I think I don't just speak for myself when I say the homedir is cluttered with loads of ~/.<appsconfighere> I know a 'default' ls doesn't show hidden files, I like many others however, do prefer knowing the 'true' status of our dir's. My suggestion to 'fix' this issue is to move all user's config and rc files where they belong. All system wide rc and configs are in /etc, all /usr/local based config files are in /usr/local hence user config should be in ~/etc. However since it would still be a good idea to have that hidden I would go with ~/.etc (or $HOME/.etc/ of course). Then, optionally but preferable in ~/.etc/<appsconfighere> (not hidden, as there is no reason to hide them in the hidden etc) Gentoo is a great distribution with an even greater software deoployment system, portage. With portage it should be far easier to add this feature _optionally_ the FEATURE="dotetc" or similar variable. I realize it might be a job impossible to ever complete, I mean getting all software developers to change their code is really crazy. As is getting all ebuild maintainers to add patches for this feature. I do belive it could be very well worth it. As the gentoo policy is, to not get into the users way, and these ~/. entries are getting redicilous. I would suggest, if even concidered, to mail ebuild maintainers to add a patch for their app, and maybe get in touch with the software developer to make this not a patch anymore. Please don't ignore this idea as beeing simply to hard to realize but seriously concider it.
Err... this isn't portages choice. It's up to the package itself to determine where it sticks those files. I'd take this proposal the dev mailing list personally.
well, this isnt' the first time this comes up. About 20 months ago, we talked about this -- but the problem is that this stuff needs to be pushed upstream. So, if we can find a way to generate upstream interest in moving to this schema, it would be a lot easier. Barring that, if _we_ have to patch _Every_ thing to behave this way, it accomplishes two negatives: 1. We have to keep a patch for every bloody thing (with no guarantee of upstream following suit) 2. People who dual boot linux systems while sharing homedirs now find themselves with an incompatible gentoo.
