This commit applies a normalization process to environment paths, both
in how they are stored internally, also their settings values. This
normalization is done via two means:
- we make the paths absolute
- we remove redundant name elements from the path (what Java calls
"normalization")
This change ensures that when we compare and refer to these paths within
the system, we are using a common ground. For example, prior to the
change if the data path was relative, we would not compare it correctly
to paths from disk usage. This is because the paths in disk usage were
being made absolute.