Ticket #1109 (closed enhancement: fixed)
XDG_CACHE_HOME should be pointed to a local directory
| Reported by: | davidben | Owned by: | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Priority: | high | Milestone: | Precise Release |
| Component: | -- | Keywords: | |
| Cc: | Fixed in version: | ||
| Upstream bug: |
Description
The XDG base directory spec defines several variables including XDG_CACHE_HOME where applications are supposed to stuff cache data. There aren't all that many that create cache data of any significance, but browsers do. Google Chrome (and unbranded Chromium builds) uses it. Firefox does not, but they already split their profile into local/remote halves for Windows. I intend to shepherd a patch in Firefox to put the local half into XDG_CACHE_HOME.
Debathena should consider pointing XDG_CACHE_HOME to something local. That would get local cache in Chrome for free, and same with Firefox once the patch goes through. This would also fix issue #329 as urlclassifier3.{sqlite,pset} are also part of the local profile. So are the offline cache and startup cache. (This would not fix #1107 as Thunderbird does not treat ImapMail? as local data.) This isn't explicitly stated as the intention in the spec (not that rigorous reading of a spec is remotely meaningful for desktop APIs), but random searches on Google do suggest that NFS homedir and local XDG_CACHE_HOME are common.
It's conceivable that bad things will happen with an app running in two concurrent logins but each sees different caches, so it's probably worth testing a few things. (Then again, I suspect they all already break on concurrent logins anyway.)
