Boot Mate

A modern GNOME application for managing autostart entries, built with Rust and libadwaita.

Features

• View all autostart entries from user and system directories
• Edit autostart entry commands and parameters
• Delete or disable autostart entries
• Multi-language support (English and German)
• Follows GNOME Human Interface Guidelines
• Fast and lightweight, built with Rust

Screenshots

Light Mode

Main window showing autostart entries

Adding a new autostart entry

Dark Mode

Main window showing autostart entries

Adding a new autostart entry

Installation

Download Pre-built Packages

Pre-built DEB packages are automatically created for each release:

• DEB Package: Download from GitHub Releases

# Install deb package (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo dpkg -i bootmate_1.2.1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install -f  # Install dependencies if needed

From Source

If you prefer to build from source, see the Building section below.

Requirements

Runtime Dependencies

• GTK 4.10 or later (GTK 4.12+ included in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS)
• libadwaita 1.4 or later (libadwaita 1.4+ included in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS)
• GLib 2.66 or later

Build Dependencies

• Rust 1.70 or later (1.80+ recommended)
• Meson 0.59 or later
• Cargo
• glib-compile-resources
• glib-compile-schemas
• gettext

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

On Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, you can install all dependencies with:

sudo apt install build-essential meson cargo rustc \
    libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev libglib2.0-dev \
    gettext appstream desktop-file-utils

Building

Using Meson (Recommended)

# Configure the build
meson setup build --prefix=/usr/local

# Build the application
meson compile -C build

# Install (optional)
sudo meson install -C build

Development Build

For development with debug symbols:

meson setup build -Dprofile=debug
meson compile -C build

Release Build

For optimized release build:

meson setup build -Dprofile=release
meson compile -C build

Running

After installation:

bootmate

Or from the build directory without installing:

./build/src/bootmate

Or launch from your application menu: Boot Mate

Project Structure

bootmate/
├── data/                   # Application data files
│   ├── icons/             # Application icons
│   ├── ui/                # GTK UI templates
│   ├── *.desktop.in       # Desktop entry file
│   └── *.metainfo.xml.in  # AppStream metadata
├── po/                     # Translations
│   ├── de.po              # German translation
│   └── en.po              # English translation
├── src/                    # Rust source code
│   ├── main.rs            # Application entry point
│   ├── application.rs     # Application logic
│   ├── window.rs          # Main window
│   ├── autostart.rs       # Autostart entry management
│   └── entry_row.rs       # List row widget
├── build.rs               # Build script
├── Cargo.toml             # Rust dependencies
├── meson.build            # Meson build configuration
└── LICENSE                # GPLv2 license

How It Works

Boot Mate scans the following directories for .desktop files:

• ~/.config/autostart/ - User autostart entries (takes precedence)
• /etc/xdg/autostart/ - System-wide autostart entries
• /usr/share/gnome/autostart/ - GNOME autostart entries

Editing Entries

When you edit a system-wide autostart entry, Boot Mate creates a user-specific copy in ~/.config/autostart/ with your changes. This ensures system files remain untouched.

Deleting Entries

• User entries: Deleted directly from ~/.config/autostart/
• System entries: A hidden override is created in ~/.config/autostart/ to disable the entry

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit issues and pull requests.

Development Guidelines

• All code must be in English (comments, function names, variables)
• Follow Rust best practices and idioms
• Maintain GNOME HIG compliance
• Add translations for new user-facing strings

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0 only (GPL-2.0-only).

See LICENSE for the full license text.

Author

Samuel Rüegger

• GitHub: @srueegger
• Repository: bootmate

Contributors

• Actionschnitzel (@actionschnitzel) - ARM64 build support

Acknowledgments

• Built with GTK 4 and libadwaita
• Rust bindings by gtk-rs
• Designed for modern GNOME desktop environments on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and later