Looking at the gconf and gconf-editor, it seems that upstream defaults are not consistent in gconf.xml.(system|defaults) usage.

What we have:

gconf defaults service: Uninitialized by default, even directory is not created.

gconf-editor defaults: Can never overwrite value defined by gconf defaults service. On  the other hand, gconf-editor defaults are overwritten by schemas installation.

schemas installation: Shares directory with gconf-editor defaults.

And what we need:

- One directory for admin defined defaults, not depending whether the change was done by gconf-editor or via defaults service.

- And probably one independent directory for defaults installed by schemas, which is not overwritten by any of above.


I know, that all these defaults are editable by packagers (and most distros do so), but I think, that the default configuration should be usable and should not cause sanity check errors.


Proposed changes (If you agree with them, I can create patches):


1. gconf-editor defaults and defaults service should use the same directory (.defaults resp. .system). This directory must be predefined in the default setup and mkdir must be called.

To fix it:
sync gconf-editor configure.in, default in defaults service, and make sure that mkdir in GConf Makefile.am creates them, and finally edit or comment the default path file.


2. Dedicated directory for schemas based data, separate from the above (.schemas resp, .defaults). Debian and openSUSE does so (and use .schemas).

To fix it:
Change default for GCONF_SCHEMA_INSTALL_SOURCE and similar variables everywhere in GConf, and finally edit or comment the default path file.


3. (optional) Move GCONF_SCHEMA_FILE_DIR to datadir/gconf/schemas as Debian does. These files are not intended to be edited. They are not sysconf files but data files.


4. (optional) Make database backend data to sharedstatedir (/var) as Debian does. These files are not intended to be edited directly. They are not sysconf files but cache/machine-edited files.