Switch channels

dms switch moves installed DMS packages between stable releases and beta builds (daily builds from the main branch). It replaces each package in place and backs up your settings first.

Usage

dms switch beta                # dms, quickshell and dms-greeter to beta builds
dms switch stable              # back to stable releases
dms switch beta dankcalendar   # only the named packages
dms switch stable -y           # no prompts

Without package names, dms, quickshell and dms-greeter switch together. The greeter runs the shell's interface, so a greeter on a different channel than dms can break the login screen. Packages that are not installed are skipped.

Name packages to switch only those: dms, quickshell, greeter, dankcalendar, danksearch.

The command lists what will change and asks before doing anything. When dms or quickshell changes, the shell restarts at the end.

Your settings

Before switching dms, the current settings, plugins, themes, session and cache state are saved to:

~/.local/state/dms/switch/<channel>-<time>.tar.gz

<channel> is the channel you are leaving. The three newest backups per channel are kept. If the backup fails, nothing is switched.

Only a change to dms takes a backup. Switching quickshell, dms-greeter or another package alone does not touch your settings, so no archive is written. The archives use the dms backup format and can be restored at any time with dms backup restore <archive>.

Going to beta is safe. Beta upgrades your settings the same way a new release would.

Going back to stable can lose options. Stable does not know settings added or renamed on beta and drops them on its next save. When a backup from your last stable run exists, dms switch stable offers to restore it after the switch. Your beta settings stay in the beta backup, so switching to beta again and restoring that archive with dms backup restore is always possible. With -y the current settings are kept and no restore is offered.

Starting with this release, the shell also copies settings.json to settings.v<N>.json when it finds settings written by a newer version, before it saves anything.

Settings kept in a dotfiles repository through a symlink are backed up and restored through the link, so the repository is updated in place.

Supported distributions

Distribution	How the package is replaced
Arch	the new build is fetched or built first, then swapped with pacman
Fedora, EL 10	dnf swap; for dms, which keeps its name, the COPR is changed and dnf distro-sync runs
openSUSE	zypper install new '!old' in one transaction
Debian, Ubuntu	apt replaces the conflicting package itself
Void	xbps-remove then xbps-install; the old package is put back if the install fails

On NixOS and Gentoo, change the channel through your configuration instead.

Dux Installer

Toggling an installed package between stable and git in the Dux Installer, or passing --git-deps / --git-all in headless mode, uses the same replacement. Earlier versions skipped the package or failed with a conflict.