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https://github.com/lawmurray/mendingwall

Linux distributions offer a choice of desktop environment, but installing more than one can break themes and clutter menus. Mending Wall fixes this.
https://github.com/lawmurray/mendingwall

cinnamon cinnamon-desktop gnome gnome-app gnome-desktop kde kde-desktop linux-app linux-applications linux-apps linux-desktop plasma-desktop xfce xfce-desktop

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Linux distributions offer a choice of desktop environment, but installing more than one can break themes and clutter menus. Mending Wall fixes this.

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README 

        
![Mending Wall icon](docs/assets/logo.svg)



# Mending Wall



Mending Wall is a Linux application to fix issues when hopping between multiple desktop environments, such as tiny/huge cursors, tiny/huge fonts, light/dark mode switches and scaling issues. It also tidies application menus, showing core applications in their native environment only.



Mending Wall is free software, copyright (C) 2025 Lawrence Murray, licensed under the terms of the [GPLv3](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html).



> [!CAUTION]

> This is an early release. During development, it has been tested with Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 41, openSUSE Tumbleweed and EndeavourOS with GNOME and KDE, and to a lesser extent Xfce and Cinnamon. I would recommend trying it in a virtual machine, or creating a snapshot of your system before proceeding (with e.g. [Timeshift](https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift) or [Snapper](http://snapper.io/)), in case Mending Wall fails to fix breakages caused by installing a second desktop environment in your main system, which may leave you with a manual cleanup.



## Installation



Mending Wall is currently installed from source. A local installation to your home directory is sufficient; root permissions are not required to install or run.



Building requires Meson, GTK 4, GLib 2, and libadwaita.



On Debian-based systems, install these with:

```

sudo apt install meson libgtk-4-dev libglib2.0-dev libadwaita-1-dev

```

On Fedora:

```

sudo dnf install meson glib2-devel gtk4-devel libadwaita-devel

```

On openSUSE:

```

sudo zypper install meson glib2-devel gtk4-devel libadwaita-devel

```

On Arch-based:

```

sudo pacman -S meson glib2 gtk4 libadwaita

```

Other Linux distributions will almost certainly provide these packages too, although names may differ.



To build and install Mending Wall, run from within the base directory:

```bash

meson setup build --prefix=$HOME/.local

cd build

meson compile

meson install

gdbus call --session --dest org.freedesktop.DBus --object-path /org/freedesktop/DBus --method org.freedesktop.DBus.ReloadConfig

```

The last line just ensures that newly-installed `.service` files in `$HOME/.local/share/dbus-1/services/` are found by D-Bus, in case that directory did not exist already. If you try to launch Mending Wall from an application menu and nothing happens, running that line should fix it, and it does not hurt to run it anyway.



## Quick start



After installing, launch Mending Wall and enable one or both of the features *Mend Themes* and *Tidy Menus*. Both are recommended. Once enabled, it will start doing its work, and you can log in to a second desktop environment.



If you have already logged in to a second desktop environment before running Mending Wall, so that your themes may be broken already, you will need to fix your themes manually through the settings of your desktop environment, but can enable Mending Wall to preserve those settings going forward.



In brief, Mending Wall starts a background process `mendingwalld` that:



* If *Mend Themes* is enabled, monitors for changes in certain dconf settings and config files for the current desktop session and saves them to `~/.local/share/mendingwall/save`. Then, when logging back into that desktop environment in future, the save is restored (via an autostart in `~/.local/autostart`, and for KDE, a pre-start script in `~/.local/plasma-workspace/env`). In this way each desktop environment effectively has its own separate set of dconf settings and config files, so that they do not interfere with each other.



* If *Tidy Menus* is enabled, monitors for the installation of certain core applications (e.g. terminals, file managers, text editors), as well as many games, and configures the `OnlyShowIn` and `NotShowIn` entries of their `.desktop` files (in e.g. `/usr/share/applications`) to show only in their native desktop environment, saving to the standard directory `~/.local/share/applications`. So, for example, GNOME Terminal shows in GNOME but not KDE, Konsole shows in KDE but not GNOME, etc. If *Tidy Menus* is later disabled, these changes are undone, as long as each `.desktop` file has not been modified with further custom changes (e.g. with a menu editor app).