After upgrading my Debian from 9 to 10, I had a number of odd problems, so I decided to do a fresh install after making a backup of my directories. This has fixed many issues, but there is one, very noticeable one that has persisted: I can't change the way my virtual desktops behave - this works fine for a newly created user, so I assume it must be something in my user's .config somewhere. The particular issue I see is that virtual desktop switching animation doesn't work; I'm fond of the desktop cube animation, and it is of course very visible that it doesn't work; I can still switch desktops.

So, where are the configs that control this?

This works quite fine in my Plasma, but it is ahead of the one shipped by Debian

FWIW: almost everything configurable is found in System Settings, in this particular case:
System Settings -> Workspace -> Workspace Behavior -> Virtual Desktops

Hi, thank you for replying. I already know where to find the GUI interface; what I need to find is the configuration files. If I create a new user, it works, but not for my existing user, after I restored the backup of the user's home directory, so I need to find out what it is in the configuration files that stop it from working.

Code: Select all

inotifywait -m -r -e modify ~/.config

shows, which files in your ~.config folder are modified, when you change the settings via UI.

Hi raphaelra, I tried with inotifywait, but all I get is:

/root/.config/ MODIFY kwinrc.lock
/root/.config/ MODIFY #6035935

and non of those exist under .config

But kwinrc exist. Maybe the other files are a kind of temporary files created during saving settings. Does kwinrc contains settings for virtual desktops you are looking for ?

I found it - not sure why I didn't see it before. It contains a lot of options, and it looks like it probably is the one I need. Is there a reference manual somewhere? I have tried various searches, but they all end up in explaining how to use the GUI and don't give much insight.

I'm afraid, you must try do make a changes and then check the differences between old and new kwinrc. The other way, remove the entries you think they are relevant from kwinrc (remember to make a backup) and check if you virtual desktops behaves as expected.