Formatting is a pain, especially due to all the package installation, configurations and so on. To make this easier, I made a large script with simple config files that is easily changed. So once I need a format (like when new OS versions is out), I just install and then execute the script after the first boot and I'm ready to go. Or at least that is how it was meant to be. But for some reason gsettings does not work properly. gsettings set schema key valueThe above line works just fine. But the script is executed as root since it needs to access config files on /etc, install and update package etc. so the above is not an option. sudo $user -c gsettings set schema key valueUsing sudo should work, but it does not. Some of the keys will take affect right away, others will not. And once I reboot or logout, everything is reset to default. sudo $user -c gsettings get schema keyIf I test the values using the above command, I do get the correct ones. So it seems that they do get set correctly, but still they only affect some and they still get reset during reboot or logout. I'm currently running Ubuntu Gnome 14.04. This used to work in 13.04 and before, but since 13.10 this has been a problem. 
GSettings is reset during reboot
gnome3;gnome shell;gsettings;dconf