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Kde install with preconfigured settings.

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kde-zayed
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Hi, I was at a convetion a couple of days go and saw that a person was running linux which triggered me to talk to him as he could understand my pain on also running linux as a daily driver. Now he said that he made a small script file which when run, it would uninstall all the software not required by him, install the software he needs, and would confiure his d.e. to the way he likes it. now ofcourse he was running a gnome enviorment, but I would like to do the samething with KDE Plasme, is that possible?
airdrik
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It is definitely possible. The question would be for what circumstances you need such a tool? Namely how much to anticipate changing systems and need to script out the full reinstall process vs. just doing it by hand. From there, there's little variation between installing gnome vs. installing kde or any other desktop setup and properly configuring them. For the most part it boils down to running the appropriate packaging commands to uninstall+install what you want, then copying config files from some common location (like github, using tools like https://github.com/Snaipe/dot-git, among others for managing your "dot-files" (config files stored in files and folders starting with a dot)).


airdrik, proud to be a member of KDE forums since 2008-Dec.
kde-zayed
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The reason I want one of these scripts for me is because I dual boot with WIndows and as you know, 99.99% of Windows updates are mandated and they rewrite the efi files so it can boot to the correct partiton on the hard drive. I would also like to be able to switch distributions easily as right now I am limited to running my current os which is Elementary os 5.1 Hera, and after i did 'sudo apt dist-upgrade', it defaulted back to gnome and wouldnt let me use KDE Plasma's theme settings and having me to reconfigure KDE Plasma. As you can clearly see, having a simple batch script execute on a fresh install of any linux flavor would allow me to continue as if i never lost my laptop. Think of doing it by hand as installing arch linux, and having a batch script as installing ubuntu.
airdrik
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Ah, I see.
Another option for your consideration (insofar as you are just reinstalling on the same machine) would be to create a separate partition for the /home directory which is mounted in each system instead of blown away every time you reinstall.

You can also look into backup systems where the contents of the /home directory are backed up to a network location you control. Then the setup process would be to just copy from the backup.

All of the per-user settings should be in "dot-files" in the users home directory, e.g. ~/.bashrc, ~/.local/share, ~/.config, etc. These files are normally hidden, but can be revealed by various means depending on the file manager. Most should respect the "Alt+." shortcut, and/or have menu items for that. (at the command-line, "ls -a" will include hidden files).
Scripting the backup and restore of settings is just a matter of copying these files to your backup location and then copying from backup.

The dot-git project I mentioned previously is one of a few similar offerings on Github that allow you to use git as the backup location, allowing you to keep track of multiple versions of the files if you care about that. Of note, though, is that some of these folders may contain images (such as wallpapers and theme resources) which git isn't well suited for storing. However, there are workarounds if this is the route that you'd prefer, such as noting the source of the wallpapers and themes and including downloading them in the restore/setup script.


airdrik, proud to be a member of KDE forums since 2008-Dec.
kde-zayed
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I did some deep searching on my harddrive anyway and got the same results as you provided me with. Thanks.


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