GNOME's GConf implements a system-wide registry (like on Windows) that applications can use to store and retrieve internal configuration data. That concept is inherently impure, and it's very hard to support on NixOS. The result is that applications that use GConf -- like GnuCash -- will report tons of error messages at start-up. To remedy those errors, the GConf daemon must be told the path to the application-specific ${out}/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/ directory, and the DBus daemon must be told how to start gconfd whenever an application needs it. To accomplish that, follow these steps:
- Add the following line to ~/.gconf.path:
xml:readonly:$(HOME)/.nix-profile/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/
- Add the following line to /etc/nixos/configuration.nix:
services.dbus.packages = [ pkgs.gnome.GConf ];
- Run nixos-rebuild switch. It may also be necessary to run gconftool-2 --shutdown, in case there already is an active gconfd, but those beasts typically terminate on their own after a few moments of inactivity.
