KDE System Administration/XDG Filesystem Hierarchy: Difference between revisions

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== Freedesktop.org and Standard Directories ==
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Many of the free and open source software projects that focus on desktop technology collaborate on shared specifications and software within the [http://freedesktop.org freedesktop.org] project.
 
One of these shared specifications is the [http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/ base directory specification] which defines a set of locations in the filesystem that can be used for portable desktop technology implementations.
 
KDE supports the base directory specification and the various [[../Environment_Variables|environment variables]] it prescribes in addition to the [[../KDE_Filesystem_Hierarchy KDE|filesystem hierarchy]]. A summary of KDE's implementation follows below, while the full specification can be read [[http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/ here on freedesktop.org]].
 
== Application Data ==
 
Data that applications store which are specific to a given user are to be stored in the <tt>XDG_DATA_HOME</tt> directory. If the <tt>XDG_DATA_HOME</tt> environment variable isn't set, it defaults to {{path|$HOME/.local/share}} for local storage and {{path|/usr/local/share;/usr/share}} for system wide files.
 
Some items that may be stored in <tt>XDG_DATA_HOME</tt> are files the user has put in the trash, mimetype definitions and associations and application .desktop files.
 
The search path for system wide directories can be defined setting the <tt>XDG_DATA_DIRS</tt> environment variable to contain a list of paths.
 
== Configuration ==
 
Configuration information should be stored in the <tt>XDG_CONFIG_HOME</tt> directory. If the <tt>XDG_CONFIG_HOME</tt> environment variable isn't set, it defaults to {{path|$HOME/.config}} for local storage and {{path|/etc/xdg}} for system wide files.
 
Some items that may be stored in <tt>XDG_CONFIG_HOME</tt> are application configuration files and application menu structure.
 
The search path for system wide directories can be defined setting the <tt>XDG_CONFIG_DIRS</tt> environment variable to contain a list of paths.
 
== Cache Files ==
 
Temporary data caches can be stored in the <tt>XDG_CACHE_HOME</tt> location, which defaults to {{path|$HOME/.cache}}. There is no system wide cache location as such caches are always user specific.
 
== Thumbnails ==
 
Thumbnails representing the contents of files for use in icons and other representations of files are to be stored in {{path|$HOME/.thumbnails}}. The structure and content of the thumbnails directory is defined in the [http://jens.triq.net/thumbnail-spec/index.html thumbnail specification].

Latest revision as of 13:26, 11 March 2016

This page is now on the Userbase wiki.