Gabriel Brown
89cf0f8c29
Parity is done except for Color, which the platform blocks. This is the other direction: what a settings application should own on a machine whose owner runs the servers. Every item was checked against this machine before being written down, including the one that was dropped -- a VPN page, because the WireGuard tunnel lives on the router and neither wg nor tailscale is installed here, so it would have had nothing to drive. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BRvzt4H8XXLPVH5MyYdk9L
8.2 KiB
Settings beyond GNOME
Written 2026-08-19, after the last GNOME panel worth owning was taken.
The goal has changed. Up to now the target was parity: make GNOME Settings unnecessary. That is done except for Color, which is blocked by the platform rather than by effort. What follows is the other direction — the things a settings application should own on this machine, which neither macOS nor Windows can offer because neither assumes you run your own infrastructure.
Everything below was checked against this machine before it was written. Where something is not possible, it says so and why.
What is already true
dnf5, dnf, flatpak |
present; 2 flatpak updates pending at time of writing |
firewalld, nmcli |
present |
podman |
22 images, 5.31 GB reclaimable |
gamemoded, mangohud |
present; Steam library is 1.2 TB |
| Nextcloud client | installed and running |
rustdesk |
installed |
| Self-hosted services | cloud, git, home, agentchat all answering over HTTPS |
wg, tailscale |
absent — the WireGuard tunnel lives on the router, not here |
That last row matters: a VPN page on this machine would have nothing to drive. Skipped for that reason, not forgotten.
Batch 1 — Keeping the machine current
The clearest "this OS is unfinished" gap. Both macOS and Windows put this front and centre; here you update in a terminal.
1.1 Software Update
- Pending updates by source (dnf and flatpak, counted separately because they fail separately), download size, and which are security fixes.
- Whether a kernel update means a reboot, stated plainly rather than implied.
- When it last checked, and a switch for automatic updates (
dnf-automatic). - Update history, and what
dnf history undocan and cannot reverse.
Mechanism. dnf5 has machine-readable output; flatpak remote-ls --updates
is already scriptable. Applying updates needs root, so pkexec, prompting through
the agent that is already running.
Deliberately excluded. Automatic unattended installation of anything but security updates. A machine that reboots itself into a new kernel while you are mid-sentence is not a feature.
1.2 Snapshot before updating
The reason to do updates first. Snapper is wired up as of yesterday, so an update can take a restore point before it touches anything — with the snapshot named after the transaction, so the Snapshots page shows "before 47 package updates" rather than a timestamp.
Neither macOS nor Windows does this cleanly. It is the single most distinctive thing on this list and it is nearly free now.
Done when the machine can be brought fully current from Settings, and going back is one click on a page that already exists.
Batch 2 — Your infrastructure
The part no shipped operating system has, because no shipped operating system assumes the user runs the servers.
2.1 Services
A page listing your self-hosted services with reachability, TLS certificate expiry, and version where the service exposes one.
Mechanism. Endpoints stored as a preference (so the list is yours, not
hardcoded); an HTTP HEAD per endpoint and an openssl s_client for expiry.
Deliberately a status view, not management. Settings will not administer a VPS. "Is my stuff up, and does anything expire soon" is the question worth answering here; anything more belongs in the service's own admin surface.
Watch for. Certificate expiry is the row that earns this page. It is also the one that must never report a false green — a check that fails should say "could not check", never "fine".
2.2 Nextcloud
The iCloud Drive equivalent, and the reason this list exists rather than a OneDrive page. Sync state, which folders, quota, conflicts, pause and resume.
Mechanism. The desktop client is running; its configuration is readable and
nextcloudcmd exists. Risk to check first: the client's status surface may
be too thin to drive a page honestly. If it is, this becomes a smaller card —
"syncing / paused / N conflicts" and a button to open the client — rather than
a pretend management panel.
2.3 RustDesk
The peer to the RDP controls already built. ID, whether unattended access is on, and — the part that matters to you — whether it is pointed at your own relay or the public one.
Mechanism. rustdesk --get-id, plus its config. Credentials follow the same
rule as everywhere else: never through Panama, never on a command line.
Batch 3 — Machine control
3.1 Firewall
You expose services, so this is worth owning. Zones, what is open, and which zone a connection is in.
Mechanism. firewall-cmd, which is fully scriptable, plus polkit for
changes.
Deliberately excluded. Rich rules and direct rules. They are a syntax, not a setting, and a settings page that half-supports a syntax is a trap.
This one is security-sensitive: every change must state what it exposes, and closing a port someone is currently connected over should say so first.
3.2 Containers
podman is here and Storage already found 5.31 GB of reclaimable images. Running containers, images, disk, logs, start and stop.
Deliberately excluded. Building images and editing compose files. That is a development tool, not a setting.
3.3 Gaming
You have gamemoded, mangohud, and a terabyte of Steam. Windows has Game
Mode; macOS added one.
Gamemode status and which process triggered it; the MangoHud overlay and preset; how it pairs with the power profile Settings already controls; Proton versions; where the library lives.
Watch for. This is the page most likely to become a dumping ground. It should own the handful of things that are actually settings and link out for the rest.
Batch 4 — The developer surface
4.1 SSH and keys
Keys, agent state, known hosts, per-host configuration. Neither macOS nor
Windows does this well, and this machine has a pile of ksshaskpass entries in
the keyring already.
Rules carried from the keyring work. A private key is never read, never displayed, and never leaves its file. The page manages which keys exist and what they are for.
4.2 Settings that follow you
SettingsBackup already exists. Nextcloud as transport would make Panama
settings arrive on another machine.
Watch for. Machine-specific values — monitor layout, device names — must not follow. A sync that carries a display arrangement to a laptop with one screen is worse than no sync.
Cross-cutting, and worth more than any single page
Make snapshots ambient. Now that they exist, anything risky can offer to take one first: updates, restoring defaults, firewall changes. This is the thread that makes a settings application feel safe rather than merely capable, and it is cheap everywhere it applies.
Make findings actionable. Storage reports 86 GB in the trash and 5.31 GB of reclaimable images, then leaves you to deal with it. The offer belongs next to the finding — carefully, since these are the destructive ones.
Principles this plan inherits
Every one of these was learned the hard way in the work before it.
- No switch that lies. If the mechanism cannot act — Color's missing devices, snapper's overridden rollback, a driver we cannot choose — the page says so instead of offering a control that changes nothing.
- A write is not done until it is read back. The failure that made "some things in the settings app don't work" true was a refresh that silently no-oped after a successful write.
- Guards read the object, not a binding over it. A derived property is stale inside the handler that changes it.
- A test must be seen to fail. "Something returned an error" is not evidence that your own code refused it; assert the reason.
- Check what exists before writing a file. Two components were overwritten in one session by not looking first.
Order, and why
Batch 1 first: it is the biggest gap, it is self-contained, and the snapshot pairing makes it distinctive rather than a copy of someone else's panel.
Batch 2 second: Services is read-only, which makes it low-risk and high-value, and it is the page that makes this feel like your operating system.
Batch 3 and 4 in either order. Firewall is the most valuable of the remainder and also the one that most deserves care.