Why Does Linux Treat Users So Niggardly?

Should I write an "article": "Why does Linux treat users so niggardly?" going on about how for applications, variables, system data, common database data, configuration files, source code, libraries, object code, ..., Linux has a myriad of directories to store them--when it comes to user data, it forces the user's data to share space with the user's configuration files in one "tiny" directory, /home/<user>

See:

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Contents

Outline

Things to Cover

• it's not so much that I can't create other directories (I can, I have), it's that I lack tools (environment variables, an alternate to ~) to point to them conveniently
• $XDG_DATA_DIR and $XDG_CONFIG_DIR (sp?): when I first read about those (on freedesktop.org, iirc), I thought they were my salvation. Turns out they are being used (at least in kde) for data for the desktop (e.g., icons, ...)

Things not to Cover

• Rambling on the generic terms for VTs and xterms
• Other rambling

The Article

<later>

Definitions of Niggardly (just in case)

from a Google search:

Definitions of niggardly on the Web:

• grudging: petty or reluctant in giving or spending; "a niggardly tip"

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

• Niggardly is a word synonymous with stingy and miserly, and a niggard (noun) is a miser. The word may incorrectly be associated with "nigger", a racial slur against Blacks. Although the words sound similar, there is no etymological connection between the two: "niggard" and "niggle" came from the Old Norse verb nigla, meaning "to fuss about small matters", while "nigger" derives from niger, the Latin for "black".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niggardly

• scant, meager, very little

137.122.151.29/BIO1120/Includes/Glossary.htm

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• () RandyKramer - 14 Nov 2006
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