[Modular CLI]: Do follow Freedesktop's XDG Base Directory Specification

[gdonval]

Issue description

modular behaves like a punk, trying to dump state and garbage in ~/.modular.

Please follow the XDG Base Directory Specification. The minimum would be following $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/modular (falling back to ~/.config/modular if not set). You could also use $XDG_STATE_HOME/modular to store auth tokens for the time being (defaults to ~/.local/state/modular). I am not sure yet where mojo is eventually installed, but $XDG_DATA_HOME/modular/mojo (defaulting to ~/.local/share/modular) would probably be the right place for a user install.

Steps to reproduce

• rm -rf ~/.modular
• chmod -R a-w ~/
• modular auth XXX
  modular: error: ~/.modular could not be created: Permission denied

Version Info

- Provide Modular CLI version by pasting the output of `modular -v`
modular 0.1.4 (6b54d308)

- What OS did you install modular CLI on ?
Ubuntu

[zbowling]

A partial workaround today is to set MODULAR_HOME to your $XDG_CONFIG_HOME.

Eg:

export MODULAR_HOME="$XDG_STATE_HOME/modular"
modular auth ...
modular install ...

[bzcheeseman]

Closing since a workaround exists, and this is not on our roadmap.

[gdonval]

Put it on your roadmap. Not following standards is not "playing nicely".

Your workaround is just that, a workaround. If what you were providing was a toaster, I would be complaining that providing a toaster with a UK power plug in the US does not make sense: follow the standards. Your workaround is akin to telling people to have a UK power socket fitted in your US home, when what I ask for is a converter on the plug you provide.

[ksandvik]

There is a workaround and the future of the installation system could change.

[gdonval]

Not if you don't put it on your roadmap.

Changing a custom, Modular-specific, environment variable is not following the standard. I'm not even sure why you think that is. The default should be .config/modular or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/modular with your custom variable overriding that if set.

The fix is super easy, if the code wasn't closed, I could provide one in 20 minutes max, without having had a look at the code before.

The problem with this is that if left alone, there will be always someone to complain in the dev team that ~/.modular has always been the place and it will be rejected because "users would be confused". Modular is offensive to Linux users, not playing along, forcing them to do something special (i.e. fitting UK power sockets in US homes) to get it work as intended. Just provide the right power cable.