[Solved]No default home directory after Gentoo Installation

Message

gardenair · Post by **gardenair** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 4:59 am

hi,
After Gentoo installation when I login as a root user I doesn't find the default home directory in it in my root user and in the normal user account.

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gentoopc ~ #ls -al
total 36
drw ------     2   root root  4096   Oct 13    21:32 .
drwxr-xr-x   21 root  root  4096   Oct  5    19:55 ..
-rw ------      1   root root  9843    Oct 13   21:32 .bash_history
-rw -r--r--     1   root root  0         Oct 3     22:08 .keep
-rw ------      1   root root   27       Oct  5   19:19 .lesshst
-rw ------      1   root root  10812   Oct 12  14:15 .viminfo

The user was created by

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gentoo ~# useradd -m test1
gentoo ~# passwd:

If I switch into my new user

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gentoo ~# logout
gentoopc login : test1
Passwd:
test1@gentoo ~$ 
test1@gentoo  ~ ~$ ls -al
total 32
drwxr-xr-x     3   test1 test1      4096     Oct  12    15:23 .
drwxr-xr-x     4   root  root        4096    Oct   12    15:06 ..
-rw ------       1    test1 test1        93      Oct   12   15:23  .bash_history
-rw -r--r--      1    test1 test1       127      July   9     02:07 .bash_logout
-rw ------       1    test1 test1        204     July   9     02:07 .bash_profile
-rw ------       1    test1 test1        551     July   9     02:07 .bashrc
drw ------       2   test1 test1        4096     Oct   3     22:18 .ssh
-rw ------       1    test1 test1          925    Oct  12    15:19 .viminfo
test1@gentoo ~$

Need guidance for it.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 7:23 am

gardenair,

Roots home directory is /root
Normal users home is at /home/<user_name>

In both cases, logging an and running

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$PWD

will tell the directory you are in.

Your 'blank' home directories are a copy of /etc/skel

Looking at roots home we see

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-rw ------      1   root root  9843    Oct 13   21:32 .bash_history

so correctly, only root has access.
Looking at test1

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-rw ------       1    test1 test1        93      Oct   12   15:23  .bash_history

only test1 has access.
That looks to be correct.

gardenair · Post by **gardenair** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 8:40 am

Thanks for the reply. Appreciate it. Well I can view the home directory

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gentoo ~# pwd
/root
gentoo ~# cd ..
gentoo /# 
gentoo /# ls
bin boot dev etc home lib lib64 lost+found media opt proc root run sbin sys tmp usr var
gentoo /# 
gentoo /# 
gentoo /# cd /home
gentoo /home# ls
test1
gentoo /home# cd test1
gentoo /home/test1#
gentoo /home/test1#ls -l
total0

The thing which is confusing me is, (If there is any desktop environment suppose install xfce) then we can see in side the home directory different folders like ,Documents,Downloads,Pictures ,videos etc etc. Here in Gentoo case these things are not shown. Is it correct that if we install any desktop environment( like xfce,KDE,GNOME) then the system automatically create such folders for the user but as I am using (Without any GUI) it is the default setting by Linux and it is correct.

Post by **pietinger** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:26 am

gardenair wrote:Is it correct that if we install any desktop environment( like xfce,KDE,GNOME) then the system automatically create such folders for the user but as I am using (Without any GUI) it is the default setting by Linux and it is correct.

Yes ! Your assumption is correct. After installing e.g. KDE (AND login with your user account AND starting KDE for the first time) you will have much more files in your home-directory.

gardenair · Post by **gardenair** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:53 am

Yes it means without any GUI interface we can create such folders according to our need.
Thanks once again for the valuable guidance.

alamahant · Post by **alamahant** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 10:21 am

Just emerge

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x11-misc/xdg-user-dirs

This is responsible for creating the folders you mentioned at initial user login

gardenair · Post by **gardenair** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 10:48 am

Now I understand how these folders are created in GUI interface.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 3:35 pm

alamahant,

Thank you. Now I know how to get rid of them.

They annoyed me because I don't organise like that but it was never enough to discover how they were created.

mike155 · Post by **mike155** » Thu Oct 14, 2021 4:09 pm

Thanks, alamahant!

I haven't seen those directories for a long time. But I remember that a couple of years ago, they popped every few months. I deleted them, but to my surprise, they came back after some time. Now I know why and how!

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emerge --unmerge x11-misc/xdg-user-dirs
echo "x11-misc/xdg-user-dirs-0.17" >> /etc/portage/profile/package.provided

Let's see if it breaks anything...