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Well, in Linux the home directory is read from /etc/passwd at login and $HOME is set from that, and $HOME is presumably and environment variable like any other.

Well, in Linux the home directory is read from /etc/passwd at login and $HOME is set from that, and $HOME is presumably and environment variable like any other. It's up to each bit of software whether it cares about such things. That's how I understand it. On Windows I get confused with "administrator" vs "all users" vs "current user" vs "some other user" that an organisation is using for some reason. It seems like stuff can end up in different places. Sorry if I gave the impression that I don't care about the software the user installed themselves. Well, actually I don't, but the user themselves may care.

mehrdadn 9y ago
> Well, in Linux the home directory is read from /etc/passwd at login and $HOME is set from that, and $HOME is presumably and environment variable like any other. It's up to each bit of software whether it cares about such things. On Windows the user profile location is read from the registry (if you care: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList) which is on the disk (if you care: %SystemRoot%\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM) and %UserProfile% is set for that, and %UserProfile% is presumably an environment like any other. It's up to each bit of software whether it cares about such things. > On Windows I get confused with "administrator" vs "all users" vs "current user" vs "some other user" that an organisation is using for some reason. It seems like stuff can end up in different places. On Linux I get confused with /root vs /usr/share vs /var vs ... vs ~/ vs ~some-other-user/ that an organization is using for some reason. It seems like stuff can end up in different places. I can't say I see what's so amazing about the Linux and so awful about the Windows near-equivalents here.
- incompatible 9y ago
  I'm still missing the step of how I preserve any proprietary software the user installed (equivalent to preserving or copying /opt and /usr/local in Linux). Otherwise it may be similar in principle, just somewhat user-unfriendly in the Windows version. /etc/passwd is a bit easier than HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.
  - mehrdadn 9y ago
    > I'm still missing the step of how I preserve any proprietary software the user installed (equivalent to preserving or copying /opt and /usr/local in Linux). You don't. You also don't on Linux either. Copying /opt or /usr/local will restore neither the user shortcuts nor the config files in /etc, for one (er, two). Nor any system-related configurations like services that need to run at startup. Or a ton of other miscellaneous things that I can't list here off the top of my head but which will inevitably always come up. And it's a practical deceitful comparison when such a small fraction of the software you (er, the person-whose-computer-you-were-trying-to-fix, remember?)'d have installed falls in this category. The vast majority of Linux software is open- and installed via a package manager for which you can't even do what you just suggested. Yeah, maybe you'll somehow keep 3 proprietary programs just by copy-paste or something. Now have fun setting up the 50 other non-"proprietary" packages you had installed all over again just like you would on Windows.
    - incompatible 9y ago
      I guess I'll "refresh" the OS and tell the user they need to save the installers, next time. Who knows if that will even fix the "laptop running stupidly slow" problem, though.

mehrdadn 9y ago

> Well, in Linux the home directory is read from /etc/passwd at login and $HOME is set from that, and $HOME is presumably and environment variable like any other. It's up to each bit of software whether it cares about such things. On Windows the user profile location is read from the registry (if you care: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList) which is on the disk (if you care: %SystemRoot%\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM) and %UserProfile% is set for that, and %UserProfile% is presumably an environment like any other. It's up to each bit of software whether it cares about such things. > On Windows I get confused with "administrator" vs "all users" vs "current user" vs "some other user" that an organisation is using for some reason. It seems like stuff can end up in different places. On Linux I get confused with /root vs /usr/share vs /var vs ... vs ~/ vs ~some-other-user/ that an organization is using for some reason. It seems like stuff can end up in different places. I can't say I see what's so amazing about the Linux and so awful about the Windows near-equivalents here.

incompatible 9y ago
I'm still missing the step of how I preserve any proprietary software the user installed (equivalent to preserving or copying /opt and /usr/local in Linux). Otherwise it may be similar in principle, just somewhat user-unfriendly in the Windows version. /etc/passwd is a bit easier than HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.
- mehrdadn 9y ago
  > I'm still missing the step of how I preserve any proprietary software the user installed (equivalent to preserving or copying /opt and /usr/local in Linux). You don't. You also don't on Linux either. Copying /opt or /usr/local will restore neither the user shortcuts nor the config files in /etc, for one (er, two). Nor any system-related configurations like services that need to run at startup. Or a ton of other miscellaneous things that I can't list here off the top of my head but which will inevitably always come up. And it's a practical deceitful comparison when such a small fraction of the software you (er, the person-whose-computer-you-were-trying-to-fix, remember?)'d have installed falls in this category. The vast majority of Linux software is open- and installed via a package manager for which you can't even do what you just suggested. Yeah, maybe you'll somehow keep 3 proprietary programs just by copy-paste or something. Now have fun setting up the 50 other non-"proprietary" packages you had installed all over again just like you would on Windows.
  - incompatible 9y ago
    I guess I'll "refresh" the OS and tell the user they need to save the installers, next time. Who knows if that will even fix the "laptop running stupidly slow" problem, though.