Recommendation for $HOME

[James Richard Tyrer]

David Faure wrote:
> On Tuesday 19 December 2006 11:28, Jon Dowland wrote:
>> I agree utterly. I think the suggestion that
>> $HOME/{var,etc,...} is too confusing for beginners is
>> laughable.
> Is it? My wife would surely be _very_ confused with those things in her $HOME.
> 
>> Are beginners not going to notice things outside of /home ? 
> That's right. They aren't. They really don't need to go into /etc or /var.
> 
This issue really has a dependency on another issue.

If users are going to use $HOME to store files, then yes they might get 
confused and delete "$HOME/Mail".  The unfortunate part of this is that 
it was moved to a configuration directory: $HOME/.kde and as a result, 
users deleted their mail directories.  So, the question is not to say 
why one or the other is bad, but rather to determine which is better.

OTOH, if users are going to use $HOME/Documents to store files and are 
told not to screw around with $HOME because it contains a lot of 
configuration stuff and that doing so could break their system, then we 
really shouldn't have to worry about those that still delete stuff in 
$HOME by mistake.

Currently, KDE offers users their choice leaving us with the worst of 
both choices.

-- 
JRT