Find alternative to gconf

[tanktarta]

As part of the cross desktop compatibility work, gconf should be replaced with something else. Compatibility with as many versions and distributions as possible should be maintained. Some options :-

1. Use some plain old text file configuration. Gnome15 relies heavily on getting notification when configuration changes, so inotify should be used to provide this. The problem here is that a simple implementation will not provide enough granularity to be very efficient.

2. SQL backend. Maybe overkill, but might overcome some problems of 1.

3. dconf. I think this is probably the right way, but will it work on earlier distributions (10.4 is the minimum really). Is dconf available on earlier distributions, and are the python bindings available and packaged? Might have to fallback to 1. if dconf is not available?

[John Terry (smashogre)]

I love gconf! I don't know dconf, but I hope it's good. I'll have to look at it and see. What system can't use gconf? My Kubuntu had it.

[tanktarta (tanktarta)]

It's not that gconf can't be used on a particular distro / configuration, it's more that it's GTK technology, something I wanted to move away from if possible (if the Gnome15 QT port ever gets started).

I am a bit confused about the dconf situation. I had hoped that KDE might end up using it, but that doesn't appear to be the case yet.

I am quite happy to leave this for a bit, it is not a big deal really.