Installed files
Every file an install puts on the system, and the files glimpse and your applets write at runtime. Paths use the default /usr prefix. The .deb and .rpm packages install the same system files and never write into a home directory.
| Installed at | Purpose |
|---|---|
/usr/bin/ | The glimpse binaries and the screen power helper |
/usr/lib/systemd/user/ | Systemd units |
/usr/share/dbus-1/services/ | D-Bus activation files |
/usr/share/xdg-desktop-portal/portals/ | Portal backends |
/etc/xdg-desktop-portal/ | Portal preferences |
/etc/pam.d/glimpse-lock | The lock screen's PAM stack |
/etc/geoclue/conf.d/glimpse.conf | Location access |
/usr/share/applications/, /usr/share/metainfo/, /usr/share/icons/hicolor/ | App launchers and icons |
/usr/share/glimpse/ | Shared data |
/usr/share/locale/<lang>/LC_MESSAGES/glimpse.mo | Translations, one catalog per language |
~/.config/glimpse/config.toml, panel.toml | Starting configuration files, written by the first start of a glimpse program |
Applet files
| Path | What |
|---|---|
~/.local/share/glimpse/applets/<id>/ | An applet installed with glimpsectl applet install, with its metadata.toml |
~/.local/share/applications/<id>.desktop | Its desktop entry: Path points at the directory above, and an Exec of ./<file> is made absolute |
~/.local/state/glimpse/applets/<id>/ | The applet's state directory, mode 0700 |
$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/glimpse/applets/ | The panel's applet sockets, <panel-pid>-<slot>.sock |
Portals
Installed under data/portals/. glimpse provides two xdg-desktop-portal backends:
| Portal file | D-Bus name | Interface |
|---|---|---|
glimpse.portal | me.aresa.Glimpse.Idle.Portal | org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Inhibit |
glimpse-shot.portal | me.aresa.Glimpse.Shot.Portal | org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Screenshot (version 3: Screenshot, PickColor, AvailableTargets) |
Both portal files carry UseIn=glimpse, so the portal frontend selects them when the session's desktop identity includes glimpse. Two preference files in /etc/xdg-desktop-portal/ state the same choices explicitly for setups that use portals.conf: glimpse-portals.conf and niri-portals.conf each map org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Inhibit to glimpse and org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Screenshot to glimpse-shot. The screenshot backend spawns glimpse-shot children for captures and glimpse-lens --tool picker for PickColor; it never constructs the screenshot application itself.
The preference files sit in /etc because an administrator may edit them. A pristine copy of each is kept in /usr/share/glimpse/portals/; an install replaces a preference file only while it still matches that copy, and otherwise keeps it and prints a warning naming it.
PAM
/etc/pam.d/glimpse-lock is the PAM service the lock screen authenticates against (its pam-service setting). It allows authentication and account checks through the system's usual stack and denies password changes and sessions, because the lock screen only ever checks a password. The install script picks the variant for the distribution: on a system with /etc/pam.d/common-auth and no /etc/pam.d/system-auth it installs the common-auth variant from data/pam.d/debian/, and otherwise the system-auth one. The .rpm package ships the variant in data/pam.d/fedora/. Packages mark the file as a configuration file, so an edited copy survives an upgrade.
GeoClue
/etc/geoclue/conf.d/glimpse.conf grants glimpse location access without asking. glimpse-settings-daemon is the only glimpse process that asks GeoClue, and the weather and night light read the location from it. It runs in the background, with no window and nobody to answer a prompt, so without this policy GeoClue would refuse it or wait on a prompt nobody sees. The file sets allowed=true and system=true for the glimpse application id and leaves users= empty, which means every user. The section name matches the desktop id glimpse sends to GeoClue. Location is used only when [geolocation] provider is geoclue, the default.
Launcher and icons
Two glimpse programs have app launchers. glimpse-shot has /usr/share/applications/me.aresa.Glimpse.Shot.desktop, with Screen, Window and Region actions, and its AppStream entry in /usr/share/metainfo/. glimpse-lens has one entry per tool: me.aresa.Glimpse.Lens.desktop (Magnifier), me.aresa.Glimpse.Lens.Ruler.desktop (Ruler) and me.aresa.Glimpse.Lens.Picker.desktop (Color Picker). The Ruler and Color Picker entries pass --copy, so the result lands on the clipboard. /usr/share/icons/hicolor/ gets the glimpse, glimpse-shot and glimpse-lens icons, each in a full color and a symbolic version.
Shared data
/usr/share/glimpse/ holds what every glimpse binary reads and nobody edits:
| File | Read by |
|---|---|
config.default.toml, panel.default.toml | You: every default, uncommented, always matching the installed version. glimpse itself does not read them; the defaults are built in. |
config.commented.toml, panel.commented.toml | You: the same defaults, every line commented out, to copy from. glimpse itself does not read them. |
config.schema.json, panel.schema.json | Editors that validate TOML; reference one with #:schema /usr/share/glimpse/config.schema.json. |
language-codes.json | The keyboard applet, which shortens layout names to codes such as US. A copy in ~/.config/glimpse/ takes precedence. |
themes/adwaita/ | The built-in theme: panel.css, dark.css, wallpaper.css, lock.css and the default wallpaper. |
sdk/templates/ | glimpsectl applet new, which copies it to start an applet. |
portals/ | The install script, as the pristine copies of the portal preferences. |
LICENSE | The license text. |
Your configuration
The first start of the panel, notifications, lock screen or wallpaper creates the ~/.config/glimpse directory if it is missing and writes a config.toml and a panel.toml into it, each only when absent. Each holds a #:schema line and a link to the documentation, nothing else. Nothing is written when you start a program with --config-dir. The install script writes nothing into a home directory, and an upgrade never touches these files.