I am trying to set a default image for desktop wallpaper and the lock screen in KDE Plasma 6. The image file is accessible from /usr/local/share/backgrounds/ and I have copied kscreenlockerrc, plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc, and plasmarc from the template user to /etc/skel/.config. The lock screen background is correctly set when testing with the Lock functionality so I know the image path is correct and has correct permissions. However, the default desktop setting is apparently being overwritten by another process when the new user is created because when I $cat plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc on the newly created user, the file is the default, not the one from /etc/skel/.config.
I am assuming the solution is to copy additional config files from the template user to /etc/skel/.config but I am not sure which files are required and have so far resisted the urge to “copy 'em all!” I also find it strange that an existing config file would be overwritten at all. Thanks for ideas!
In testing, I copied all .config files related to kde/plasma to /etc/skel to see if I could narrow down which files need to be created in order for the plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc file to not be overwritten at login/account creation. Sadly, this does not work to preserve the file either.
Running inotifywait -m -r ~/.config shows a few files that get written when the wallpaper is set, specifically the above, kdeglobals, and plasmarc. Interestingly, the GUI interface also touches the same files in ~/.config/default as well.
Solution: the /default folder must exist in ~/.config and it must be populated with the edited versions of the config files. If the files are, indeed, the default files, the edited (correct) configs will be overwritten.
This looks like a bug to me, but I do not know enough about how these settings are made/instantiated on first log-in. It certainly should be that if a file exists outside /default in .config those files should not be overwritten by those in /default, but that appears to be the case currently.