well-known user folders, a proposal

[Alexander Larsson]

On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 10:01 -0800, Octavio Alvarez wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:51:54 -0800, Alexander Larsson <alexl at redhat.com>  
> wrote:
> 
> >> I'd prefer to remove the config file to remove functionality. This
> >> would make it easier for scripts to detect with [ -f ]. If config
> >> file exist specific directories could be disabled by commenting them
> >> out (not specifying them).
> >
> > I'm not sure what you mean. The config file is read by the program run
> > on login that creates/updates directories. Nothing else should really
> > read it. Why would they want to do that anyway? For instance, the users
> > ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs file might be totally manually written and not
> > generated from the config at all.
> >
> 
> Right, the [ -f ] should never be neeeded, but if root needs to do some
> manteinance on a home dir by any chance, this make it easier.
> 
> I am thinking that the default user config file should read the /etc  
> version to take the defaults if the user hasn't decided to tweak them. The file could  
> be easily provided by /etc/skel. Functionality would be as simple as removing
> the config file. (Read: opt-in approach, with everybody opted-in by  
> default).

I don't quite understand what you mean. Are you talking about the
user-dirs.conf file or the user-dirs.defaults file?

Also, /etc/skel is not generally a great way to add stuff. It only works
for newly created users. Not for things like distro upgrades, old NFS
homedirs, etc.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl at redhat.com    alla at lysator.liu.se 
He's a superhumanly strong Republican messiah in a wheelchair. She's a violent 
impetuous vampire with an MBA from Harvard. They fight crime!