$HOME/.config/ Directory Not Specified in FHS

[Daniel Yek]

Hi,

The purpose or usage of $HOME/.config/ directory are specified in XDG 
Basedir Spec., Desktop Menu Spec. Shared configuration system Spec., and 
used by xdg-user-dirs utility. (See Resources below.)

It (~/.config/) is not included in the FHS spec. though.

The following discussion didn't appear to reach consensus and yield actions:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2004-October/003620.html


Is there enough information now to reach a consensus and specify a 
directory in FHS (for application configuration storage, etc.)?


Resources:

1. http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-0.6.html
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user 
specific configuration files should be stored. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is 
either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.config should be used.


2. http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-1.0.html


        Install Locations

...If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set, the default value of $HOME/.config 
should be used for it.



3. http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/config-spec


        Plan

This specification is expected to use the Base directory spec 
<http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/basedir-spec> for the 
location of configuration files (under *~/.config* by default).

(Is that supposed to be "~/.config/" directory? The "*...*" emphasis 
marking is easily confused to be Shell Globbing and thus .config* files, 
as opposed to .config/ directory.)


4. http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/xdg-user-dirs


        xdg-user-dirs

xdg-user-dirs is a tool to help manage "well known" user directories ...

...and sets up a config file in $(XDG_CONFIG_HOME)/user-dirs.dirs 
(XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config) that applications can read to 
find these directories.

4. http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-1.0.html

 Example 1: If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is "~/.config/"...



Thanks.

-- 
Daniel Yek.