Linux does not
have the concept of a "global system registry," which is an extremely good thing because the Registry has proven to be Windows' Achilles heel. System settings are stored in ordinary files, usually read-only. There are definite conventions as to where those files are customarily stored.
Some user-environments, such as KDE, have the concept of a settings-database but these are "per-user." Settings are stored in hidden directories, e.g. .kde
, in the user's home-directory.
(In Unix/Linux, files and directories are hidden from normal view if their name begins with a period, ".". You can see the hidden files and directories with ls -a. Notice also that this concept is distinct from, and completely unrelated to, the two special directory-names that happen to also begin with a period, "." and "..".) The concept of a "'hidden file' attribute" does not exist in Unix/Linux as it does in Windows/MS-DOS, although this is functionally equivalent.)
One of the nice things about Unix/Linux is that, no matter what a (non-privileged) user may do to hose himself, those problems will be confined to that user's
environment. There are no nonsense-issues like "forgetting how to run an .exe
because some virus monkeyed around with the Registry," as there are in Windows.