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Linux is Getting a New Default Folder in Your Home Directory (itsfoss.com)

submitted 2 days ago by cm0002@lemy.lol to c/linux@programming.dev

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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".

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[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (2 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

[–] RamenJunkie@midwest.social 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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

[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I just save everything to ~/Desktop anyway.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 day ago (1 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)

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 2 points 19 hours ago (1 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.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

If you don't, then it's not going to be cleaned up on reboot.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 5 hours ago

I don't have it as ramfs and it gets cleaned up perfectly fine. never had a system where it doesn't

[–] EddoWagt@feddit.nl 1 points 1 day ago

I relocated the default folders that are useful to another drive, I pretty much don't use the home folder at all apart from some random github pulls or some shit

[–] TheV2@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago (1 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"?

[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

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