Re: XDG and Freedesktop

On 2025-06-30, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jun 2025 05:18:06 -0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:
>

In comp.os.linux.misc, Lawrence D'Oliveiro  <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

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    ldo@theon:~> ls -d ~/.[!.]* | wc -l 270
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Death to dotfile clutter!

 
Unix ... has dot files.

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Way too many of them. How many are there in your $HOME?
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The XDG spec aims to keep this clutter under control.

You did miss the point that the spec does this in a way that
specifically does not allow to retain the previous behaviour. Why?

This, intentionally or not, deals a blow to choice.

It would literally take just a dot per file to retain that
compatibility. You call them "dot files", but that's precisely the
problem, they *aren't* "dot files" anymore.

This is all implemented in common library code. If the same code runs
on a different *nix system, built against the same libraries, then it
will implement the same conventions for its dotfiles.

 
Bunch of big "if"s there.

>
Most of the Linux distros around already contain those libraries. The
whole freedesktop.org group has widespread support among *nixes. They’re
not some “fringe” group as you might think.

Oh, how common is freedesktop adoption in non-Linux-based UNIX-like
systems?

These are very versatile things. They not only define clickable icons
on the desktop, but also menu entries. And also icons in the favourites
toolbar. And also custom entries in the “create new document” menu in
file managers.

 
Somehow I find myself not needing any of those things.

>
If you run a Linux GUI, then you already have them.

No. See, you're doing what freedesktop appears to sometimes do, conflate
GUI with "full-featured Desktop Environment". It's possible to use a GUI
in a Linux-based system without most or all of that.

--
Nuno Silva