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”.
I feel called out by the first sentence of the article
Cool I guess? I’m a weirdo who always puts projects in
Documents/so… maybe I’ll use it more from now onIt’s pretty much the first folder I add on a fresh install, gotta keep that shit contained
I like this idea. I’ve been doing pretty much the same thing for a while now, though it’s been a subdirectory of Documents.
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.
Mine is on the desktop 🤷🏼♀️
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
I think that’s what normal people have been doing for decades.
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.
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.dirsto specify where you want files to go.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).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.
New installs, or new users? I’d assume the latter?
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.
it’s excessive for me. I’ll continue putting my projects with my documents.
But why are the names camel cased? It’s a little bit more annoying to type.
Because any normal person would want it upper cased. Most people never type these folder names.
Yes, Linux should appeal to the masses, otherwise we will never get rid of Windows. No, this doesn’t apply to anyone on Lemmy cause nobody on Lemmy right now truly qualify as “normal person”, statistically speaking.
i feel normal but nobody knows that i am wearing Batman socks.
… until now.
Yours are camel case? That’s weird. My folders are pascal case.
Indeed, fixed.
Seconded, I hate that every file is all lowercase but my home directory if filled with Downloads, Videos, Documents, etc…
cd downloads
nO sUcH FiLe oR DiReCtoRy
time for a new shell or enable ‘set completion-ignore-case on’ in bashrc
You can customize the names with a
~/.config/user-dirs.dirsfile. That will work on XDG-compliant programs. instructions
Windows user appeal?
Appeals to Java programmers too.
So does self-flagellation, but we don’t provide default whips in the Kernel.
And Mac.
Hell, Mac even capitalizes /Users (where home folders are)!
– Frost
I never even thought to check. Was Games not a default folder?
And that’s where it should stop.
shouldn’t have even started imo. it’s hard for me to believe creating a projects folder is done often enough that people can’t just continue to make their own
I’ve always had a projects folder, so this works for me I guess.
Me too! But now I’m thinking maybe I should capitalize the folder name
~/PROJECTS
Why capitalize? Drop all the vowels!
~/prjcts
Same, I picked it up from some random user I was watching.
It may as well be called ‘git folder’ because it’s almost exclusively used to clone ‘hmm, neat’ github repos and for my various ‘to do’ projects where I’ve gotten as far as running
git init.I have two folders for git though, my projects, and other people’s packages and such
That makes too much sense
Same I also keep one called “scratch” that is just for random one off shit
/s
That’s better than mine: ~/downloads/deleteme123
My downloads folder already removes files that are over a month old
I used to have a scratch directory. Then I realized I can put stuff in /tmp/whatever, and it gets automatically deleted on reboot. I made a shell function that creates a /tmp subdirectory, and cds to it in one command.
Well, sometimes I want something more permanent than tmp
I wish they would combine Pictures and Videos into Media.
And Music? But they’d still need subfolders to keep the content organised and then it begs the question why hide it all away a whole layer lower down from the Home folder?
Pictures and Videos typically refer to personal media, whereas music would refer to professional media. I don’t think grouping them into a single media directory would usually make sense.
Oh, that’s what I do, you just have to customize it. I have media with images, music and videos inside.
I keep everything in Documents
Those files all go in documents. Jesus, why are we doing it this way?
No documents are for documents.
Actually they all go in nextcloud/projects
You store git repo in your documents?!
I make it? Subfolder in documents.
I’m fucking with someone elses? Subfolder in downloads.
We have a Programs folder for programs we’ve written ourselves. (Then a “repos” folder for stuff we’ve cloned.)
Yes
Absolutely. Some under a work subfolder, some under various other sub-folder depending on what they contain.
Pure bloat. I will be personally switching to the Hurd Kernel just because of this change.
/s right?
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.
Y’all don’t just do everything out of your Downloads folder?
My wife’s Windows 10 desktop can fit one more icon. Just need to overlap a few others here and there.
Perhaps your wife needs something like this?
My man!
Documents for me, but yeah
~ is kinda hard to reach. I just put everything in root so I just have to type / once to find everything.
/s
Everything is just in /. I patched directory support out of ext4.
Oh cool I’ll also start using “/s” folder
I thought I was the only one, it’s just so easy to use it as your base working folder. Things get organized out as whatever it is moves forward to some arbitrary point.
Living dangerously in agile times. I do it in /tmp and I set auto clean for every reboot.
auto clean for every reboot
Mount
/tmpastmpfs, dummy. It’s literally in the name.
No, Desktop/
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.
I always change the defaults to another place and to have another naming. Just camel casing those folders is already stupidly annoying. I guess one more silly one into another folder out of view.
I already do the following:
- media with images, music and videos inside
- changes to small case for desktop and download
- change documents to docs
- create another folder called shares which I moved the public folder inside.
- hide the templates folder that nobody knows what is it for, so it becomes .templates
- no idea what the projects is supposed to be about, maybe I can map it to the already existing dev folder…
hide the templates folder that nobody knows what is it for, so it becomes .templates
I think the templates folder is for the “New File” items, I forget how it works but you can make custom new files similar to new Text File, Empty File, etc
