Missing directories?

[Thwompin]

Online, I see people mentioning a couple directories that I cannot find on my system. These are:

~/.local/bin
for user-specific binaries

~/.local/share/applications/
for user-specific desktop entries

How come these don't exist in my Kubuntu?

[Snowhog]

.local/share/applications does exist in your user home directory (~).

.local/bin does not.

[oshunluvr]

Probably a distro difference.

[Thwompin]

.local/share/applications does exist in your user home directory (~).

I don't have it

https://files.catbox.moe/e4cu73.png

[claydoh]

Application paths don't need to exist, if they are not being used. These ones are not in any way mandatory.

In the case of ~/.local/share/applications, it won't exist unless you modify a menu entry, or have a local install of something that creates a user-specific .desktop file - appimages installed using Appimagelauncher, or something installed via a script that creates a desktop file. Steam game launcher icons, and
flatpaks as well.

The directory won't exists unless it is created by something or someone.

It is similar with ~/.local/bin, though this requires a user create the dir, unless a local install script does so.
This dir is not part of the $PATH hierarchy in many distros (including *buntu), but is really easy to add, if desired.

the $PATH is a list of locations that the system looks inside of, in order, for when someone enters a command without including the full path.
entering ls instead of entering /usr/bin/ls.

entering echo $PATH will show this list:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin​

If you want to add ~/.local/bin as a location for custom things, you can easily do so. You just need to tack the following line to the end of your ~/.bashrc:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

or

export PATH="/home/username/.local/bin:$PATH"

or any path you might like.

$HOME here is just a shorthand for "the current user's home directory"

After that, you will need to enter the command source ~/.bashrc to load the new setting in your current terminal, or logout and back in.

[jlittle]

~.local/bin is newish (from my perspective, having used ~/bin for several decades) and installing some Python packages will create it and complain if it's not in your path. I tried symlinking it to ~/bin and that proved to not work well.

(BTW, installing Python software to ~/.local/bin was a mistake, too, always use a "venv" with user Python.)

2nd aside, I swear by this alias

alias path='echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}'
​

[Snowhog]

2nd aside, I swear by this alias Code:Copy Code

alias path='echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}'

I don't see any difference in the output of your alias over just typing path.

[jlittle]

unalias path
path
zsh: command not found: path
bash
unalias path
path
Command 'path' not found, did you mean....

[kubicle]

the $PATH is a list of locations that the system looks inside of, in order, for when someone enters a command without including the full path.
entering ls instead of entering /usr/bin/ls.

entering echo $PATH will show this list:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin​

There should be this in $HOME/.profile by default (also in *buntus):

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/.local/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi​

Which adds these directories to $PATH if they exist, so there really is no need to add them manually (they'll get added after creation the next time user's .profile is sourced)