I set things up the way I want them many years ago, and because everything's a text file, my configs have followed me across many machines and OS installs by just copying some files.
With more "magical" desktops like Gnome, developers like to change things every 6 months, and then I've got to mess around with the settings to try and not have it disrupt my workflow. And as soon as bring a new machine up I'm spending half a day mousing through menus and trying to remember all the things I set last time.
I like FreeBSD with a minimal desktop precisely because I've got more important things to be doing than messing around with settings. Yeah, the work is front-loaded, but the payoff is that I spend years not even thinking about the desktop or the OS.
If I recall correctly although gnome uses a binary config file format not terribly unlike the windows registry there is a way to export and then import it.
Even so I don't think this is 100% proof against things changing then again the same CAN be true of text configuration files.
I set things up the way I want them many years ago, and because everything's a text file, my configs have followed me across many machines and OS installs by just copying some files.
With more "magical" desktops like Gnome, developers like to change things every 6 months, and then I've got to mess around with the settings to try and not have it disrupt my workflow. And as soon as bring a new machine up I'm spending half a day mousing through menus and trying to remember all the things I set last time.
I like FreeBSD with a minimal desktop precisely because I've got more important things to be doing than messing around with settings. Yeah, the work is front-loaded, but the payoff is that I spend years not even thinking about the desktop or the OS.