#Why is there so much junk in the home directory?

24 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

robust tide
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Heyyyy, i was wondering, the first time i installed mint my home directoy was pretty clean, some hidden files that the system needs, i guess? Now after using it for a longer time and installing more stuff i noticed that there are a lot more hidden folders and files. I assume they belong to some programs to store config or temporary stuff but im wondering why they not just store it in some kind of subfolder like .config or .temp or something like that?

I have read about a bit about it and people don't seem to care or just tell you to hide them. Makes sense because they are supposed to be hidden, right? No. I work with hidden files often enough that constantly toggling hidden files is pretty annoying and also some files or folders (like node_modules) are not even hidden at all.

So i was just wondering why this happens and if i am the only one bothered by this? :p

calm moon
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It would be helpful for the nature of your inquiry if you'd let us know what folders are those, or their names.

robust tide
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also i just switched to windows 🥲

calm moon
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No worries, yes. I am aware of that, I'm trying my best to keep people comfortable.

calm moon
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For starters, you may want to provide a screenshot of your home directory, with hidden directories kept hidden.

robust tide
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uhh yeah i just have to work right now so i will do that later, do you mind if i ping you then?

calm moon
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Sure, I don't mind at all.

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But to provide you a general explanation, yes, these are usually program-related directories. Such as that meant to be accessed by the user (sometimes, often), therefore not hidden by default.

robust tide
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Yeah the main thing that bothers me is that they aren't stored in a subdirectoy and instead pollute the main home directory, this is pretty ugly and in my opinion also causes confusion. Like isn't there some kind of standard where a specific file type should go? Why not put config into .config/program/config.file or temp variables in some kind .temp/program/temp.file this would make things so much cleaner and im pretty sure its not that much effort to code that in, at least from my coding experience that doesn't seem super hard to pull off. Then again i never worked on such huge programs, maybe there is a reason but to me it just seems like lazy coding :p

calm moon
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I suppose there are certain in-program settings for such, case to case basis.

glad iron
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just keep the hidden stuff hidden. simple as that.

devout oar
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Yes, as you guessed there are guidelines for developers on which files should go where, it's called "XDG Base Directory Specification" I think. But these are guidelines, not rules, so while many devs follow them, many others ignore them and dump their files in their own folders under your home folder.

And that's why home folder becomes somewhat of a mess after some time, thankfully most of it is hidden, so that doesn't bother many users.

idle lance
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This is one of the few things I much prefer the way Windows does it versus Linux. Your home directory with your documents, downloads, music, pictures, videos folders etc doesn't have a whole bunch of hidden folders and configuration files in there like it does in Linux. It's a mess and only barely tolerable since it is out of sight and hopefully out of mind.

robust tide
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i hate the existence of hidden files in the first place lol

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but yeah that was it, just wondered why its so messy, most useful answer award goes to Maniak2000

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and the most punchable reply award goes to Stunner (no hate you helped me out before, i still like you)

devout oar
robust tide
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at least in my opinion

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there i marked it as solved

devout oar
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https://youtu.be/Tp4fkmJ6qXk?si=sRPqI_MijTBgDAk8

This might be of some help
@robust tide

YouTube
Brodie Robertson
Clean Up Your Home Directory Clutter With XDG Ninja

The more software you install the more files that start to clutter your home directory but luckily there are ways to fix this, the xdg directories but finding out what apps support these paths can be a little bit annoying so xdg ninja simplifies the process

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