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I'm building a deb file for my application following online tutoria and have no major problem. I can specify file to go to /usr/bin, /usr/lib and many system directories. But there are settings that should go on per user basis that is /home/stefano/.myapp or even as per recommendation /home/stefano/.config/myapp but cannot find how do I specify that in install file. Google did not help at all in this case (which might be my fault for using bad keyword). Any Idea is welcome!

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According to the Debian packaging policy we should not package files for a user's HOME directory:

The setup will differ from host to host. Therefore, no program should rely on this location.

This makes sense because a package is unaware of users on the system it is going to be installed on.

Of course we are allowed to store our configuration files. If it were for a per-user configuration a .config/<nameofapp> directory is the appropriate place. We have to create this path from within our application.

Default settings templates or system wide settings may be distributed as DATA with the package.

System-wide host configurations may be stored in /etc.

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  • anymore explanation on DATA package? It seems like is what I want! Jul 24, 2013 at 11:21
  • I decided to put them in /etc because as Debian Policy States its the most sane option! Jul 24, 2013 at 11:50

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