AppData folder: am I a joke to you?
fun fact: that dotfiles are hidden on *nix systems was just a bug in the first version of ls (the dev originally only wanted to hide the “.” and “…” entry and not every file starting with .), but before the 2nd version could roll around, people have already deemed it a usefull feature so it was never changed.
That’s neat!
Is there an easy to find style guide of how Windows would like you to use these things, cause I never found one.
Appdata, my documents, program files… Everyone seems to be all over the place
I believe the intent is to use appdata for user-specific configs and programdata for system-wide configs.
A lot of apps mess up local vs roaming AppData too. Roaming is for things that would make sense in a roaming profile (ie to sync to other systems) whereas local is for things that should only exist on this system (caches, machine-specific configs, etc)
Man: project zomboid just creates a “Zomboid” folder in home, not even with a leading dot.
Yeah I noticed this too. Brutal.
The nice thing about Free software is that distros can fix these programs that store things in the wrong location. My Debian home is a lot cleaner than my Arch.
Amazed that no one can figure out a .config/ or .local/ already
Sure, AppData exists, but do you expect them to… read?
Don’t forget about good ol
.minecraftAt least it’s in
appdata%, and not inuserprofile%.
Why does Redhat auto mount my extra hard drives at
/run/mediabut Debian & Co put it in/media/?hmmmm? Exactly. 9/11 was an inside job.
is it just me or these look a bit arbitrary
and id love to understand the logic behind whats inside /home cause it seems way too chaotic to me
The FHS is a real thing, the second picture is some indian techblog nonsense. ”Unix System Resources” lmao.
Are dotfiles a thing on Windows? It’s been a while since I used it.
They are in subfolders of C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming or \Local or \LocalLow.
Or in the program’s installation path in C:\Program Files or \Program Files(x86).
Or in a separate directory directly under C:\
Or the settings are handled via Registry keys.
Or whatever the fuck Microsoft Store apps do.
Or any combination of the above.I remember that much lol. I should have clarified, I was trying to ask why are there dotfiles in the screenshot
Nobody wants to develop a tag-based filesystem?
It’s basically in use today. Apparently younger generations are more used to searching for files rather than structuring them. https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z
Everyone here is talking about conventions used on Linux, but this looks like Windows Explorer to me…?
Why are there so many directory names in there following Linux “hidden file” conventions, if that’s the case?This is not a Linux or Windows thing. It’s a lazy developer thing. It’s also another one of the ways that some devs will coddle the end-user because “learning a file directory system is hard.”
for someone regularly using both: it is a convenience feature.
that way i just know config files are under
~/.myApp. if windows devs would beore consistent, i would be ok withAPPDATA%\myApp. however, too often it is underAPPDATA%\..\Roaming\myApp- which is just a pain. so i prefere linux style on windows.edit: copy paste error
I think you meant %LOCALAPPDATA%
%APPDATA% points to roaming
I realize that the OP is a Windows case, but I’d be rich if I had a penny for every time a savegame or config file is stored somewhere totally whack.
I’m completely self-taught when it comes to Linux, so I have some obvious gaps in my knowledge. I’ve looked for good write-ups on how Linux folders are intended for use and been unable to find a good resource. Thank you for sharing the official standard name. Reading up on it now.
That’s respectable! But yeah, the FHS is something that’s surprisingly hard to find in-depth information about if you don’t already know about it.
I think this page from systemd (or this page from the arch wiki, if you prefer formatting) has a decent description of not only the FHS, but also the more standard user/home structures.
I’d be rich if I had a penny for every time a savegame or config file is stored somewhere totally whack.
Fun thing of you enable protected folders on windows: No app can get write access your Documents folder (or Images or Videos or…) unless you put them explicitly on the whitelist. That means you get to experience all the programs that are crashing or hanging or… just because they’re simply assuming that that’s the best place to dump data and because these folders always exist, you don’t need proper error handling in case you cannot access them…
Once Microaoft/Windows blocked access to the Root path of one of my drives.
That was surprising.
