Config File Location Different From Wiki Information

[lukastom]

Are you using the latest Dosbox-Staging Version?

• I have checked releases and am using the latest release.

Different version than latest?

0.80.1

What Operating System are you using?

Linux x86_64

If Other OS, please describe

Linux Mint 21.1

Relevant hardware info

No response

Have you checked that no other similar issue already exists?

• I have searched and not found similar issues.

A clear and concise description of what the bug is.

The configuration file is located on:
/home/<user>/.var/app/io.github.dosbox-staging/config/dosbox/
which is totally different from what the documentation says (~/.config/dosbox/). Many new users can not find the configuration file. The documentation probably needs adjusting.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour.

Explain how to reproduce

1. install DosBox Staging (flatpak)
2. try to find the configuration file. The Wiki says it should be in ~/.config/dosbox/
3. the file is not there, even the folder dosbox does not exist on this path.

Download URL of affected game or software

No response

Your configuration

No response

Provide a Log

No response

Code of Conduct & Contributing Guidelines

• Yes, I agree.

[kcgen]

"DosBox Staging (flatpak)".

Your conf file location is caused by flatpak and how that system works. These details are something you should learn about as a flatpak user.

There are countless other 3rd party packaging systems with similar differences / limitations / constraints: snap, nix, appimage, guix, autopackage, etc.. and unfortunately is an ongoing issue, for example:

• Snap package: Joystick doesn't work #597
• Fluidsynth is not actually bundled with the Linux version? #752
• Ubuntu/Mint PPA contains wrong version #1544
• The flatpak version does not create the dosbox-staging.conf automatically if it starts from outside the Linux Terminal #2417
• snap version breaks home directory #1579

These are maintained outside of the project. We don't track their differences and won't be including their differences in the project documentation.

The documentation here covers the source code here and release tarball packages here.

To get the as-documented behavior, I would suggest uninstalling your flatpak, then download and use the zip provided by the project.

[lukastom]

Flatpak is the first suggested option for Linux users on this page: https://dosbox-staging.github.io/downloads/linux/ and is also present in some Linux software centers like the only suggestion (for example Linux Mint, one of the most used Linux distros). Because of that, it is possible that many Linux users will simply use flatpak version. While you are technically right, the lack of documentation could deterr new users which is a pitty.

[kcgen]

All good points.

We'll adjust it to list the release package here first, followed by 3rd party repository packages next along with a note that 3rd party packages may have different features, functional constraints, conf location(s), and other possible differences; and that users should learn about those via the 3rd party repository's documentation.

[lukastom]

Sounds good, thank you for your comments!