I want a clean config directory! :: rabbiticTranslator
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And it can be done easily, ackshually. But what is that all about? The problem It has been a longstanding complaint that the ~/.config/ directory on Linux systems can get riddled with configuration files. This is the case with KDE software as well. My idea is that we should be putting those into subdirectories inside ~/.config/. The Freedesktop XDG Base Directory specification generally only states that standard configuration files should go under XDG_CONFIG_DIRS.

There’s a proposal at the linked blog post for how to clean up the config directory.

The post goes into detail which changes would be required in KDE software using Qt.

After reading, I just have one question (the blog does not seem to have a comment section): how does this handle transitioning from the old location to the new location? Imagine having a katerc config file under ~/.config and one under ~/.config/kate (which is the suggestion from the post) - should those be merged once and then the old one gets deleted?

  • @Thwompthwomp
    1•1 year ago

    Would this mean a copy and a paste of the config folder would bring up a new KDE system to my personalizing without going through konsave juggling?

    I think that’s my biggest complaint that I don’t know how to import my desktop config (window decorations, panel layout, desktops, activities, fonts, application themes) into a new install easily or the “proper” way

    • @zmej420blazeit
      2•1 year ago

      this is a seperate issue, and no, it wouldn’t fix the issue, maybe improve it a little though. as stated in the article, not everything would be in ~/.config/kde, and IME there are files scattered over ~/.local/share that you might also consider config you want to export.

      Personally, I’ve tracked down 80-90% of the settings I care about and put them in git, but it was tedious, and some things can’t really be shared across machines, while some other things need to be cleared of machine specific information to work as a new “default base config”

    • @[email protected]OP
      2•1 year ago

      I’m not sure (not the author) and I think syncing config is a lot more difficult than it would seem at first glance. Eg Panel Layout: Imagine syncing between a multi-monitor-setup (work PC) and a single-monitor-setup (Laptop) - how’s that supposed to work? The panel might be on the second screen on the PC, but once synchronized to the Laptop, that would mean either

      • missing panel (off screen)
      • double panel (stacked on top of each other)
      • hidden second panel (one below the other)
      • …

      Syncing .config would (at first glance) work best for device independent settings (e.g.: Indentation in Kate with Tabs vs. Spaces) - but even “fonts” in Kate might already not be a good idea, as a font might not be installed in both systems (and it might get worse with font-sizes, scale-factors…)