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Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

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Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#101

Post by brigandish »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #84
adhoc_slime wrote: post #6

Hah I was literally just complaining about applications not following the XDG directory spec today. there's a non-exhaustive list of applications on the archwiki [0] that put their config/data in dotfiles in the home directory. surprisingly, there's also lots of pushback from maintainers of projects who don't want to change this, for whatever excuse they can produce. a Reddit thread has some list of issues where the…

The dotfiles and dotfolders directly in the home folder is "the way it was always done", and now some "new kids" came and want changes done to software which has existed before they were even born. People have muscle memory for those folders, some have hardcoded those paths in other scripts, others just don't care, and things stay as they always were. On one hand, it's great to have all the stuff in the same place, o…

> some have hardcoded those paths in other scripts

My sympathy is lacking, as is my respect for those running projects that hardcode paths. Stop hardcoding paths and the world will be a better place.

Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#102

Post by brigandish »

cube2222 wrote: post #92
adhoc_slime wrote: post #6

Hah I was literally just complaining about applications not following the XDG directory spec today. there's a non-exhaustive list of applications on the archwiki [0] that put their config/data in dotfiles in the home directory. surprisingly, there's also lots of pushback from maintainers of projects who don't want to change this, for whatever excuse they can produce. a Reddit thread has some list of issues where the…

I mean, from the perspective of a person that hasn't heard about it before, this is just another standard[0]. I opened your links. There's no easy way to judge the traction or popularity of this. Why do you think maintainers should just apply another standard that's thrown at them? I don't mean to be dismissive nor criticize the standard itself. I'm trying to give you a glimpse of what a person that hasn't heard abou…

What are the competing standards to XDG? Stick everything in $HOME? Stick everything in $HOME/.config?

Those 2 aren't standards and aren't helpful.

Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#104

Post by ajsnigrutin »

brigandish wrote: post #101
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dotfiles and dotfolders directly in the home folder is "the way it was always done", and now some "new kids" came and want changes done to software which has existed before they were even born. People have muscle memory for those folders, some have hardcoded those paths in other scripts, others just don't care, and things stay as they always were. On one hand, it's great to have all the stuff in the same place, o…

> some have hardcoded those paths in other scripts My sympathy is lacking, as is my respect for those running projects that hardcode paths. Stop hardcoding paths and the world will be a better place.

eg. ~./bashrc has existed there for 30+ years, changing stuff just because someone doesn't like seeing a file in a folder is imho stupid.

Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#105

Post by OJFord »

> suggested usage

> alias aws="boxxy aws" (repeat for other tools)

If you could find a way to somehow intercept without requiring aliasing, this would be amazing.

Also, as it is, isn't it problematic that programs might call others (outside of your shell, not respecting its aliasing).

A neat semi-solution (still worse than transparent interception if somehow possible) would be to have a boxxy-run script sym-linkable from ~/whatever/bin/aws (say) that basically just executes `boxxy "$(basename "$0")"`. So you could just symlink the same script with the name of whatever command you wanted to 'boxx'.

Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#106

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

Already__Taken wrote: post #95
vngzs wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$ du -sch ~/.config/Slack 846M $HOME/.config/Slack 846M total ... this is on a two day old machine. WTF, Slack? Junk cached data belongs in ~/.local/share ($XDG_DATA_HOME), not ~/.config.

a bunch of windows stuff does this too putting config in appdata/local and huge cache assets in appdata/roaming. anything that depends on good behaviour is doomed imo like Google wave circles

What’s really frustrating are the number of first-party Microsoft products which do this.

Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#107

Post by OJFord »

adhoc_slime wrote: post #6

Hah I was literally just complaining about applications not following the XDG directory spec today. there's a non-exhaustive list of applications on the archwiki [0] that put their config/data in dotfiles in the home directory. surprisingly, there's also lots of pushback from maintainers of projects who don't want to change this, for whatever excuse they can produce. a Reddit thread has some list of issues where the…

One of the best things about no longer using macOS is not having to fight 'but Application Support/Resources/Nonsense/Foobar.app/Resources/config is the standard location on this platform!' ... The XDG base dir spec makes a lot more sense even on macOS for developer tools, but I'm glad not to have to worry about that any more.

On Linux that excuse is gone, so it's just either 'oops yes will fix' or 'agh, sorry, legacy'. Nobody (that I've ever seen) tries to claim something else is fine or better.

Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#108

Post by sodapopcan »

cheapliquor wrote: post #13
vippy wrote: post #3

Ok, hi! My name is Boxxy...

YOU'S TROLLIN' I'S NOT TROLLIN I AM BOXXY YOU SEE ^_^

TROOOLUH TROOOLUH

uhmmm... uh....

TROOOLUH TROOOLUH

BEATLES

TROOOLUH TROOOLUG

he, like, remixed

buh buh buh BUUUUUHHHH

Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#109

Post by cube2222 »

lelandbatey wrote: post #93
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dotfiles and dotfolders directly in the home folder is "the way it was always done", and now some "new kids" came and want changes done to software which has existed before they were even born. People have muscle memory for those folders, some have hardcoded those paths in other scripts, others just don't care, and things stay as they always were. On one hand, it's great to have all the stuff in the same place, o…

The XDG base directory specification[0] was initially introduced in 2003; 20 years ago now. Yes there's plenty of software that existed before 2003 which didn't respect XDG, but most all of the Linux software dumping dotfiles in my homedir where written not just after 2003, but many years after 2003. For example, the following pieces of software all have dumped garbage in my homedir, and all are much less than 20 yea…

If, as you say

> most all of the Linux software dumping dotfiles in my homedir

then is it really true, that the standard is in fact "well established"?

Re: Show HN: boxxy – Control where Linux programs put files, without symlinks

#110

Post by OJFord »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #84
adhoc_slime wrote: post #6

Hah I was literally just complaining about applications not following the XDG directory spec today. there's a non-exhaustive list of applications on the archwiki [0] that put their config/data in dotfiles in the home directory. surprisingly, there's also lots of pushback from maintainers of projects who don't want to change this, for whatever excuse they can produce. a Reddit thread has some list of issues where the…

The dotfiles and dotfolders directly in the home folder is "the way it was always done", and now some "new kids" came and want changes done to software which has existed before they were even born. People have muscle memory for those folders, some have hardcoded those paths in other scripts, others just don't care, and things stay as they always were. On one hand, it's great to have all the stuff in the same place, o…

> Also, it's not just in one place anymore, but in many places -- so to completely remove a programX, it's not enough to just remove ~/.programX, but you need to remove a folder from ~/.config/, and another one from ~/.local/something, and another form ~/.cache,...

OTOH if you want to completely remove your cache, or completely backup your config...

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