#title The Home Directory Parent: Software | Discuss this page

Introduction

The home folder is where all your files will reside. It is where the folder your desktop resides in, it is where your music, videos, pictures, and documents can be stored. Its name basically explains it, the home folder is the home for your files.

The Home Folder is a very special place, a place that your personal data calls home. You store your Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, Audio, and pretty much everything else personal in here. You also store some application settings in here, in hidden files and folders that you should not touch unless you know what you are doing. Most applications install and add a .(something) folder or file to the home folder for data storage.

The home folder (with the exclusion of removable drives/the tmp folder) is the only place within the Linux Filesystem that a user can freely create/modify/remove files and folders without root permissions, or using sudo. This is beneficial, as your filesystem or installed applications cannot be tampered with in ways that would be described as malicious.

All user settings are stored in here, such as your Desktop layout/background, which icons you use, what startup applications, etc. You can also make your home directory only readable you, so other users can't spy on you behind your back.

The home folder can even be used to install software in, giving unprivileged users who don't have su/sudo rights to play with the software they want. WINE is a very good example of this sort of happenings. But you can also do this with compiling from source, or downloading binary-only softwares too. You can add binary paths to your $PATH list. For example, by putting in your .bashrc file:

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

Executable binaries/scripts put in your "/home/user/bin" folder will be accessible from the commandline, or by press Alt+F2 in Gnome/KDE/Xfce.

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