Dotfiles matter! Please stop dumping files in users’ $HOME directories.

American_Jesus@lemm.ee to Linux@lemmy.ml – 672 points –
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One of my greatest pet peeves is random folders appearing in my home folder. Thanks for this

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

i can almost ignore the hidden ones, but ~/go? no thats just rude

Why aren't all of these just normal directories under either .local (for data files) or .config (for configuration)???

Actually, I think the XDG directories should be under a single XDG directory either dotted or not (a better name would be OK with me) ~/xdg/Documents, ~/xdg/Music, ~/xdg/Pictures etc.

Documents, Music, etc actually are configurable. Just edit ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

I also had to (under KDE)

  • Edit the settings for each of the folders in Dolphin (The file manager)

  • Edit the location of the desktop folder in the settings found by right-clicking the desktop and going into "Configure Desktop and Wallpaper" Location.

  • Edit the show item by choosing Custom Location, and adding the XDG directory for the desktop. This setting may not stick.

That's the beauty: XDG compliant applications are entirely configurable using standardized environment variables.

afaik, tmux can use ~/.config/tmux/tmux.conf or something, if ~/.tmux is not found

If these were links to issues that could be reacted to, I'd totally do that.

Is it a problem to change this?