It may look like a small addition, but standardizing something many Linux users already do can improve workflows, application behavior, and even documentation over time.

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”.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    201·
    3 days ago

    Now make all of default XDG directories lowercase. Nothing else is capitalized in the file system - why do these directories get an exception?

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        Yeah I know and KDE ans Gnome both have settings for this but as I used to setup a lot of machines it was always frustrating that the default is uppercase and some idiots don’t actually read the XDG preferences and have default uppercase directories hard coded

        • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
          1·
          2 days ago

          Yup, and everythjng done twice or even trice. I’m a sucker for efficiency who had some time on hand then, so i have my own environmemt setup and XFCE runner now, with clearly separated do xorg-stuff in X, XFCE stuff in XFCE, etc.

      • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        8·
        3 days ago

        Yes, that is the reason to make them lowercase, so I don’t have to shift when using the terminal to access my most used directories.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
    9·
    3 days ago

    The article should also mention the new XDG variable itself, please.

    And also, the XDG people should’ve thought of a more flexible way, that allows unlimited custom icon-directory associations. Now, we have some file managers, that do it their own way, most don’t allow custom directory icons.

  • AnimalsDream@slrpnk.netEnglish
    7·
    3 days ago

    I already make my own Projects folder. Does this mean programs are going to start being tuned to make changes to it? Leave my adhd folder alone plz.

  • graynk@discuss.tchncs.de
    21·
    4 days ago

    Ahh, I was wondering why there’s a Projects next to my projects, I thought I just made a typo at some point

  • promitheas@programming.dev
    541·
    5 days ago

    Everyone complaining, and here I am not having noticed the change because I’ve created that directory for myself years ago :-P

    Personally its for organisation

      • promitheas@programming.dev
        18·
        4 days ago

        All my projects, which to be fair are mostly programming.

        ~/Documents/Projects doesn’t make sense to me because theyre not strictly documents. In documents i have - well, documents like bill receipts, forms ive filled in, etc…

        My projects are a first-order thing for me if that makes sense, so it makes sense to have them in the top-level of my home.

        • naught101@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 days ago

          Right, for me “documents” is just “personal files”. I used to have it called that, but then I just had and empty dir sitting there unused…

          I don’t like putting things in home because then files get mixed up with config and cache and crap, and it’s more annoying to search

    • ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      5·
      5 days ago

      Luckily I created mine as projects so I don’t have to worry about it writing a bunch of shit into my actual projects folder, or having to fix the xdg setting to disable it.

  • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
    22·
    4 days ago

    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.socialEnglish
      4·
      4 days ago

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

        • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
          3·
          4 days ago

          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·
            3 days ago

            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.

      • EddoWagt@feddit.nl
        1·
        4 days 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
      11·
      4 days ago

      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·
        3 days 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

        • TheV2@programming.dev
          1·
          2 days ago

          Could you elaborate how the configuration might not be respected? Do you mean that you’ve often encountered applications that save files to hard-coded paths and do not even let you change the destination path?

          If you ask me, that’s just bad software design. If the software is open-source, there is the option to request the developers to read the actual path of the respective well know directory from the XDG environment variables or allow configuration.

    • curbstickle@anarchist.nexusEnglish
      51·
      5 days ago

      I made SO MANY directories under home that could have just been ~/Projects that I’m annoyed with myself for not doing something so simple.

      … I’ll be using the projects directory heavily going forward

      • andyburke@fedia.io
        16·
        5 days ago

        As someone who has used ~/Projects for years and has syncing and other setup around it I am (very slightly) terrified this change could somehow fuck with me.

        Please let this just be a mkdir call that will fail.

        • dreamy@quokk.auEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          I’m on Artix Linux and it did automatically create it after an update.

          It likely just runs xdg-user-dirs-update which, in my experience, doesn’t delete anything if the folder is already there (the command just changed the folder icon in the file manager when I used to run it on a WM).

        • hallettj@leminal.spaceEnglish
          10·
          5 days ago

          I also use a Projects folder. It looks like it probably won’t break anything. Apps might start putting stuff there by default, hopefully in sensible subdirectories. There’s a note in the article that you can create ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs to specify where you want files to go.

        • curbstickle@anarchist.nexusEnglish
          6·
          5 days ago

          Nope. Only makes for new installs, and only uses it as a save spot default if the application asks for it. Should be no change at all.

            • curbstickle@anarchist.nexusEnglish
              5·
              4 days ago

              When I read it originally (a bit back, maybe a week or two ago) it was new installs that was noted, though new users would make sense.

              I guess I’ll find out soon enough on a test box.

    • naught101@lemmy.world
      5·
      5 days ago

      This is the way. Everything I created in folder in Documents. Everything I downloaded in downloads. Home should be otherwise empty, except for all the left-over dot-folders that old software leaves lying around.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    20·
    4 days ago

    Hah, thats funny, I… literally have a ‘Projects’ folder, though I’m running Bazzite.

    hoists suspenders

    Yep, made that folder on my own, gets the job done, mhrm.

    … lol

    (pleasedonotlookinsidetheProjectsfolderdeargoditissuchamess)

  • ApertureUA@lemmy.todayEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    Idk, XDG is weird.
    “Music”, “Documents”, “Downloads”, “Public” and “Templates” are in Ukrainian;
    “Public” and “Downloads” are duplicated in English;
    “Desktop” is just English;
    “Images” is in Russian for me for some reason.

    No Projects despite me updating recently, I guess it just gave up.

  • loiakdsf@discuss.tchncs.de
    12·
    4 days ago

    how about first getting programs to put dotfiles into the .config folder (opposed to .programname) instead of adding more folders that are inconsistent over distros for multiple years before the point of a default for IDEs and CAD programs can even be meaningfully made?

    • daeraxa@programming.dev
      2·
      3 days ago

      Ugh yeah this is a real point of annoyance for me, we have the XDG basedir spec for a reason but everything just ignores it. I’d settle for even the config part, let alone state, data dirs and the rest. Just throw it all in home…

  • jcr@jlai.luFrançais
    5·
    3 days ago

    Even if I am against this kind of “defaults”, today I learned how you customize this for any folder in the home directory !

    For linux based system, you do like told in https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/xdg-user-dirs/

    ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs specifies the current set of directories for the user. This file can also be modified by users (manually or via applications) to change the directories used. Note: To disable a directory, point it to the homedir. If you delete it it will be recreated on the next login.

    So at last I disabled Music, Templates, Pictures and Videos . Cleaner Home !