[Expert] Separating user's data and configuration files

[Randy Kramer]

(Aside: Just saw the release notes for Mandriva 2007--I like the features 
listed and I like the structure / writing of the release.)

(Less of an aside: I've been fooling around with Linux for about 6 years now, 
so the following questions / comments aren't totally newbie based (though I 
may be overlooking some things I should have learned by now).)

Does anyone else find any degree of inconvenience, annoyance, or worse in 
having your data (whatever files you may create) and your configuration files 
in the same directory (~)?

I find it quite annoying, and would like to find (or advocate) some solution.

(Yes, I know almost all of the configuration files are prefixed with a . (or 
below a subdirectory prefixed with a .), but I still find it inconvenient to 
do things like backups or upgrades.  In a backup, I want to copy only my data 
files, not the configuration files, or really, I want to back them up to 
separate locations.  In an upgrade or reinstall, I want to move my 
configuration files out of the way, but then have copies to move back or 
tweak when I find things that aren't working fully the way I prefer (after 
giving due consideration to a new way of doing things.)

Maybe I'm overlooking some environment variables that would let me either 
specify a different directory for all data files or all configuration files?  
(But maybe I'm using some (older?) applications that wouldn't honor those 
environment variables even if they existed?)

Maybe I'm just an old (grumpy) fogy, to set in my ways?

Possible solutions:

   * Have environment variables as described above, and gradually get all 
applications to honor them.

   * Create a (for example) ~/.etc subdirectory and put all configuration 
files there (it's not my preferred solution, but it would be acceptable, and 
it is a RFC over on the FHS--see 
http://bugs.freestandards.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75--but don't be fooled by bug 
6--if you read the summary it seems like the same proposal and is marked 
"RESOLVED" "FIXED" but in reality covers some different points (it is more 
accurate to say that it is a resolution of bug 19)

   * Establish a second directory hierarchy (perhaps "data", or "config") keep 
"home" for config (or data, the opposite of the newly named hierarchy), or 
two new hierarchies (data and config?).  In any event, by default a 
distribution should create a user's directory in both of those hierarchies 
when a user is created, and a new shortcut analogous to ~ should be created 
to allow quick access to a user's directory in that other hierarchy.  (Or 
keep ~ and use it for access to the data hierarchy, and let applications 
(programmers') deal with getting to the config hierarchy without a shortcut.  
(Make it easy for the user (who, I assume, wants to access his data more 
often than his configuration files), even at the expense of making it more 
difficult for programs (i.e., the computer).)

   * Other?

So:

   * does anybody else share some frustration over the current situation?
   * if so, do you have a preferred solution?

Thanks for reading (or skimming ;-) this far!

Randy Kramer