Re: Heads-up: Linux make menuconfig .config vs. XDG_CONFIG_HOME ~/.config/ clash - perhaps resolve it while 3.0 appears?

[Nick Bowler <nbowler@elliptictech.com>]

On 2011-06-02 20:24 +0200, Andreas Mohr wrote:
> "$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."
[...]
> It may thus be strongly advisable to rename the default name of the
> make menuconfig kernel .config file (perhaps .config_lx / .config_linux ?)
> to completely sidestep such a (mostly user-triggered)
> problematic clash in future.

If a program can't create its config directory or file(s), presumably it
will display an error message to that effect and the user can correct the
problem: after all, this scenario only occurs when the user puts a
kernel .config file in their home directory.  I imagine that a user
which is capable of doing such a thing is also capable of deleting
files.

Furthermore, Once the ~/.config directory has been created (by running
any program that does so), this problem cannot occur.

There are many other reasons that a program might fail to access its
configuration data.  I suspect that "no space remaining" or "read-only
filesystem" are more likely than "oops, I managed to put a .config file
in my home directory before running a single program that created
~/.config/".

Administrators can prevent hapless users from accidentally putting a
.config file in their home directory by creating a .config directory by
default.  Distros could help here by putting an empty .config directory
in /etc/skel.

Renaming the .config file is obviously going to cause a lot of pain, and
there seems to be very little gain.

Cheers,
-- 
Nick Bowler, Elliptic Technologies (http://www.elliptictech.com/)