Re: dotfiles in user home directories

[Linas Žvirblis <0x0007@gmail.com>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Andreas Fester wrote:

> I already thought about the same topic

So did I.

I investigated a bit and found that some applications already save their
settings in ".config/$APPNAME". Although I am not quite sure this is the
best solution. Why not duplicate the directory structure of
"/usr/local", and do away with all the dot files instead?

Like...

  /home/user/usr
  /home/user/bin
  /home/user/etc
  /home/user/desktop (yes, lowercase "D")
  /home/user/data    (for your personal files)

...or more nicely...

  /home/user/local/usr (or maybe "/home/user/apps", you get the point)
  /home/user/local/bin
  /home/user/local/etc
  /home/user/desktop
  /home/user/data

This is especially useful if you install some applications to your home
directory.

I strongly believe that hiding stuff from users (dot files) is not a
good thing in general. They are fine for lock files, placeholders, etc.,
but not for configuration files. On a system where everything is a file,
there is no reason to trick users into thinking that their configuration
is stored in some parallel universe, like it is in Redmond OS.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFFprFoztOe9mov/y4RAlqEAJ96Z65lR/1ykd+Age8VwUkU6KfNXwCdFOZp
jLMoxvHdWxc+ExLN+gQPG0k=
=n1zn
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----