chang Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 I've been touched Linux 1 months now, but still got puzzled by this. why we have these "./directoryname" in our home directory? what are those used for? and why when we remove some packages from our system, but those directories are still there? can we remove them as well anyway? thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hornett Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 If you mean ~/.xmms and so on, they are used to store your settings for various programs. I'd only delete them if you are sure you don't need the program any more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boomn Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 Those are hidden directories that usually store configuration setting for a program. Edit: drats, too slow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chang Posted March 31, 2004 Author Share Posted March 31, 2004 so how do I supposed to delete them? cuz I cannot see them in normal terminal mode. thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HellBender Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 ./directoryname is NOT a hidden directory. If you go "cd directoryname" its the same thing as doing "cd ./directoryname" the dot . specifies the current directory, so if you're in /home/neo and you type cd ./directoryname its like typing cd /home/neo/directoryname .directoryname IS a hidden directory. you can see hidden directories by typing ls -a .. hidden directories are usually used to store user preferences data (like the email for thunderbird, profile for firefox, etc.) You can remove them like normal directories rm -r .directoryname Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted March 31, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 31, 2004 (edited) so how do I supposed to delete them?cuz I cannot see them in normal terminal mode. thank you. rm will remove it. Linux uses a . as the first character to mean "hidden". Use ls -a to show all files. So, a remove would be rm -r .dirname Try that. (and the reason that they are typically not removed when uninstalling is when you upgrade an app, you might not want to lose all of your configuration. :yes: [EDIT: too late :pinch: ] [another EDIT: apparently I can't think straight - corrected error that hellbender pointed out :trout: ] Edited March 31, 2004 by markjensen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HellBender Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 So, a remove would be rm .dirname rm -r .dirname Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chang Posted March 31, 2004 Author Share Posted March 31, 2004 thank you for all you guys' help. I got it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kongit Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 why would you want to remove one? The only reason I could think of is if firefox wasn't working right and you wanted to start a clean firefox profile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted March 31, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 31, 2004 The Original Poster asked about them, and why they stayed after removing a program. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kongit Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 DOh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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