How do I reset GNOME to the defaults?

Question

I was playing around with some settings, and now I need to reset GNOME to it's defaults - how do I do that?

Answer 1

For Unity-related configuration resetting, take a look here.

This command will delete your configuration files. Once it's run there is no going back!

Still with me?

GNOME2

Run the following in the terminal or Alt+F2:

rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity

That will do is remove all the GNOME2 configuration settings. Log out, and log back in. You'll be back to a stock desktop.

You can backup before playing around with your settings in the future:

mkdir ./.old-gnome-config && mv ./.gnome* ./.old-gnome-config && mv .gconf* ./.old-gnome-config && mv ./.metacity ./.old-gnome-config

GNOME3

If your config isn't worth saving run the following:

rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity .cache .dbus .dmrc .mission-control .thumbnails ~/.config/dconf/user ~.compiz*

To back up for GNOME3:

mkdir ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.gnome* ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv .gconf* ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.metacity ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.cache ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.dbus ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.dmrc ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.mission-control ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.thumbnails ./.old-gnome-config/   && ~/.config/dconf/* ./.old-gnome-config/

Answer 2

If you want to reset your GNOME specific settings to default as if you had never logged in try

rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity

Answer 3

Logout, switch to command line (Alt+ctrl+F1), login, do: rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity, switch to X (Alt+ctrl+F7).

Just like they described it here:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/resetting-gnomes-settings-ubuntu

Answer 4

Fore me those directories were not sufficient - I had to delete ~/.config/dconf/user as well.

This helped for me in those two cases:

• gnome-panel config broken (tried to specify location "left" for one gnome panel, it immediately crashed and could not be started afterwards)
• GTK Theme and GTK Icons broken (nevertheless the selection via e. g. gnome-tweak-tool, it remained in ugly Windows-style grey look and icons were standard gnome - I have no clue how this was provoked, it appeared suddenly after login)

This corresponds to the Gnome 3 Fallback Mode I use on Linux Mint 12 Lisa (Oneiric based). But the GTK problem persisted in all other login modes as well (MATE, Gnome 3 Standard)!

I am unsure now to which mechanism the ~/.config/dconf/user file corresponds, as I found out that in Linux Mint only mateconf-editor is installed by default but outfitted with the title and icon of gconf-editor from Natty! After installing gconf-editor additionally, this one is titled identically but has a different (new) icon. But don't rely on this icon stories, because this will rely on the icon theme which is Mint-X-Dark for me.

Theory says that dconf is the successor for gconf, but I found no information regarding the GUIs.