I have seen a few comments on here about cleaning up the /home directory for the user from the cluttered hidden .configuration files. Everyone here knows what I'm talking about: you go into /home/yourusername/ and reveal the hidden files. All you see is tons of junk, and when you need to find one, it is a total nightmare. If you want to backup your home directory, rummage through all the config directories created by the hundreds of applications and delete their temp files and caches prior to the backup. The dozens of .hidden files creates usability problems to newbies, and even hurts old timers.

I wish Ubuntu would make a serious effort to work with upstream providers in an effort to get all major ubuntu applications to follow the freedesktop.org standard. That is to put all these files into ~/.config and all temp/cache directories under ~/.cache. I propose that this be done by setting two goals:

1) Just start with the most common default applications. Start with those that cause the most clutter.

2) Once default applications are corrected, we can start on the longer term project of the rest of the applications. Starting with the popular add on software most people use, and then on from there.

Please see the specification below (freedesktop.org):

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user specific configuration files should be stored. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.config should be used.

$XDG_CACHE_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user specific non-essential data files should be stored. If $XDG_CACHE_HOME is either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.cache should be used.

http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-0.6.html

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