I'd like newly created users' desktop folders to default to their home folders

[abalone]

The idea of a desktop focussing on a "Desktop" folder is completely baffling to me since everything that matters to me-the-user is, in fact, in the aptly named home folder. The idea of the other XDG user directories like Templates and Music is also baffling to me since I never organised my files in a preset manner. All this just seems like a needless extra layer of complexity to me (we already have the home folder as a "base of user operations"!).

So, in my fairly pathetic little quest to eventually create a customised Kubuntu installation DVD, I'd like to set things up so that newly created users' desktop folders will be identical to their home folders. That is, KDE's desktop:/ protocol would point at /home/the-new-user -- not at /home/the-new-user/Desktop. Ideally, no such Desktop folder, nor any of the others (Templates, Music, and so on), would ever be created for new users.

Now, I've fiddled with /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults and successfully suppressed the creation of the "other" folders (Templates, Music, and so on), but the Desktop folder is always created, with desktop:/ pointing at it. I've set DESKTOP= to empty, to $HOME, and commented it out, but to no avail.

I've also created a /usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde4-profile/default/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc based on an already "properly" customised desktop in the hope that I might at least be able to have the default folder view widget point at the home folder, not the desktop folder, but this isn't really what I want and I'm out of my depth there.

Any pointers? Thanks in advance.

edit: I'm on Kubuntu 12.04

[abalone]

Oh! /etc/skel/.config/user-dirs.dirs does the trick. I just don't know if adding to /etc/skel is the proper way to do it, especially for KDE settings, icons, plasma themes, etc. But it might work for my purposes.

[Snowhog]

It's important when making these kind of posts to identify the version of Kubuntu being used. In my 12.04, /etc/skel/.config/user-dirs.dirs does not exist. Instead, the file /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults controls what default folders are created in the users /home directory.

[abalone]

I'm using 12.04 as well. Right, /etc/skel/.config didn't exist; /etc/skel just contained a few bash dotfiles. I added to it because I didn't get what I wanted with /etc/xdg. And I want to deliver a lot of other default material (icons, themes, application settings, and so on) to newly created user accounts. Right now, it seems that copying that sort of stuff to /etc/skel/.whatever should work for that.

It doesn't sound like the proper way to do it, though, and this bothers me... all the KDE material will be there from the start, whether KDE and KDE applications are installed or not (this being mostly for myself, they will be installed). But I didn't really "get" the stuff under the /usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/ hierarchy -- it's complex and seems to be more about adding some Kubuntu branding to the KDE defaults. But I'm not sure where else one would change the default settings (and not just those for the KDE stuff). At least creating pre-populated home dirs for new users is a simple solution, even if it's the clunky kind of simple...

[kubicle]

In my 12.04, /etc/skel/.config/user-dirs.dirs does not exist.

Nor should it, by default.

Everything in /etc/skel (as in skeleton) will get copied to a new user's home directory on user creation (so if you want to add [configuration] files for all new users, you can put them in /etc/skel...like abalone did)