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0 pointsgioele13y ago0 comments

> I see no benefit.

The first benefit is that it removes clutters from your $HOME.

The second benefit is that you can now manage and backup your settings in a sane way.

* ~/.config contains config files (should not be lost, but if lost you can recreate them);

* ~/.local contains user data files (save them often, never lose them for they are not replaceable);

* ~/.cache contains cached information (can be tmpfs mounted, you can delete it any time you want, no loss in functionality, you just lose some optimization);

* ~/.run is for temporary system files (must be tmpfs mounted or it must be cleaned during at shutdown or power on).

Luckily most of the apps used on Linux systems now use it, you are probably using Mac OS X.

0 comments

moe13y ago

All of your points are invalid for a simple reason: Almost no software uses this fancy standard.

And for the backup-case: Whitelisting is usually a futile idea to begin with. Normally you'd prefer to backup the odd superfluous file rather than miss an important one.

Luckily most of the apps used on Linux systems now use it

Excuse me?

  $ find ~ -maxdepth 1 -name ".*" | wc -l
  228

  $ find ~/.local | wc -l
  4

  $ uname
  Linux

Flimm13y ago

I counter your anecdote with my anecdote:

  $ find ~ -maxdepth 1 -name '.*' | wc -l
  354
  $ find ~/.local/ -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
  3
  $ find ~/.local/share -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
  66
  $ find ~/.config/ -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
  108
  $ find ~/.cache/ -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
  803
  $ uname
  Linux
  $ lsb_release -d
  Description:	Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

moe13y ago

That's interesting, and sort of disturbing.

My box is not a desktop, so that's probably the difference. I still find that scheme an atrocity.

When going to that length they could at least have settled for one directory (~/.appdata or whatever). Half-baked is the most polite description I can come up with.

1 more reply

ibotty13y ago

   % uname
   Linux
   % find ~/.local | wc -l
   16824
   % find ~ -maxdepth 1 -name ".*" | wc -l
   279

nucleardog13y ago

> % find ~/.local | wc -l

Missing something?

onli13y ago

> The first benefit is that it removes clutters from your $HOME.

Invisible clutter? That's a strange concept.

But the rest of your point indeed makes sense. It still is easier and probably comment to backup the whole $HOME. But those points you can see as a benefit, though not obvious.

lubutu13y ago

As Rob mentions in his post, the more dotfiles there are in $HOME the slower path resolution for any subfiles becomes. How do we navigate to ./src? We open the directory and read all the entries until we find the one called "src". What happens if we encounter a morass of dotfiles beforehand? src takes a while to find. The clutter may be invisible to you, but it does gum up the works.

kbolino13y ago

For what it's worth, most modern file systems (JFS, XFS, ext4, reiserfs, btrfs, ...) have logarithmic (or better) directory lookup times. This is achieved using hashes and b-trees (or even hash tables).

1 more reply

duaneb13y ago

Unless you have many thousands of files, I can't imagine you would ever notice a slowdown.

Edootjuh13y ago

It's not invisible when you're actually looking for an invisible file.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsgioele13y ago0 comments

> I see no benefit.

The first benefit is that it removes clutters from your $HOME.

The second benefit is that you can now manage and backup your settings in a sane way.

* ~/.config contains config files (should not be lost, but if lost you can recreate them);

* ~/.local contains user data files (save them often, never lose them for they are not replaceable);

* ~/.cache contains cached information (can be tmpfs mounted, you can delete it any time you want, no loss in functionality, you just lose some optimization);

* ~/.run is for temporary system files (must be tmpfs mounted or it must be cleaned during at shutdown or power on).

Luckily most of the apps used on Linux systems now use it, you are probably using Mac OS X.

0 comments

moe13y ago

All of your points are invalid for a simple reason: Almost no software uses this fancy standard.

And for the backup-case: Whitelisting is usually a futile idea to begin with. Normally you'd prefer to backup the odd superfluous file rather than miss an important one.

Luckily most of the apps used on Linux systems now use it

Excuse me?

  $ find ~ -maxdepth 1 -name ".*" | wc -l
  228

  $ find ~/.local | wc -l
  4

  $ uname
  Linux

Flimm13y ago

I counter your anecdote with my anecdote:

  $ find ~ -maxdepth 1 -name '.*' | wc -l
  354
  $ find ~/.local/ -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
  3
  $ find ~/.local/share -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
  66
  $ find ~/.config/ -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
  108
  $ find ~/.cache/ -maxdepth 1 | wc -l
  803
  $ uname
  Linux
  $ lsb_release -d
  Description:	Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

moe13y ago

That's interesting, and sort of disturbing.

My box is not a desktop, so that's probably the difference. I still find that scheme an atrocity.

When going to that length they could at least have settled for one directory (~/.appdata or whatever). Half-baked is the most polite description I can come up with.

1 more reply

ibotty13y ago

   % uname
   Linux
   % find ~/.local | wc -l
   16824
   % find ~ -maxdepth 1 -name ".*" | wc -l
   279

nucleardog13y ago

> % find ~/.local | wc -l

Missing something?

onli13y ago

> The first benefit is that it removes clutters from your $HOME.

Invisible clutter? That's a strange concept.

But the rest of your point indeed makes sense. It still is easier and probably comment to backup the whole $HOME. But those points you can see as a benefit, though not obvious.

lubutu13y ago

kbolino13y ago

1 more reply

duaneb13y ago

Unless you have many thousands of files, I can't imagine you would ever notice a slowdown.

Edootjuh13y ago

It's not invisible when you're actually looking for an invisible file.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse