Xfce Forum

Boffin

Member

Registered: 2019-06-03

Posts: 3

How do I change the terminal startup parameters?

When I power up my machine (Debian Linux) my command line terminals always default to the "Desktop" directory. How do I change this?

TIA!

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,055

Re: How do I change the terminal startup parameters?

Hello and welcome.

Which version of Debian and which version of Xfce? Are you using a display manager (graphical login) and if so, which one?

And let's get some info about your XDG environment variables:

env | grep XDG
cat ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

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Boffin

Member

Registered: 2019-06-03

Posts: 3

Re: How do I change the terminal startup parameters?

env | grep XDG
XDG_VTNR=7
XDG_SESSION_ID=1
XDG_MENU_PREFIX=xfce-
XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/xdg
XDG_SEAT=seat0
XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/xfce4:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/:/usr/share
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/1000
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=XFCE

cat ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
# This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update
# If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're
# interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run
# Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped
# homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an
# absolute path. No other format is supported.
#
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/"

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,055

Re: How do I change the terminal startup parameters?

Your XDG user dirs are messed up (TEMPLATES, PUBLICSHARE, DOCUMENTS, MUSIC, and VIDEOS all point to your $HOME directory as opposed to their defaul directories), but probably not the cause of this issue. To clean up the XDG issue, follow the instructions here to reset them (will also work in Debian).

As for your original issue, can you post back the results of:

cat ~/.config/xfce4/terminal/terminalrc

...and the contents of your shell startup script (if bash, then ~/.bashrc).

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Boffin

Member

Registered: 2019-06-03

Posts: 3

Re: How do I change the terminal startup parameters?

ToZ's reply gave me the insight to fix this. The file $HOME/.config/user-dirs.dir controls this. The line:

XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"

Specifies which directory a terminal comes up in when you initially boot your computer. Note also that all files in this directory will show up as icons on your desktop. I've set mine to list only those files I've just downloaded to show up, so I deal with them and move them to where they will live in my filesystem. This reduces clutter on an overly cluttered computer.