GlouOS Settings

One place for every setting¶

The app discovers every installed settings module at runtime, from the same metadata the desktop itself reads, so nothing is ever missing and modules added by future updates appear automatically. Clicking any entry opens the full original page, with every slider, button and checkbox intact.

• Search covers names, descriptions and a large set of hidden keywords per page, so “mouse” also finds Pointers and “fps” finds Display Configuration.
• Grouping follows the familiar upstream layout, with the GlouOS tools pinned at the top.
• Nothing is lost. Anything the app cannot classify still appears under Other, so no page can ever disappear.

GlouOS tools¶

GlouOS's own pages are pinned first. These are the parts you will not find on a stock desktop.

GlouOS Theme

A one-click switch between the light and dark look of the whole desktop. For deeper appearance changes (colours, icons, wallpaper) use Appearance & style below.

Updates

The full GlouOS update experience, in one page:

• A status header shows whether you are up to date and when the last check happened, with a Check for updates button.
• When updates exist, a banner offers Download & install with a live progress log. Updates are never forced and never nag; there is nothing to “pause” because nothing happens without you.
• Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available switches to the GlouOS beta channel: new features earlier, at the cost of a little stability.
• Snapshots lists the automatic before-update snapshots and restores one with a click. Your files in Home are untouched, and snapshots can also be booted straight from the GRUB menu.
• After a kernel or driver update, a restart reminder appears.

Secure Boot Setup

A wizard that creates and enrols your own Secure Boot keys with sbctl, then signs the bootloader and kernel. After setup, signing stays automatic across kernel updates.

Performance Mode

A toggle that disables CPU security mitigations for extra speed. It is a deliberate tradeoff (faster, less secure), it is off by default, and it takes effect after a restart. See Kernel & latency for the reasoning.

General¶

• Quick Settings: a landing page with the most common basics in one place: light/dark theme, accent colour and similar quick picks. Everything here also exists as a full page elsewhere.

Input & output¶

• Game Controller: see every connected gamepad, test each button, stick and trigger live, and calibrate analog sticks. If a pad acts up in a game, this page tells you whether the system sees the inputs correctly.
• Drawing Tablet: map a drawing tablet to the right screen area, set pen pressure curves, remap pen and tablet buttons, and test the pen.
• Sound: choose output and input devices, set per-device and per-application volumes, rename devices, pick the audio profile (stereo, surround, HDMI), test speakers, and set what happens when a new device is plugged in.
• Accessibility: visual and audible bells, sticky keys, slow keys, bounce keys, mouse navigation via the number pad, activation gestures and the screen reader toggle.

Mouse & touchpad

• Mouse: pointer speed and acceleration profile (flat acceleration matters for aiming precision in shooters), left/right handed buttons, scroll speed and direction, and double-click speed.
• Touchpad: tap-to-click, two-finger right click, scrolling style and speed, disable-while-typing, and edge behaviours.

Keyboard

• Keyboard: key repeat rate and delay, NumLock at login, keyboard model, and layouts with per-layout switching shortcuts.
• Virtual Keyboard: pick which on-screen keyboard is used on touch devices, or disable it.
• Shortcuts: every global keyboard shortcut in the system, searchable, remappable, and restorable to defaults. Custom shortcuts for launching apps or commands live here too.

Touchscreen

• Touchscreen: map a touchscreen to the correct display and rotation.
• Touchscreen Gestures: configure what swipes from each screen edge do (open the overview, show the desktop, and so on).

Display & monitor

• Display Configuration: arrange monitors, set resolution, refresh rate, scaling (including fractional), rotation, primary display, and Adaptive Sync / VRR per display.
• Night Light: warm the screen colours on a schedule or by sunrise/sunset location, with adjustable temperature.
• Screen Edges: assign actions to screen corners and edges (overview, show desktop, tile windows) and tune how hard you must push to trigger them.

Connected devices¶

• Bluetooth: pair, trust, rename, connect and remove Bluetooth devices (controllers, headsets), toggle adapter power and visibility, and send files.

Disks & cameras

• Device Actions: what the system offers to do when you plug in a phone, camera or drive (open in file manager, play, download).
• Device Auto-Mount: whether removable drives mount automatically on login and on plug-in, per device or for all devices.

Networking¶

• Cellular Network: mobile broadband (APN, data) for machines with a modem.
• Wi-Fi: the touch-friendly Wi-Fi network picker.
• Wired Network: the touch-friendly wired settings page.
• Hotspot: share this machine’s connection as a Wi-Fi hotspot (name, password, band).

Wi-Fi & internet

• Wi-Fi & Networking: the full connection editor: every saved Wi-Fi, wired, VPN and mobile connection with all details (IPv4/IPv6, DNS, routes, security, MAC address, auto-connect priorities).
• Proxy: system proxy configuration (none, auto-detect, PAC URL, or manual per-protocol servers with exceptions).
• Connection Preferences: timeouts for network operations and passive FTP mode.

Appearance & style¶

• Wallpaper: wallpaper per desktop and screen: single image, slideshow, plain colour or picture-of-the-day, with positioning options.
• Animations: a global animation speed slider (or off entirely) plus the style of individual transitions like window open/close, maximize and virtual desktop switching. Turning animations down makes the desktop feel snappier on slower GPUs.

Colours & themes

• Global Theme: apply a complete look (colours, icons, cursors, splash, panel layout) in one go. GlouOS ships its own look here.
• Colors: pick a colour scheme, set the accent colour, and switch between light and dark schemes (the GlouOS Theme quick toggle drives this page underneath).
• Application Style: the widget style used by apps, toolbar label style, and how GTK/GNOME apps are themed to match.
• Plasma Style: the look of the panel, widgets and tray (the shell skin, independent of app colours).
• Window Decorations: titlebar theme, border size, and which buttons appear on titlebars (drag to reorder).
• Icons: the icon theme used everywhere, with per-size overrides.
• Pointers: the mouse pointer theme and size.
• System Sounds: the sound theme used for alerts and notifications, with previews.
• Splash Screen: the loading screen shown while the desktop starts (GlouOS ships its branded one), or none for the fastest visual login.

Text & fonts

• Fonts: the interface fonts (general, fixed width, toolbar, window title), global font size, anti-aliasing including sub-pixel rendering and hinting, and forced DPI.
• Font Management: preview, install and remove fonts, per-user or system-wide, and organise them into groups.

Apps & windows¶

• Notifications: do-not-disturb behaviour, popup position and timeout, notification sounds, progress reporting, badges, and per-application rules. Worth a visit if game sessions get interrupted by popups (GlouOS already quiets background noise while a game runs).
• Activities: create and manage Activities (separate workspaces with their own wallpaper and history), switching shortcuts and privacy per Activity.

Default applications

• Default Applications: which browser, file manager, email client, terminal, music and video player handle their respective jobs.
• File Associations: which application opens each file type, per MIME type, with per-type embedding rules and priority order.

Window management

• Window Behavior: focus policy (click or hover), raising, snap zones, what double-clicking a titlebar does, titlebar button actions, and placement for new windows.
• Task Switcher: the Alt+Tab experience: visual style, ordering, whether minimized windows show, and a separate alternative switcher.
• Desktop Effects: every compositor effect with on/off toggles and per-effect settings (wobbly windows, blur, zoom, dim inactive and many more).
• Window Rules: per-window overrides matched by application or title: force size/position, keep above, skip switcher, disable compositing, and dozens more. Powerful for stubborn game launchers.
• KWin Scripts: enable, configure and install window manager scripts (tiling helpers and similar).
• Virtual Desktops: how many desktops, their layout in rows, names, and navigation behaviour (GlouOS ships two by default).

Workspace & search¶

• General Behavior: single vs double click to open files, tooltip visibility, and other whole-workspace behaviours.

Search

• File Search: the file indexer: which folders are indexed (or excluded), whether file contents are indexed, and index status. GlouOS pauses this automatically while a game is running.
• Plasma Search: which providers feed the application launcher’s search (files, apps, calculator, web keywords) and their order.

Security & privacy¶

• Screen Locking: lock on resume, lock after inactivity, the lock shortcut, and the lock screen’s own appearance and wallpaper.
• Recent Files: whether recently used files are remembered, for which applications, and a one-click history wipe.
• User Feedback: how much anonymous usage data desktop components may report. GlouOS itself sends nothing.

Application permissions

• Legacy X11 App Support: which key events legacy X11 apps may see globally (a Wayland security control), and whether X11 apps may capture the screen.

Language & time¶

• Region & Language: display language plus per-category formats (numbers, currency, dates, measurement units).
• Spell Check: dictionaries, personal word list and automatic language detection for text fields.
• Date & Time: set the clock manually or via automatic time synchronisation, and pick the time zone by map or search.
• Day-Night Cycle: define when “day” and “night” are for features that follow them (like Night Light and dark mode switching).

System¶

• Energy: the compact power page: screen timeout, sleep and lock behaviour.
• Power Management: full power profiles for AC, battery and low battery: screen brightness and dimming, sleep and hibernate timings, lid and power button actions, battery charge limit on supported laptops, and per-profile performance mode.
• Users: create and delete accounts, change names, passwords, avatars and administrator rights, and enrol fingerprints on supported hardware.
• Autostart: applications, scripts and login/logout scripts that run with your session, with add/remove and per-entry toggles.

Session

• Desktop Session: whether the previous session’s windows are restored at login, logout confirmation, default logout/shutdown behaviour, and a button to reboot straight into the firmware (UEFI) setup.
• Locations: where Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures and Videos actually live on disk. Handy for pointing Downloads at a bigger game drive.

Other¶

Anything the catalogue cannot place lands here rather than disappearing. On a current install that is:

• Plasma Renderer: which graphics backend renders the desktop shell and whether its rendering is forced to software. A troubleshooting page: leave it alone unless the desktop itself misrenders.
• Background Services: start/stop the desktop’s background helper services and control which start at login. Also a troubleshooting page.
• Web Search Keywords: the “dd duckduckgo” style search keywords usable from the launcher and address bars, fully editable.

Tips¶

• The search bar is the fastest route: it matches far more words than what is printed on screen (every page ships dozens of hidden keywords).
• Settings pages open in their own window, so you can keep several open side by side.
• If a page you expect is missing, it belongs to an application that is not installed. Installing it (for example via the GlouOS Package Manager) makes its settings appear here automatically after a restart of GlouOS Settings.