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#1 2009-02-07 19:04:27

dannytatom
Member
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2009-02-02
Posts: 229
Website

Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

This isn't much about DEs, but its the most relevant place I could think of. 

Anywho, I get tired of seeing so many dot files in my home dir and only a few in ~/.config.  To me, they should all be in ~/.config since they're all config files and that just keeps everything looking cleaner. 
So my question is, is there a global path for config files that apps use? So that I could somehow change the path to ~/.config, move all the dot files there, and everything would work like a charm.  Or, is there more to it than that?


dnyy in IRC & Urban Terror

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#2 2009-02-07 19:12:33

SamC
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From: Calgary
Registered: 2008-05-13
Posts: 611
Website

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

Generally, it's up to apps where they store config files. Some follow the freedesktop specification, which has a variable they should use, normally ~/.config. You could, I suppose, symlink files to/from ~/.config, but that wouldn't change much.

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#3 2009-02-07 19:16:13

haxit
Member
From: /home/haxit
Registered: 2008-03-04
Posts: 1,247
Website

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

So you can free yourself, you could have this setup:
/
/home (all . files)
/docs (all you documents...)


Archi686 User | Old Screenshots | Old .Configs
Vi veri universum vivus vici.

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#4 2009-02-07 20:57:33

pauldonnelly
Member
Registered: 2006-06-19
Posts: 776

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

You've got to wonder why developers generally write their programs to put configs in ~/ . It's annoying to me as well. Don't see much way around it except patching every program I run. hmm Might be worth it though.

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#5 2009-02-07 21:00:30

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

I find this so damn annoying, why does almost every app have to pollute the home directory like that ?
I really do get happy to see something with configs in ~/.config...I mean, seriously, what's so hard about doing that ?


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#6 2009-02-07 21:15:31

kakTuZ
Member
From: Hannover, Germany
Registered: 2007-10-20
Posts: 86

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

Interesting point. I found the specification here http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedi … c-0.6.html.
And the variable  XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/kaktuz/.config    exists in the environment and looks good.

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#7 2009-02-07 21:15:31

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

What's worse are programs that write to ~/ with regular files, like a lot of games that will dump log files there (log.001 log.002 game.001 roll ). At least the dot files can be kept hidden.

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#8 2009-02-07 22:53:19

weasel8
Member
Registered: 2008-12-15
Posts: 149

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

I actually prefer my config files in ~/, unless there are multiple files for one app. E.g., for conky, ~/.conkyrc is fine, but for openbox, ~/.config/openbox is the right place for the three config files.

In fact, it REALLY annoys me when an app with only one config file creates a whole new directory for it. For example, tint2 insists on ~/.config/tint2/tint2rc -- really irritating. The only time I ever type the name of a config file is to edit it, and vi .xbindkeysrc is much faster than tediously typing out, say, vi .config/xbindkeys/xbindkeyrc EVERY TIME.

That's my opinion: if you have a single config file, put it as a dotfile in ~/; otherwise it goes into your own dir in ~/.config. Oh, and I think it ought to be ~/.cfg instead of ~/.config--faster to type, and fits with the rest of the Linux directory tree (/usr, /bin, /etc, /dev, and so on).

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#9 2009-02-07 23:25:13

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

weasel8 wrote:

[...snip]
vi .xbindkeysrc is much faster than tediously typing out, say, vi .config/xbindkeys/xbindkeyrc EVERY TIME.

[..snip] Oh, and I think it ought to be ~/.cfg instead of ~/.config--faster to type [..snip]

But that's why they have aliases to lessen the typing smile


Forum Rules

There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#10 2009-02-07 23:50:12

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

Inxsible wrote:
weasel8 wrote:

[...snip]
vi .xbindkeysrc is much faster than tediously typing out, say, vi .config/xbindkeys/xbindkeyrc EVERY TIME.

[..snip] Oh, and I think it ought to be ~/.cfg instead of ~/.config--faster to type [..snip]

But that's why they have aliases to lessen the typing smile

Also, you should try hitting TAB, there's this wonderful thing called auto-completion. It's really great and you're missing out big_smile


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#11 2009-02-10 11:18:17

stabele
Member
Registered: 2008-12-22
Posts: 101

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

Well, I set my home to /home/<username>/.cfg and it works great. Yes, many open-file dialogs opens $HOME by default, but still it is worth for me...

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#12 2009-02-10 11:32:20

jarryson
Member
Registered: 2007-02-18
Posts: 298

Re: Config files in ~/.config instead of ~/

better to report this advice to application writer.

i have already report some, and some of them did.

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