About page branding

The "About this System" page in System Settings shows information about your system. It gives distributions a way to show their branding, through a simple file in the Desktop Entry format.

#Software entries

You can add custom entries at the bottom of the page's software section.

Add a file /etc/xdg/scm-about-distrorc, which applies to all users the next time the page is opened. A file at ~/.config/scm-about-distrorc applies to only one user.

In the [General] section, add an ExtraSoftwareData entry with a semicolon-separated list of scripts to run when the page opens.

Each script should output at least two lines: one for the label, ending in a colon for consistency with the other entries, and another for its value.

For translations, check the LANGUAGE environment variable when the script runs, and keep the English text as the default output. The page's process stops with a fatal error if an entry points to a script that doesn't output two lines, so test your scripts.

For example:

[General]
ExtraSoftwareData=/usr/bin/whichpartition;/usr/bin/whatsmyname

With /usr/bin/whichpartition giving this output:

Partition:
A

And /usr/bin/whatsmyname giving this:

Username:
acoolusername

#Showing the build

Another option in this file is ShowBuild:

[General]
ShowBuild=true

The page then shows the BUILD_ID from /etc/os-release next to the version. For example, instead of SteamOS 3.5 it would say SteamOS 3.5 Build: 20230201.1000.

#Other options

The same section can also set LogoPath, Website, Name, Version and Variant, and UseOSReleaseVersion, which controls whether the VERSION from /etc/os-release is used. An example file shows them.