I am learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. After creating users as root, if I login as the new user using "su - username", there are no directories in the user's home directory .
Once I login as the new user graphically, then these are created.
Why is this so?
These folders are not made/used by the system during user creation because the system doesn't generate them. They are generated the package xdg-user-dirs-update (Ubuntu) and xdg-user-dirs (Fedora/RHEL).
The file /usr/bin/xdg-user-dirs-update is run at logon and creates the files based on defaults in /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults, or if it exists $HOME/.config/user-dirs.dirs.
If you want to disable it, the setting is in /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf, or uninstall the package, if dependencies allow.
Reference: Who is creating Documents/Video/Pictures/etc. in home directory
