What's the purpose of `~/.local`?

ppo

I saw in the docs references to ~/.local/{bin,etc}.
I didn't find anything about ~/.local.
So what is its purpose? Are you handling its content in special ways? …

I created ~/bin and ~/etc. Should I/is it better to move that into ~/.local?

sean

ppo ~/.local is a commonly-used location for software installed inside your home directory. On our platform it's most often used by pip to install Python packages into your home directory outside of a virtualenv.

$HOME/.local/bin and $HOME/bin are both on your executable search path by default so you're free to use either. As far as I know the only "better" choice here is the one that suits your preference.

ppo

Thanks @sean. So shorter is better… 🤔🙄

sean

For some people "less visible stuff" is better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯