Empty /home/user directory
 

I just finished a fresh install of Slackware. After adding my user account and logging back in, my user /home directory is empty. i.e no home/user/ /Pictures, /Downloads, etc.

Was this an error during install, or something due to recent updates?

I did update the system with slackpkg after the install and before adding my user account.

No, it's normal behaviour
you need to fill it by yourself as needed

I'm a bit confused. I've been using Slackware for a long time now, and this is the first time I have ever seen this. My /home/user directory has always had /Pictures, /Music, /Downloads, etc created. They are of course empty until I populate them, but the directories have always been there.

I'm using Slackware 14.2 64 bit.

Not in my experience. I've done many installs of 14.2 like OP and /Downloads, /Documents, /Pictures, /Videos and /God-knows-what-else are always there. If it were me, I would be tempted to reinstall just in case anything else didn't go to plan while laying undiscovered for some time.

Check /etc/fstab and mount to make sure /home has been mounted properly.

The directories ~/Desktop, ~/Download, etc.. are created by xdg-user-dirs-update which is run at the start of a user session (this requires to run an XDG compliant desktop environment) and according to the configuration in /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf (or ~/.config/user-dirs.conf when present).

To force installation of these directory, simply run the command :


Note that auto-creation of these directories (which I personnally don't like) can be deactivated.

at system level: edit the configuration file /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf then change the line Enabled=True to Enabled=False

at user level: create the file ~/.config/user-dirs.conf and add the line Enabled=False to it.

--
SeB

I think I may have found the problem. I know! I'm a dummy! Always before I have selected XFCE as the default wm. I was trying Fluxbox on this install. So as an experiment I logged out, ran xwmconfig and switched to XFCE and after startx the Home directory was populated with the expected folders. Apparently XFCE creates them on first run.

After changing back to Fluxbox the expected folders were still in place.

that is exactly why, it depends on what WM/DT you start up first. well it looks like you've learned something today, go buy yourself something, and smile. :D

i was assuming you just created the user, not when logging in to a DE.
Some DE (I used MATE) did create those folders for you when you logged in for the first time.