Restoring desktop settings/theme/appearance from backup

User Support
1

Hello,

i recently reinstalled qubes and restored from a local backup. I noticed it did not restore the appearance for my system such as my dark theme, panel settings, desktop icons etc.

Is there a way to include this in the backup?

Thanks

2

When you select to backup dom0 it’ll backup /home directory of dom0 so I think your dom0 user settings should be in that backup as well.

3

is there a specific folder for this? I checked all the folders in /home/[user]. Nothing is there and im 100% sure i restored dom0

4

I don’t know where they are stored. But these are Xfce settings and not Qubes OS specific settings so you can search where are Xfce settings stored in general.

5

Only the home directory is kept by Qubes Backup

If the settings were set outside the home directory, you won’t have them. Check inside the .config or .local directories just in case.

6

If you restored dom0 from a backup it should end up in your home folder in dom0 named like: home-restore-2023-12-10-200905. If this is missing your backup may not have restored properly.

Dark theme if you followed the global dark mode guide will need you to install some packages and change /etc/environment to get working on a new install, just review the guide and install those 2 packages and update /etc/environment.

I just did a clean 4.1 install to move between NVMes, most of what you will want to restore is in .config which you should be able to see using ls -la home-restore-[DATE]/dom0-home/[user]/ from the dom0 terminal.

I personally just brought the entire .config folder out of the backup and into my new home dir which, with the packages and /etc/environment update (as well as re-installing Whisker menu) got me back up and running exactly how I had it.

After the last restore I have made a sys_backup in my home directory where I copy over necessary files such as:

  • A text file with my current crontab -e contents.
  • /usr/share/qubes/templates/libvirt/xen.xml since I have modified it.
  • /etc/default/grub Grub with primary GPU blacklisted
  • /etc/qubes Didn’t actually need this one
  • /etc/qubes-rpc Mostly just for the Split SSH file
  • /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d so that my AMD card in the secondary slot can start lightdm

Yours will vary of course but I would recommend it and documenting your restoration procedure if your system is modified in any way so things go smooth when you really need it.

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