Application files in $HOME

[Daniel Ruoso <daniel@ruoso.com>]

Hi,

I had an idea and I would like to hear you about it.

Recently I had a problem of exceeded quota in my home directory, so I
went cleaning it, and I saw many and many files and directories with
configurations for applications that I've runned in the past, but that 
packages were purged from my system a long time ago, so what is the idea
(that can be a proposal)?

What if the packages tells to dpkg which files or directories it will
create on the user's home directory and when a package is purged the
user could run a program to purge the files of packages that no longer
exists. This will also help to know what these files means after all, I
thought about a browser to inspect application's files in my home, so it
will be easier to decide which files I don't want anymore...

What is needed?

The packages should have a control file (like conffiles) that tells
which files this package will create.

A repository to store this information so the user can browse it.

A userconfpurge program that the user runs to remove purged packages
configuration files

A browser to associate the files with the packages and manage them (so
the user can tell: I don't use icewm anymore, please remove it's
configuration files).

Is there risk involved?

I don't know if different packages create conf files with the same name,
if it does so, it would be necessary to avoid this practice.


So,

what do you think?

[]'s 


daniel