···8899[GSettings](https://developer.gnome.org/gio/stable/GSettings.html) API is often used for storing settings. GSettings schemas are required, to know the type and other metadata of the stored values. GLib looks for `glib-2.0/schemas/gschemas.compiled` files inside the directories of `XDG_DATA_DIRS`.
10101111-On Linux, GSettings API is implemented using [dconf](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/dconf) backend. You will need to add `dconf` GIO module to `GIO_EXTRA_MODULES` variable, otherwise the `memory` backend will be used and the saved settings will not be persistent.
1111+On Linux, GSettings API is implemented using [dconf](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/dconf) backend. You will need to add `dconf` [GIO module](#ssec-gnome-gio-modules) to `GIO_EXTRA_MODULES` variable, otherwise the `memory` backend will be used and the saved settings will not be persistent.
12121313Last you will need the dconf database D-Bus service itself. You can enable it using `programs.dconf.enable`.
14141515Some applications will also require `gsettings-desktop-schemas` for things like reading proxy configuration or user interface customization. This dependency is often not mentioned by upstream, you should grep for `org.gnome.desktop` and `org.gnome.system` to see if the schemas are needed.
1616+1717+### GIO modules {#ssec-gnome-gio-modules}
1818+1919+GLib’s [GIO](https://developer.gnome.org/gio/stable/ch01.html) library supports several [extension points](https://developer.gnome.org/gio/stable/extending-gio.html). Notably, they allow:
2020+2121+* implementing settings backends (already [mentioned](#ssec-gnome-settings))
2222+* adding TLS support
2323+* proxy settings
2424+* virtual file systems
2525+2626+The modules are typically installed to `lib/gio/modules/` directory of a package and you need to add them to `GIO_EXTRA_MODULES` if you need any of those features.
2727+2828+In particular, we recommend:
2929+3030+* adding `dconf.lib` for any software on Linux that reads [GSettings](#ssec-gnome-settings) (even transitivily through e.g. GTK’s file manager)
3131+* adding `glib-networking` for any software that accesses network using GIO or libsoup – glib-networking contains a module that implements TLS support and loads system-wide proxy settings
3232+3333+To allow software to use various virtual file systems, `gvfs` package can be also added. But that is usually an optional feature so we typically use `gvfs` from the system (e.g. installed globally using NixOS module).
16341735### GdkPixbuf loaders {#ssec-gnome-gdk-pixbuf-loaders}
1836