this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024

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To be honest, it is quite complicated now as well with all of the proprietary software (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Linux is confusing for non IT people looking for program settings. It might be in share, local or config or hidden somewhere. On W 10 I just look under ProgramData. Maybe W11 is different. But Linux application devs need to agree on a single place. As users sometimes need to access it for plugins and resources.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

You mean the 2 ProgramData folders? Altho who the hell puts config stuff there? Anyways, the 2 official settings apps, the 3 AppData folders and then the registry for every little thing Microsoft doesn't want you to edit for whatever reason? And then the countless 3rd party config apps for every device aiming to make this process easier? Yea I totally don't Google where to toggle stuff on windows as step #1, noo... And W11 just has a slightly better 2nd official settings app, so sadly not too different.

Also who the hell puts config stuff on Linux into /local or /share? It was always in ~/.config (personal) or /etc (system wide) from my experience.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mostly saw them in ~/.config or /etc

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Don't forget that appdata nowadays has 3 sub folders, local, locallow, and roaming.

Also there's C:\programdata

Also some programs just store it in the user folder, the documents folder, or games/ my games folder if they are a game.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

And half the time you'll find it in the registry too. Linux has proven quite well that an OS doesn't need a registry.

Oh, and what's with ProgramData and AppData being two completely different things. I understand the difference between the two directories, but there is no difference between a program and an app. Everywhere else it's Machine/User.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Linux has proven quite well that an OS doesn't need a registry.

Gnomes dconf would like to have a word with you. It's really interesting how the Gnome people seem to get rid of every useful feature as it might confuse the user or be complex, but on the other hand add this registry-like anti-feature to make the system just as unmanageable as Windows.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (4 children)

What the fuck is local low? I don't understand. Local is Billy G's jizz... I get that... And Roaming is for poor plebs. But why LocalLow? Is it like cache? But I have seens games saving their save files there. I don't understand

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Local is for regular apps, LocalLow is for depressed apps and Roaming is for high apps looking for munchies.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago (6 children)

It could also be stored in the registry.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (5 children)

I feel mildly aroused when I see a program or a game that collects everything in it's folder and can be used from a USB drive. Some paid, industrial grade software leaves so much traces and depends on so much different hidden files and keys it's making me sick.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

windows is simple, all configs are keys accesible via reddit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Via Reddit How?

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago

[Deleted]

^half^ ^the^ ^time^ ^its^ ^been^ ^deleted^ ^because^ ^Spez^ ^is^ ^a^ ^greedy^ ^pigboy^

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Despite what developers do at the end of the day, there are conventions for application directories on every OS.

I just use the directories crate in Rust.

https://github.com/dirs-dev/directories-rs

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah... It's an awesome crate. I use it for my app too.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

🦀

[–] [email protected] 147 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

This is major league bullshit tho.

On linux, where the config file for a specific program is, can vary annoyingly greatly depending on what distro you're using and sometimes the same config file exists in several places and somehow certain parts of the configuration parameters get taken from several of those files, so if you think you've found what the actual config file should be and remove the duplicates, suddenly the program uses defaults or doesn't even work at all.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Yup. Is it in /usr /var /etc or /opt? Maybe in some hidden home folder? Sure, you can Google it, but there's no guarantee you'll find the right answer.

There are only a handful of places Windows sticks stuff, and it's pretty predictable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

What system wide software stores their configs in anything but /etc? Data, sure, but not configs.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

nginx at the very least, but there's way more

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nginx’ default config location is

/etc/nginx/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah I missed the "anything but", sorry

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

You should never be expected to edit anything in /usr, /opt or /var. That's highly unusual. For which software did you have to do this?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Brother scanner utilities: /opt Pretty sure I had to change something in /usr once, but I forgot what. Now, /var would be very unusual. But most of the time, all the configuration files happen to be somewhere in /etc.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Generally /usr should be managed by the package manager, /etc is for global custom configs and the user home is user specific.
/var shouldn't really be config, mostly logs or webservers for some reason.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Disagree. Take game saves on windows. They can be in appdata\local, appdata\roaming, documents\company-name, documents\savedgames\company-name I'm sure there are more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Nah. 3 places.

Appdata subfolder
Documents
Game installation folder

Savegame folder is then placed either ina folder with game name or studio name, so easy to check all these locations within minutes.

Let's not talk about rpgmaker games tho. I've seen them do some wacky shit with gamesaves.

Edit: To make my point clearer, I disagree with person above me about their disagreement. Savegames on windows are predictable as hell. Thanks to person below for pointing out I didn't convey. :<

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yes but appdata subfolder is local, locallow or roaming so the poster above you is still correct.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

XDG Base Directory & XDG User Directories will help you immensely. At least, for the programs that follow the XDG specs. Also, check out XDG Ninja.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

They don't have config files in Windows. Apps just throw things everywhere without rhyme of reason

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Then there's this developer.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The setting you're looking for could be in %appdata% It could be in %localappdata% It could be in C:\ProgramData. It could be in the registry. It could be in HKLM. It could be in HKCU. It could be in any of the userdirs. It could be in the application's directory.

HA! Joke's on you, it was an envvar all along!

True story.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

This is the real answer.

[–] [email protected] 102 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

This is the "appdata" folder, this is where all the application's data goes.

So whats the "Programs" folder then?

This is also where the application's data and files go.

But I thought thats the "Programs x86" folder.

This is also where the application's data and files go.

Ok whats "Program Files" then?

This is also where the application's data and files go.

So my config file is in either one if those 4?

No thats in the "Documents" folder, obviously.

Windows program data file structure has always been the wild west.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

Don't forget %USERPROFILE%/AppData/Local/Programs, where some programs get installed to because the developer doesn't want to make it a system wide installation.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And Linux isn't? There's definitely not a central location either.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

System wide config for an application? Lets put that under C:\users*?????

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, the Documents config file/dir pisses me off the most as well!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Game save data? No, my documents.
Application config files? Again, my documents.
Temporary documents I don't care about keeping? Downloads, duh.
My actual documents? Desktop.
My desktop? Turned icons off because it was too messy.

Just another day using Windows...

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Don’t forget about the hidden ProgramData directory at the root of the file system. Ableton Live likes to install there for some ungodly reason.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Always remember, C:\ProgramData is the eqivalent of /etc in Linux. If they don't know where to put/hide shit, but needs admin priviliges to edit and users can only read, you put it in C:\ProgramData.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I think programdata is closer to /usr/lib or maybe /var/lib.

You almost never see config files in programdata.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago

Selects separate drive for install

Adobe: "Imma, pretend I didn't see that"

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Or in /home/username/.applicationname/ if they want to be annoying.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Or in /etc/, or in /var/ I've seen all of that, sometimes differing between distributions for maximum annoyance. So I don't think we get to act smug in I'm this particular case.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This should be considered a war crime, and doubly so when they don't even have the decency to prefix it with a dot (looking at you Golang). It's my home folder, not a dumping grounds for random trash.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

and snap

fuck snap

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

What does snap do to your home directory? I haven't touched Ubuntu in a very long time

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