Why is Linux "open project" dialog always empty?

For as long as I can remember I’ve always had to explicitly browse to my project in Linux. Unlike in my OSX and Windows machines, my Linux build never shows my recent projects. Is there a setting I need to put in?

All I had to do was add the directory to the UE4Games.uprojectdirs file. FYI, this file does not resolve “~” shorthand.

same problem for me
(gentoo amd64)

See my own answer to the question below. Just need to add the desired path to the UE4Games.uprojectdirs file. Must be explicit, no relative paths or tilde as far as I can tell.