Slightly off topic, but man, I wish there was a nice way to track all changes in all settings. I don't really wanna go immutable. I also know about software that tracks directories like /etc as a git repo, but that'll only track the newer changes. I want something that can help me replicate my current setup easily.
this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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Oh hell yeaaa
About time! Waiting for this feature for literal decades
Oh shoot, while we're at it, is there a way to change default settings for things? I'm not even sure where to start looking, documentation-wise.
I want my taskbar to never group by names, but I regularly need to set that again each time I theme-hop.
It's got to regenerate that from somewhere, right? Feels /var/lib-esque, I'll look there
Oh these values get stored somewhere in I think either ~/.config or ~/.local I forget which one, but I have some examples here
Maybe you can use kfind to figure out the root file that has these values
Oh nice, I think I've used that theme.
I was imagining something a little different.
I had in mind something like xfce's XML files where settings can be locked at the system level, so when they're generated at the user level, those individual settings refuse to be masked.
I think for Plasma I'd need a script that runs after the theme has been changed that flips the "group-by" setting back to "never".
I'm pretty sure distributions are able to change the defaults, too, so it has to be possible. I'm sorry I don't have more to add besides vague assurances about feasibility, but at least you know you're not crazy for trying, I guess.
I just need to run a pacman -Ql on the package. I'm guessing it takes the normal sequence of ~ dotfiles if present, else etc, else var lib.
I looked it up, there's some promising stuff in qmls in /usr/share/plasma, desktop configuration in plasmoids, but that includes a panel configuration qml higher up.
Even if I do tinker with that, an update would wipe it out. I wasn't able to find any equivalent in etc, maybe as with most things on Arch it's "some assembly required".