Arch Linux

pokemonsta433

Member

Registered: 2020-03-30

Posts: 3

[solved] all my apps complain about missing .config files

Hi again Arch, I'm a relatively new user, who just recently switched from ubuntu, but I've been getting my system set up without too many problems and life was good until today.

But recently, I tried to install skypeforlinux-stable with yay, and then I installed ranger and chromium with pacman -S. In all these cases, attempts to actually run the file were met with errors to the extent of "~/.config/TheApp'sName doesn't exist".
Ok fair enough, .config files clearly aren't pacman's problem, they must be mine. But when I looked for manuals on where to copy the default or example .config from (this is how it worked with bspwm, sxhkd, and st as well, I believe), nobody seemed to have had to go though this process.

So then maybe I wondered if it *was* a pacman thing, and googled around for that... all to no avail.

Is this a problem with my system or am I actually just really bad at figuring out how to get the necessary .config copied over?

Thanks, and sorry for the question that probably seems *very* newby.

Last edited by pokemonsta433 (2020-04-04 19:11:34)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,082

Re: [solved] all my apps complain about missing .config files

For chromium it will create its configuration in ~/.config/chromium if it is not present.
Is there a permissions issue with ~ or ~/.config that would prevent such creation?  All files in a users home directory should be owned by that user.
Edit:
So the following should not produce a match.

find ~ ! -uid `id -u` -a ! -gid `id -g`

Last edited by loqs (2020-04-04 18:11:31)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,522

Website

Re: [solved] all my apps complain about missing .config files

and then I installed ranger ... with pacman -S... when I looked for manuals on where to copy the default or example .config from... nobody seemed to have had to go though this process.

Really?
The man page, right at the top, is also quite clear about this.

Where did you search if not the wiki and man page?!

That said, you didn't really vie an actual error message.  I don't know about skype, but the other two programs listed wouldn't likely complain about a missing config, they'd just use defaults.  You could get permission errors as alluded to above, but if that's the problem you are having, you're going to have to tell us about the actual errors.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-04-04 18:51:34)

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

pokemonsta433

Member

Registered: 2020-03-30

Posts: 3

Re: [solved] all my apps complain about missing .config files

As loqs first guessed, the problem turned out to be that another user was the owner of ~/.config. When I initially created the user I just copied ./config and a fair number of other files as a janky way to duplicate a user. I had chowned most of the files, but I had forgotten to chown ~/.config.

Thanks for helping out, loqs

Sorry Trilby, I checked the mans for the other two, for sure, but I thought I had checked the ones from ranger two days ago when I installed it. I suppose I was mistaken, because I do see the blurb in the man page now. Thanks for pointing it out.

Last edited by pokemonsta433 (2020-04-04 19:08:05)