https://chili-it.de/tags/config/Recent content in Config on Philipp MetzlerHugoen-usThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:49:34 +0200https://chili-it.de/posts/own-your-desktop-again/Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:49:34 +0200https://chili-it.de/posts/own-your-desktop-again/<p>A proprietary desktop decides for you.</p> <p>It hides the settings it doesn&rsquo;t trust you with, buries the ones it does three menus deep, and resets your preferences on the next update because someone in a product meeting decided the new default was better. You don&rsquo;t configure that machine. You negotiate with it.</p> <p>There&rsquo;s a way out, and it got a lot more fun this year.</p> <h2 id="step-one-pick-a-linux-you-can-grep">Step one: pick a Linux you can grep</h2> <p>The whole trick depends on one property. Your system has to live in plain text files.</p>