Shameless plug: I am the author.
But what’s the difference? It’ll be in /home anyways and I heard BSD had some issues with something that could be XDG.
But what’s the difference?
I can only imagine someone asking this if they a) don’t use the terminal except if Stackexchange says they should and b) have yet to try and cleanup a system that’s acquired cruft over a few years. If you don’t care about it, then let me flip that around and ask why you care if people use XDG? The people who care about it are the people in the spaces that concern it.
Off the top of my head this matters because:
- it’s less clutter, especially if you’re browsing your system from terminal
- it’s a single, specified place for user specific configs, session cache, application assets, etc. Why wouldn’t such important foundational things required for running apps not be in a well defined specification? Why just dump it gracelessly in the user’s root folder outside of pure sloppy laziness?
- it makes uninstalling apps easier
- it makes maintenance easier
- it makes installing on new machines easier
It’ll be in /home anyways and I heard BSD had some issues with something that could be XDG.
🙄
Someone asking a question doesnt merit the insult of saying they “would never ask if they used a terminal.” I have no particular dog in this fight, but not being a dick isn’t that hard.
It may actually be the best now, but so were the 14 others that came before it. Your stated reasons are the same reasons as everyone agreeing to use any other standard. Consistency, predictability, automation,ease of backup/restore, etc.
What sets this standard apart from all the rest? Based on their own description, they aren’t even an official standard, just one in “very active” use.
So why this, specifically? Just because its what you’re already doing?
Someone asking a question doesnt merit the insult of saying they “would never ask if they used a terminal.” I have no particular dog in this fight, but not being a dick isn’t that hard.
This is true, and something that I’m working on. For some reason my brain is uncharitable in these situations and I interpret it not as a simple question but a sarcastically hostile put down in the form of a question. In this case, “Why would you be dumb and not just put things in /home”. That really is a silly interpretation of the OP question, so I apologize.
As to using this standard, just because this is your preferred standard, doesnt mean its the only standard.
Sure, but the OP was essentially asking “Why isn’t dumping everything into a user’s /home the standard? Why are you advocating for something different?”
Based on their own description, they aren’t even an official standard, just one in “very active” use.
There are a LOT of “unofficial standards” that are very impactful. System D can be considered among those. The page you link to does talk about a lot of specifications, but it also says that a lot of them are already under the XDG specification or the reason for XDG is to bring such a scheme under a single specification, i.e. XDG.
So why this, specifically? Just because its what you’re already doing?
- yes I do use it, so I am definitely biased in that regard
- it bring a bunch of disparate mostly abandoned specification into a single, active one
- it’s the active specification that has learned from past attempts
Weird to me that you apparently think the only way of viewing files is in a terminal
It’s weird to me that you think I think that. I do primarily browse files by terminal, but not always. Before I got into heavy terminal use I was a power user of Nemo. In any case, dumping everything in /home does not make for a better gui file browsing experience, either
The implication seemed to be “if you don’t care exactly where all your files are you must not use terminal”. Which I still don’t get. Just about anyone who would even be in a community like this uses terminal a lot anyway.
To give one example, what if someone wants to have more than one set of options for the same app? That’s something I’ve needed before, and it’s really hard to accomplish if the app always looks in one specific place for its options.
Oh so it makes it impossible to change config path? Yea that’s a bit inconvenient but you always can just make many files and replace the file in the right directory with the one you want.
Not if you want to use both at the same time. Due example, I’ve wanted to have a local Gnome session that I leave signed in, and another session with different settings that I remote into.
For me personally I just hate that I do not know where to find configs, especially when using a dotfiles repo, it becomes harder than if they’re all available under a common path.
Because, like /etc, you know there is a designated place for config files. It’s already set for you right there, and there is a standard for it.
/etc can’t be edited on immutable distros and usually apps store the editable config in /home/config and make the /etc one kind of read-only.
In this case it would be
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/config. That simple./etc can’t be edited on immutable distros
False on at least Fedora Atomic[1], NixOS[2] and openSUSE Aeon[3]…
Which ‘immutable’ distros are you referring to?
- On Fedora Atomic, changing
/etcis literally identical to how it goes any other distro; or at least 1-to-1 as on traditional Fedora. The bonus is that a pristine copy of the original/etcis kept inside a sub-directory of/usr. Furthermore, all changes compared to the pristine copy are kept track of. - On NixOS, changes have to be applied through
configuration.nix. Though, regardless, it’s effectively possible to edit and populate/etclike it is on other distros. - It’s explicitly mentioned that
/etcdoes not belong to the immutable base.
Fedora Atomic allowed it recently afaik. I’m always forgetting this. And NixOS is not immutable because of R/W FS.
No sorry, Fedora Atomic has allowed changes to
/etcsince at least 2019. Regarding NixOS, the consensus is that it’s an immutable distro. The immutability of/nix/store/suffices for this.Your notion on Fedora Atomic was false. So, what other ‘immutable’ distro did you have in mind when making that comment?
Please stop harassing me. And idk. I saw that issue but at this point I think it was just misinformation.
Thank you for your honesty! I only intend for the truth to prevail and/or to reach mutual understanding. So please don’t feel attacked. If somehow I came off as such, my apologies; that has never been my intent.
- On Fedora Atomic, changing
/etc is a standard, defined in the filesystem hierarchy standard. This is not:
freedesktop.org produces specifications for interoperability, but we are not an official standards body. There is no requirement for projects to implement all of these specifications, nor certification.
Below are some of the specifications we have produced, many under the banner of ‘XDG’, which stands for the Cross-Desktop Group.
Its nit-picking, but this is a specification, i.e a preference, not an official standard. It would be great if everyone would agree on just one of these to use, but that isn’t a foregone conclusion. Even the actual standard, the FHS, isn’t followed by popular OS’s like NixOS.
Specification, WHATEVER 🙄
The point is it exists for a reason, and clear purpose.
All specifications exist for a reason, and they all have a clear purpose.
What happens when you have 15 that are different and all overlap? When any of 15 is “right?”
I’ve only ever heard of FHS or XDG. Due to the free nature of linux distros, there is no central authority on how they are to be set up, and so there is no difference between those two options in terms of authority. Standards (which XDG is, colloquially) are followed based on popularity.
Yeah, I fully get that. The post and comments were very specific about how if you dont follow XDG, you’re fucking up, while only generally saying that “everything would be better if everyone followed the same standard.”
I pointed out that there are several standards and asked for a unique reason why XDG was the best to use.
I still haven’t heard one, which is fine, but it undermines the “If youre not using, XDG youre a idiot” tone of the post and comments.
I think the logic is that it’s the most used, so to avoid seriously competing standards, it’s better to stick with it.
So far, thats the most specific reason someone has given to use XDG, but I dont think it accurate.
FHS is the most used, as it’s been the primary linux filesystem standard for decades. Isn’t it better to stick with it if the only metric is popularity?
Better organization and backup / restore. For example if you want to restore config files but don’t want to move over the large “.local” folder, applications that write to $HOME will create diifculty.
