THE files controlling the default directories created in Linux for most desktops are found in:

/etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf
/etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults 

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If enabled in conf is "True" the system will restablish the default directories, local
    control is found in  ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
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--> more /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf 
# This controls the behaviour of xdg-user-dirs-update which is run on user login
# You can also have per-user config in ~/.config/user-dirs.conf, or specify
# the XDG_CONFIG_HOME and/or XDG_CONFIG_DIRS to override this
#

# enabled=True  #  disabling this will stop automatic recreation of directories for users
enabled=False 

# This sets the filename encoding to use. You can specify an explicit
# encoding, or "locale" which means the encoding of the users locale
# will be used
filename_encoding=UTF-8


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    removing the DESKTOP (Desktop) Directory from Linux should be as simple as commenting it out...
    in the file below the single commented lines were enabled on a system, the sys admin manually removed
    them each time a new account was created.  This sort of thing used to be managed by /etc/skel/
-----------------------------------------------
    # recommend creating a dated copy of this and related files to allow restoration if something breaks
    #   cp /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults /etc/xdg/HOLD_user-dirs.defaults_2017-12-28.bak 
-----------------------------------------------

    commenting out the files will typically leave a few icons on the desktop - computer, drives and trash,
        on SuSE with a MATE desktop these appear to be created by Caja - or other file manager GUI tools.  
        They didn't consume a lot of real estate and appear useful - but removing them would require finding
        the configuration files for the various file managers and commenting them out.
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--> more /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults 
#  # Default settings for user directories
#  #
#  # The values are relative pathnames from the home directory and
#  # will be translated on a per-path-element basis into the users locale
#DESKTOP=Desktop
#DOWNLOAD=Downloads
#TEMPLATES=Templates
#PUBLICSHARE=Public
#DOCUMENTS=Documents
#MUSIC=Music
#PICTURES=Pictures
#VIDEOS=Videos
#  # Another alternative is:
#  #MUSIC=Documents/Music
#  #PICTURES=Documents/Pictures
#  #VIDEOS=Documents/Videos

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    # recommend renaming this and related files to allow restoration if something breaks
    #   mv /home/luser/.config/user-dirs.dirs /home/luser/.config/HOLD_user-dirs.dirs_2017-12-28 
-----------------------------------------------

--> more /home/luser/.config/user-dirs.dirs
# This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update
# If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're
# interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run
# Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped
# homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an
# absolute path. No other format is supported.
# 
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/PHOTOS"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/"

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--> more /home/luser/.config/user-dirs.locale
en_US
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