[PLUG] /home/user partition question

[Rogan Creswick]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com> wrote:
> I certainly hope not. User home directories ought to be determined via
> the getpwent() routines, $HOME, or their moral equivalent. Assuming
> /home/$USER is a recipe for a major disaster. Developers doing such a
> thing ought to be banished!

Agreed!

> Other than Mac OS X, I've never seen an auto-created $HOME/Documents.
>
> Nor have I seen Linux applications that assume the existence of
> ~/Documents.

Ubuntu 8.10 auto-creates a whole slew of directories, including
~/Documents (If I remember correctly: ~/Documents, ~/Music,
~/Pictures, ~/Desktop, ~/Public and ~/Videos).

I don't know what makes use of those locations -- they may just be
there to encourage that organization, but I have a sinking suspicion
that something does... when I find out what, it'll get a quick trip to
the bit bucket.

> A separate partition for stuff that you're going to carry through
> various upgrades is a good idea, but I wouldn't *mount* it under your
> home directory. I'd mount it as, say, /opt/Documents and then
> symlink to it from your home directory.

Can you elaborate on why this is preferable to mounting something like
that in $HOME?

Thanks!
--Rogan