Most commonly-used modern Linux distributions use the XDG Base Directory Specification http://benaiah.me/posts/configuring-go-apps-with-toml/

xdg.go

import (
    "path/filepath"
    "os"
    "runtime"

    "github.com/mitchellh/go-homedir"
)

var configDirName = "example"

func GetDefaultConfigDir() (string, error) {
    var configDirLocation string

    homeDir, err := homedir.Dir()
    if err != nil {
        return "", err
    }

    switch runtime.GOOS {
    case "linux":
        // Use the XDG_CONFIG_HOME variable if it is set, otherwise
        // $HOME/.config/example
        xdgConfigHome := os.Getenv("XDG_CONFIG_HOME")
        if xdgConfigHome != "" {
            configDirLocation = xdgConfigHome
        } else {
            configDirLocation = filepath.Join(homeDir, ".config", configDirName)
        }

    default:
        // On other platforms we just use $HOME/.example
        hiddenConfigDirName := "." + configDirName
        configDirLocation = filepath.Join(homeDir, hiddenConfigDirName)
    }

    return configDirLocation, nil
}