Hard-coding paths in Linux

Question

Coming from Windows background here.

Is it an acceptable practice for GUI Linux applications to store their data files (not user-specific) at hard-coded locations (e. g. /etc/myapp/stuff)? I couldn't find any syscalls that would return the preferred directory for app data. Is there a convention out there as to what goes where?

Answer 1

/opt/appname/stuff according to the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

Your distribution's packaging system likely provides ways to handle common installation paths. What distribution are you using?