301
Linux is Getting a New Default Folder in Your Home Directory (itsfoss.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
160 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

If you are using a rolling release distro like Arch, you might have noticed that your home directory now has a new member, a new folder called "Projects".

For as long as I remember, Linux has always had a set of default folders under the home directory. Usually they are Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos and Downloads. Templates, Desktop and Public folders are also there.

Now we have a new addition in the form of "Projects".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 22 points 4 months ago (11 children)

Honestly I say just let the user decide what goes in their home directory. I always get annoyed at all the random garbage in there. There should be a specific place that is user owned that isn't filled with cruft and configuration files

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 11 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    Yeah, I have essentially never used these folders unless a program sticks something there by default (mostly pictures).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (5 children)

    I just save everything to ~/Desktop anyway.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    A thing I started doing years ago, to combat trashing to ~/Desktop or ~/Downloads:

    Set /tmp as your default download directory.

    At least for me, almost everything I download is just ephemeral and would collect dust

    Putting it there causes it to be cleaned up on the next reboot. No more piles of junk on the desktop (the virtual one at least. Don't ask about my physical desktop)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    That's a good idea until you download a 10GB file and you wonder why you're out of RAM :P

    I use /tmp as a temp folder for yt-dlp (it is faster than an HDD when adding metadata and subs to the video), and I've ran out of RAM before by downloading a video too big... Silly me, my laptop only has 8GB.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    True, but only if you use ramfs for tmp, which not all distros do

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    The user does decide, XDG user directories are optional and configurable. Since they are already established, user-friendly distros / desktop environments already pre-install them.

    And what speaks against just using a new directory within your home directory as your "specific place that is user owned that isn't filed with cruft and configuration files"?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    It's only optional and configurable if it's respected. Which often times it's not due to convention.

    And I do already actually, it's just weird that I have to.

    It's 100% one of those carry overs from earlier days of computing and Linux not having great standards only great conventions. Like /bin vs /usr/bin

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Could you elaborate how the configuration might not be respected? Do you mean that you've often encountered applications that save files to hard-coded paths and do not even let you change the destination path?

    If you ask me, that's just bad software design. If the software is open-source, there is the option to request the developers to read the actual path of the respective well know directory from the XDG environment variables or allow configuration.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent