On Mon, 2022-07-18 at 12:05 +0100, lejeczek via users wrote:
I was hoping (& expecting) that would be controlled via a env var but it does not seem that way - which makes me wonder - that must the software which knows/chooses '.local' internally or might ignore that all rogether and use own path(s), if it is not the OS providing that information? hmm..
I think it's only a more recent custom that we have some common dot folders (e.g. ~/.cache, ~/.config ~/.local). It seems like it's a suggestion from some people that it might be more organised that application programmers put certain kinds of things inside such folders, rather than there being a variable that says what the local system uses.
Many applications have their own hidden folders right in the users homespace (~/.mozilla, ~/.thunderbird, and a myriad more), which seems to be the more traditional approach.
Though some splatter their bits in more than one place. For instance, Firefox puts its cache within subfolders in ~/.cache yet its config is within ~/.mozilla (in some sort of half-support of that common hidden folder kind of scheme which doesn't seem so well implemented, to me).
There's some sense in having cached things all in a .cache, and all configs in a .config, as a structured approach. There's also some sense in having all of a programs whatsits within just one common dot hidden folder, as a more simplified approach. I'm guessing that a ~/.local folder was an idea as an opposite of a "remote" storage location.
I think like all things Linux, getting a consensus is a near impossibility. A distro could set a house standard of doing it one way, another might take a different approach. And programmers may tailor packages to suit each distro or decide that's too much of a headache to deal with (which the current trend of flat packs and app images seem to suggest - standalone blobs that are not very distro conforming).