i cleaned up my linux setup and immediately broke it

linux · Mar 15, 2026 · 1 min read

every few months i do this to myself: i look at my desktop, decide it is a mess, and reorganise. i have never once been satisfied with the result.

this time i went from a heavily customised setup to something boring. no compositor tricks, no three competing bars, no wallpaper script that takes four seconds to start. just ubuntu, gnome, and one tool.

and then, of course, i broke it within a week.

what broke, in order: a keybinding i forgot i had changed, a screensaver that decided gnome was a kiosk, and an autostart entry that had been quietly fighting another one for months and finally won.

what i took from it

• write down what you changed before you change it, not after
• the thing you removed was probably doing something you had forgotten about
• a clean desktop you are scared to touch is not clean, it is abandoned
• most customisation is a solution to a problem you stopped having

i am not going back to the chaotic version. but i am keeping a written list of the setup, which would have saved me the entire weekend i just lost.