configuration files. Similarly, if I end up with a corrupt configuration that I cannot fix through the GUI, I can recover by hand-editing the configuration files, or deleting the bad configuration file, logging out and back in, and reconfiguring that component through the GUI.

With the exception of recovering a corrupt ksyscoca database (which can be detected programmatically and handled without user intervention), these are operations at the level of smart geek, not ordinary user; however, as someone who fixes "computer problems" for ordinary users, being able to say "I've kept most of your personal settings, but you'll need to reset the wallpaper/check your bookmarks/whatever bit was damaged" is a much nicer position than I'm in with Windows systems, where all I can say is "you've lost all your settings."

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A look at GNOME Shell

Posted Jun 11, 2010 12:23 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

Here are more details

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2010-May/1...

You should be able to rebuild your schemas if necessary.

A look at GNOME Shell

Posted Jun 11, 2010 13:13 UTC (Fri) by farnz (guest, #17727) [Link]

That doesn't reassure me any, I'm afraid. ksyscoca takes a bunch of text files under ${HOME}/.kde, and parses them into an efficient binary blob form that lives in /var/tmp. The KDE API for handling configurations keeps the binary blob and the text files in sync; if I edit the text files outside of the KDE API, I've invalidated the ksyscoca binary blob, and need to recreate it. KDE will do this automatically when I log in (based on mtimes, I assume), or I can blow away the binary blob, and still keep my settings unchanged.

The link you've given suggests that if I rebuilt my schemas, I'd lose my custom settings. That's a distinct retrograde step from ksyscoca, where if I wipe out my binary blob, I can rebuild with my existing settings from the text files; further, I can edit my settings with tools such as "vi" (useful in a broken-the-world scenario), blow away the binary blob, and have KDE rebuild the binary blob for me.