•  AKADAP   ( @AKADAP@lemmy.ml ) 
    64•9 months ago

    I absolutely despise the following directories: Documents, Music, Pictures, Public, Templates, Videos. Why? Because applications randomly dump stuff into these directories and fill them with junk files. I don’t want any application putting anything into directories I actually use, unless I explicitly tell them to. It is not possible to keep your files organized if applications randomly dump trash files into them.

  •  nyan   ( @nyan@lemmy.cafe ) English
    47•9 months ago

    Y’know what’s worse? When there’s no dot. Worse than that, it’s an undotted directory used to store a single config file. Ugh, unpleasant memories. 😒

    •  unalivejoy   ( @joyjoy@lemm.ee ) English
      48•9 months ago

      Let’s count them. (not including legacy or standard locations like .local, .config, or .cache, .ssh, and shell configuration files

      • .aws
      • .azure
      • .bun
      • .byobu
      • .cargo
      • .dbus
      • .docker
      • .dokku
      • .keychain
      • .kube
      • .minikube
      • .motd_shown
      • .node_repl_history
      • .npm
      • .nuxt
      • .nuxtrc
      • .nvm
      • .oh-my-zsh
      • .pack
      • .psql_history
      • .pyenv
      • .python_history
      • .redhat
      • .ruff_cache
      • .rustup
      • .selected_editor
      • .sqlite_history
      • .sudo_as_admin_successful
      • .tmux.conf
      • .tox
      • .ts_node_repl_history
      • .vim
      • .viminfo
      • .vimrc
      • .vscode-server
      • .wget-hsts
      • .yarn

      And a couple more, non-hidden files for Go.

      • go
      • sdk/go1.20
  •  tal   ( @tal@kbin.social ) 
    33•9 months ago

    They may not want their configuration stored in $HOME, for example:

    they’re on a machine that isn’t under their physical control and ~/.config is mounted over the network from their personal machine;

    That sounds like it’s a bad way to handle configuration, since among many other problems, it won’t work with the many programs that do have dotfiles in home directory, but even if that happened, you could just symlink it.

    they prefer to version control their configuration files using git, with a configuration directory managed over different branches;

    I do that. I symlink that config into a git-controlled directory. If OP plans to put his entire ~/.config in git, he is doing things wrong, because some of that needs to be machine-local.

    the user simply wants to have a clean and consistent $HOME directory and filesystem

    If whatever program you are using to view your home directory cannot hide those files, it is broken, as it does not work with a whole lot of existing software.

    less secure,

    If your home directory is “not secure”, you’re probably in trouble already.

    Like, there are reasons you may not want to put dotfiles in a homedir, but none of the arguments in the article are them.

    EDIT: I will ask developers to stop dumping directories and files that don’t start with a dot in people’s home directories, though. I gave up over twenty years ago and put my actual stuff under ~/m just to keep it from being polluted with all the other things that dump non-dotfiles/-dotdirs in a home directory. Looking at my current system, I have:

    • A number of directories containing video game saves and configuration. I am pretty sure that these are mostly bad Windows ports or possibly Windows programs under WINE that just dump stuff into a user’s home directory there (not even good on Windows). Some are Windows Steam games.

    • WINE apparently has decided that it’s a good idea to default to sticking the Windows home directory and all of its directories in there.

    • Apparently some webcam software that I used at one point.

    • A few logfiles

    •  PlexSheep   ( @PlexSheep@feddit.de ) 
      17•9 months ago

      I agree with most of your points, but I still think putting configs in the xdg dir instead of putting tons of dotfiles in $HOME is good practice.

      I find dotfiles to be that stuff that I want to edit easily, and xdg stuff to be that stuff that I don’t edit frequently (manually at least)

      •  sickday   ( @sickday@kbin.social ) 
        3•9 months ago

        You can manage symlinks pretty easy with home-manager. I’d personally setup symlinks for these app configuration directories if I don’t want them storing files directly on the disk I use for $HOME. It’s also done in a delcarative way that can persist across multiple computers.

          •  sickday   ( @sickday@kbin.social ) 
            1•9 months ago

            If so, how does that solve the problem of clutter in $HOME ?

            If it wasn’t clear from my message, the problem(s) these tools are solving for me would be 1. not having to keep track of my dotfiles and their directories, and 2. not storing configuration files directly on the disk I use for the $HOME dir. I’m not claiming these tools would solve clutter in the $HOME dir. Further, I think it should be alright for me to share tools for managing configuration files in your home directory in a discussion that directly relates to that subject.

            So you create a symlink from $HOME/.program.ini to something in the nix store?

            Normally it’s the other way around. When you use nix and home-manager, you’re technically generating files that will live in the nix-store and nix/home-manager will take care of symlinking those files to locations in your $HOME dir.

            In this scenario though, I would use the https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/options.html#opt-home.file option from home-manager to create a symlinks to a location that’s outside of my $HOME dir so those files don’t have to live on my home disk.

            My particular use-case is that I want persistent configuration files that are shared throughout a handful of devices on my network. To this end, I use some home-manager symlinks that lead to a network folder where all these various directories and configuration files actually live. I edit those configurations in a single place and their changes propagate across the network to all the devices that would use them.

          •  Byter   ( @Byter@lemmy.one ) 
            1•9 months ago

            You’re right, it doesn’t. That does give me an idea though.

            You could use overlayfs with an opaque upper directory to hide the files littering your $HOME and still access them by bind-mounting them into the appropriate xdg dirs.

            Way more effort than it’s worth, of course.

  •  Urist   ( @Urist@lemmy.ml ) English
    9•9 months ago

    Tangentially related: I recently learned that there are tools for handling dotfiles such as chezmoi and yadm. I would suppose that after spending some time on backing up the dotfiles that matter one can purge the remainders without much issue. I also remember some tool that was made for the purpose of cleaning $HOME, but can not recall its name (if anyone knows please let me know).

  •  Moonrise2473   ( @Moonrise2473@lemmy.ml ) 
    9•9 months ago

    I’d like to set nautilus to show hidden files, but I can’t stand the amount of “trash” there’s in home

    Everyone is thinking “my app is the best, it totally deserves a ~/.myappisthebest directory”