For both security and comfort reasons it is smart decision to create one user account on your HTPC with only purpose to login automatically on boot and load all required applications. In my setup, such user is ingeniously named "tv" :)
This user will be owner of all HTPC data (files with music, videos, pictures, ...) so right permissions must be configured if we want to access same data trough other accounts. Permissions that newly created files that this user creates will get by default are configured by umask setting (more details: "man umask"). Since my choice was to enable both reading and writing of all HTPC data to all users, I've set umask for tv user to 000. Your mileage may vary, but in the end add proper line to .bash_profile file in tv's home folder:
umask 000
This user's home folder is also structured for better readability, containing only four subfolders:
- bin - script files for operating HTPC
- etc - various configuration files
- graphics - desktop backgrounds and other graphical elements that we'll use to make our box an eye candy
- input - folder containing static mapping of global remote contol buttons to scripts in bin folder; more on this later
