Installing "straight-live" of a theme package

[humbert.olivier.1@free.fr]

Hi,

(Debian 8 updated here.)

I've done a theme for Mate and I'm packaging it.

So, I've done a package which first, installs all the files under /usr/share/theme/mytheme.
This part is OK and I can choose my theme in mate.



Now, I've been working (and reading a lot about) on how to install it:
1) as a default theme (then any new user will get it by default)
2) "straight-live" which mean that mate automagically will switch to it when installing the package



For 1), I added a debian/mythemepackage.gconf-defaults in order to make it used by dh_gconf, with those lines (amongst some others for additionnal little tweakings) :
   /org/mate/Marco/general/theme 'mytheme'
   /org/mate/background/picture-filename '/usr/share/backgrounds/mytheme/mybackgroundpicture.png'
   /org/mate/interface/gtk-theme 'mytheme'
The package installation puts a file under /usr/share/gconf/defaults/10_mypackagetheme , but it doesn't work as I expected. I still have to manually change the theme for it to take effect even after a reboot or/and after creating a new user.



For 2), I've been trying in a mate-terminal (while mate is running) with those command lines :
   gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general theme 'mytheme'
   gsettings set org.mate.background picture-filename '/usr/share/backgrounds/mytheme/mybackgroundpicture.png'
   gsettings set org.mate.interface gtk-theme 'mytheme'
and it does work this way.

Then I did put those lines into a postinst script in my package, and I was disapointed because it doesn't work. I've been wondering why for 3 days till I did the test to run those command as root (since the postinst script is ran under root) and did find that those command lines does not work when ran as root as confirmed by this error message : "(process:3192): dconf-WARNING **: failed to commit changes to dconf: The connection is closed".


I'm a bit lost and feeling like a fish in front of a trampoline. I've been trying things I knew, I've been reading quite a lot about gconf/gsettings, I've trying to look at the debian mate theme packages sources (in the hope to find a solution). Any help and/or direction would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading,
Olivier