[GNC-dev] About the "$HOME/.local" installation prefix

[John Ralls]

> On May 2, 2019, at 4:01 AM, Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
> 
> Our current wiki on building gnucash for Ubuntu 16.04 (https://
> wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/BuildUbuntu16.04) suggests $HOME/.local as a valid 
> installation prefix.
> 
> While checking for another thread I have found this to be problematic.
> 
> In particular when using this installation prefix, a number of files and 
> directories will be added in $HOME/.local/share/. That directory however is 
> also to primary directory where a running applications store their runtime 
> data. So the same directory is being used as installation directory and data 
> directory.
> 
> That makes it pretty difficult to quickly remove the local gnucash 
> installation in one go as the installation directory may also hold runtime 
> data (and from more than one application!).
> 
> So personally I would recommend against using $HOME/.local as installation 
> prefix. I am however curious where this suggestion originally came from.

A quick search of history shows it was added by David Cousens in https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/index.php?title=BuildUbuntu16.04&diff=13834&oldid=13833.

David, what led you to use that directory?

Regards,
John Ralls