I like to be able to configure things from the command line, so that when I reinstall the OS I can just run a script and get my preferred configuration back.
Since "upgrading" to Ubuntu 17.10, I found I had to use gnome-tweak-tool to get some settings the way I want them.
Once I find a setting in the gnome-tweak-tool GUI, how can I figure out its scriptable translation?
For example the following gsettings lines match the relevant entries in the gnome-tweak-tool screen shot below…
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences titlebar-font "Tahoma Bold 8"
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name "Tahoma 8"
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface document-font-name "Tahoma 8"
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface monospace-font-name "FixedSC 10"
…but how could anyone guess that? And how would I, for example, figure out where to get the corresponding settings for hinting and antialiasing?
Best Answer
Easily find out what is being set
Instead of searching through a whole directory of options:
Run the command:
Make your changes and see what the terminal shows:
...and there you are.
Dconf & gsettings
In the example, you see the output from
dconf
. Gsettings is the cli- frontend to dconf. Many times, you can use both adconf
command or agsettings
command. In this case either:or:
If the gsettings key exists however, the latter is considered to be better practice, to protect the integrity of your
dconf
database.See also here and here.