Re: RFC: 1.7.33 problem with user's home directory

[Andrey Repin <anrdaemon@yandex.ru>]

Greetings, Yaakov Selkowitz!

>> When I implemented the new scheme I thought it a good idea to decouple
>> the Cygwin home dir from the Windows home dir.  However, in the today's
>> discussion the following two arguments came up:
>>
>> - If you're using the Windows home folder setting to maintain file
>>    server based home directories, you typically want that these
>>    directories are used for Cygwin stuff as well (central administration,
>>    central backup).
>>    Having to maintain the home directories twice, once in the
>>    homeDirectory, once in the unixHomeDirectory entry is quite a hassle,
>>    especially given that unixHomeDirectory does not support variable
>>    substitution (e.g. "/home/%USERNAME%" won't work).
>>
>> - If you're already using AD as NIS server, unixHomeDirectory is already
>>    used for UNIX machines.  Trying to align the unixHomeDirectory for
>>    Cygwin to homeDirectory for all the rest of Windows will potentially
>>    become impossible then.
>>
>> These arguments are quite serious and it questions the "good idea" part
>> of this change a lot.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Shall the "db" entries utilize the Windows home folder if it exits(*)
>> and drop using the unixHomeDirectory?  It seems inevitable...

> If one uses the same program, one native Windows and one Cygwin, they 
> would then potentially cause conflicting/incompatible config dot-files 
> in the same directory (line endings, path conventions, etc.).

I would imagine using one or another. But not both. Native version of the same
program usually runs better, than the one running through compatibility layer.
Then again, many programs, that have native Windows version, use native
Windows conventions (I.e. put things in %AppData% rather than clogging
%USERPROFILE% with dot-dirs.)
Out of my list of programs, only GIMP and Dia would share the config dirs, if
I would try to set up Cygwin versions of either along with native one.
And all this worth nothing, because if someone's doing something like that,
they are either know what they are doing, and prepared for the possible
outcome, or deserve everything that could happen. IMO.
Not to mention, we're discussing default configuration here. You can alter it
easily to fit your needs, Cygwin gives you all that you need to achieve it.

In short, elusive benefits of having a separate cygwin-specific "clean" homes
versus confusing disjoint of multiple places to look for single user's files,
settings, and other stuff when it comes to backups and migrating profiles.


--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon@yandex.ru) 11.11.2014, <09:28>

Sorry for my terrible english...


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