installation | home directories | users | subdirectories | finder and explorer | hidden files | temporary files | trash | public | local
Dot files which are used on Darwin and Linux.
Also notes on how the home directory is organized.
Requires Ruby and Emacs. To install the dot files:
$ make
Early versions of Unix put user home directories in /usr. In Linux and BSD the user home directories are in /home.
A Unix user's home directory is specified in /etc/passwd. When the user logs in, the home directory in /etc/passwd is used to set the working directory and the environment variable HOME. The C shell introduced tilde expansion as a shortcut for the home directory in paths.
Mac OS X puts home directories in /Users. It sets the HOME environment variable, but does not store user information in /etc/passwd. Instead the information is stored in a Directory Service which can be queried with the dscl command:
dscl . -read /Users/$USER NFSHomeDirectory
Windows calls the home directory the user profile folder.
DOS did not have a home directory and Windows 95 had a single C:\My Documents directory at the file system root. Windows NT was the first multiuser version of Windows. It put user profile folders in C:\WINNT\Profiles. Windows XP put them in C:\Documents and Settings. Since Windows Vista they have been in C:\Users.
Windows sets the environment variable %USERPROFILE% to the path of the current user profile folder.
The name of home directory is the login name of the user. A user (login name, password, maybe a full name) must be specified when the operating system is installed.
To change the name, it is probably best to create a new account, copy over files, and delete the old account. On Windows a login name can be changed, but this does not change the home directory name.
On Mac OS X user accounts are managed at System Preferences | Users & Groups. To set the Mac avatar, go to System Preferences | Users & Groups and click on the image. To use an image that is not one of the defaults, drag it from the Finder to the System Preferences pane.
On Windows to add a new account go to Control Panel | User Accounts | Manage another account. To set the Windows avatar, go to Control Panel | User Accounts | Change your picture.
On Linux the adduser command creates a user. In GNOME the avatar can be set at Settings | Users. Click the image to the left of the user's full name.
Subdirectories in the home directory should be capitalized and regular files in the home directory should be hidden.
The Mac filesystem (APFS), incidentally, is not case sensitive, but it remembers the case that was used when a file is created and uses it for display.
To make it easier to work at the command line, avoid file names which contain spaces.
Tab completion works well when the contents of a directory are uniquely specified by a short prefix. Two letter prefixes are often possible, though the desktop operating systems create directories, namely Documents and Downloads, which require three letters to uniquely specify.
Windows creates home subdirectories which break both the no-space rule and the unique-two-letter-prefix rule, e.g. My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Videos. One can rename these directories. Since they are Special Folders, one should also update the registry for the benefit of applications using the Special Folder API to get the paths. The registry key is:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Also, the Explorer keeps separate names for these files, so one must change the file names both at the command line and in Explorer.
windows home subdirectories to rename:
My Documents -> Documents My Music -> Music My Pictures -> Pictures My Videos -> Videos Saved Games -> Games
standard home subdirectories:
| subdirectory | os | description |
|---|---|---|
| Applications | mac | User specific apps. Apps that come with macos are in /System/Applications and
system-wide installed apps are in /Applications. |
| Desktop | all | Files here appear as icons on the desktop. |
| Documents | all | Some applications keep their files here. |
| Downloads | all | Configure browsers to download files here without asking. |
| Games | win | Minesweeper and Solitaire store games in Saved Games\Microsoft Games |
| Library | mac | Put AppleScript in ~/Library/Scripts. |
| Movies | mac | Stream video and keep this empty. |
| Music | all | |
| Pictures | all | |
| Public | linux/mac | A directory to make available on the local network.
Windows has a directory at C:\Users\Public. |
| Sync | host | Synchronization and cloud backup. |
| Templates | win/linux | If you create a template in Word it will be stored here. |
| Videos | win/linux | Stream video and keep this empty. |
windows specific home subdirectories
| subdirectory | os | description |
|---|---|---|
| AppData | win | Hidden; I like to unhide it; items pinned to the Start Menu are shortcuts at
AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Quick Launch/User Pinned/StartMenu |
| Application Data | win | Hidden; link to AppData\Roaming. |
| Contacts | win | Used by Outlook? |
| Cookies | win | Hidden; link to AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies. |
| Favorites | win | Browser bookmarks; probably not used by Firefox or Chrome. |
| Links | win | The Favorites section of the Explorer sidebar. |
| Local Settings | win | Hidden; link to AppData\Local. |
| NetHood | win | Hidden; link to AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Network Shortcuts |
| PrintHood | win | Hidden; link to AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Printer Shortcuts |
| Recent | win | Hidden; full of Windows Shell shortcuts (.lnk suffix). Implements
the Recent Places folder. |
| SendTo | win | Hidden; link to AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo.
There is is Send to item in the Explorer context menu. More target
applications can be added by putting shortcuts in the folder. The applications
must be launchable from the command line and accept a file path as an argument. |
| Searches | win | If in Windows Search you click on See more results, you'll get a window
of results. The window has a Save search option which will create an XML
file in this directory. |
| Start Menu | win | Hidden; link to AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu.
Start Menu\Programs is one way to add programs to the
All Programs section of the Start Menu; put a shortcut in
Start Menu\Programs\Startup
to launch an application at login. |
personal home subdirectories:
| subdirectory | os | description |
|---|---|---|
| <Company> | all | Work |
| <Company>/Doc | all | Work Spreadsheets, Slideshows |
| <Company>/HR | all | Documents from HR |
| <Company>/Pic | all | Work Pngs, Jpgs, Svg, Omnigraffle files |
| <Company>/Src | all | Work Source code |
| <Company>/Web | all | Work HTML, generated from Markdown with a Makefile |
| Local | all | Place to install headers and libraries |
| Local/bin | all | Put first in PATH; a place to install executables without admin privilege. |
| Local/etc | all | ~/Etc/UnicodeData.txt |
| Local/man | all | Put first in MANPATH; a place to install man pages w/o admin privilege |
| Local/src | all | Tarballs, git repos, ISOs for virtual machines, Java SDKs. |
To set up the home directory:
cd mkdir Local Lang cd Local mkdir bin etc man src
On Windows create two links: a symlink and an Explorer shortcut.
Drag directories to the Finder sidebar to add them.
Drag directories to the Explorer sidebar to add them.
The Favorites section of the Explorer sidebar is implemented with shortcuts in the ~/Links directory. Because shortcuts can have a different name from their target, the shortcut to the home directory can be Home instead of the current user name.
To add directories to the Ubuntu file system browser, open the directory, click on the cog icon in the upper right, and select Bookmark this Location.
Hidden Files
Unix hidden files have names which start with a period. The file globbing characters * and ? do not match an initial period. Use ls -a to see hidden files in a listing.
On Mac, the Finder does not display these files. Other files can be hidden from the Finder:
SetFile -a V foo.txt
To expose a file to the Finder:
SetFile -a v foo.txt
On Windows, files can be hidden from the Explorer by checking Properties | General | Hidden.
Files can be hidden from the Explorer at the command line using ATTRIB +H. To expose a hidden file to Explorer at the command line use ATTRIB -H.
To make all hidden files visible in the Explorer go to:
Organize | Folder and search options | View | Hidden files and folders
and select Show hidden files, folders, and drives.
Windows files which are hidden by attribute are always visible at the command line. The files in the Windows home directory of the form NTUSER.DAT* are hard to miss because of their long names. They are caches of the registry.
If Unix tools are installed by MinGW, these observe the convention that files that start with a period are hidden.
Conversely Unix dot files are visible in Explorer, which is unaesthetic. They can be manually hidden with this command:
ATTRIB +H /S /D C:\.*
POSIX systems are supposed to set the $TMPDIR environment variable. Mac OS X sets $TMPDIR to a path in /var/folders. Mac OS X checks for and deletes files that are older than 3 days in /tmp on a daily schedule. See /etc/periodic/daily/110.clean-tmps and /etc/defaults/periodic.conf. Older files may survive because of open file handles. How are files in /var/folders cleaned up?
Linux does not set $TMPDIR in my experience. The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard guarantees that /tmp will exist, howver. Ubuntu is usually configured to empty /tmp on boot. See /etc/init/mounted-tmp.conf.
Windows sets the %TEMP% environment variable to the location of the temporary file directory. Windows never cleans out this directory.
The Mac OS X Trash folder is ~/.Trash. Files are sent to the Mac OS X trash by selecting them in the Finder and typing ⌘Delete. When the Finder is active, ⇧⌘Delete empties the Trash. As of Catalina (10.15) you must grant Terminal.app access in System Preferences... | Security & Privacy | Full Disk Access to access ./Trash from the command line.
The Ubuntu Trash folder is ~/.local/share/Trash. It is not created until something is moved to the trash using Nautilus.
The Windows Recycle Bin is at C:\$Recycle.Bin. Actually, each NTFS file system has a Recycle Bin. The Recycle Bin on the Desktop is a union.
Files are sent to the Recyle Bin by right clicking in the Explorer and selecting Delete or selecting the file and pressing the delete key (fn delete in Bootcamp). Right click the Recycle Bin in Explorer to empty it.
Command line tools such as rm and del on all operating systems remove files without putting them in the Trash directory or Recycle Bin folder.
On Mac OS X to expose a directory on the local network, go to:
System Preferences | Sharing | File Sharing
This is good enough for sharing with Macs. There is an option for enabling SMB so that Windows can access the directory, but it requires storing the Windows account password on the Mac.
The name of a Mac is generated from the initial account. It can be changed at System Preferences... | Sharing. Macs use fully qualified DNS names of the form <MAC-NAME>.local. Such a DNS name is only visible if both computers are on the same network. Lookups are performed by broadcasting. Each machine is the DNS server for its own name.
Windows has a directory at C:\Users\Public which can be made public. Navigate to it in the Explorer and select Share with | Advanced sharing settings | Public to get a list of checkboxes. If the choices are permissive enough, a Mac will on the local network will automatically detect and be able to access the files. I believe other parts of the file system on a Windows machine can also be made public.
Windows requests a computer name during installation. It can be changed later at
Control Panel | System | Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings
The ~/Local directory is an aid when building source code without root privilege. If the source code depends on headers and libraries that aren't installed, download them, build them, and install them in ~/Local.
To make autoconf aware of ~/Local, create the file ${HOME}/Local/shared/config.site with these contents:
CPPFLAGS=-I$HOME/Local/include LDFLAGS=-L$HOME/Local/lib
Then configure the source code with:
./configure --prefix=$HOME/Local
To use locally installed command-line tools and man pages:
export PATH=~/Local/bin:$PATH export MANPATH=~/Local/man:$(MANPATH= manpath)