I’ve been meaning to add a cron job to delete anything in down that’s older than three days.. that folder tends to blow up.
To keep junk from accumulating in $HOME, I use a shell function called “t” that will automatically cd to a temporary scratch space, so I don’t have to think about cleaning up junk that I don’t intend to keep. I use this almost every day.
Because ~/tmp is persistent, I end up with stuff in there that I’m afraid to delete, so I made a ~/tmp/tmp for stuff that’s actually temporary.
Because ~/tmp/tmp is persistent, I occasionally end up with stuff in there that I'm afraid to delete. I once just needed a temp folder quickly, but didn't feel like stuff in ~/tmp was safe to delete yet, so I made a ~/tmp/tmp/tmp`.
I have a similar j function which creates a named (default: junk) subdirectory in the current directory and cds to it. There is a corresponding jjj function which is essentially rm -fr junk. Because the new directory is under the current directory, I find it is easier to reference the original directory with .. rather than using "$OLDPWD".
Mine is a junkyard too. It (the /home partition) is also (relatively) small at 15gigs.
Instead I keep a separate partition (/mnt/awal/) all clean and organized, and then symlink/source a few files and directories back into home. I find that this conveniently allows me to separate machine-agnostic things from machine-specific.
No, you’re not alone.
The only folder I create besides the usual XDG user directories is ~/code, for /bin there is already ~/.local/bin.
In my humble opinion, micro managing dotfiles and $HOME subdirectories is plain procrastination (which is not a bad thing per se).
New applications are not allowed to create directories or files in $HOME.
Existing non-compliant applications are gradually replaced by compliant ones.
naming rules do you follow
All dirs lowercase for better auto-completion.
top level directories
.cache: XDG cache dir
.config: XDG config dir
.local: XDG “local” dir
apps: unmanaged third-party application binaries
audios: subfolders music and casts
backup: obvious
code: sources for my coding projects
desktop: files that are displayed on the dektop
documents: obvious
downloads: obvious
fonts: symlink to .local/share/fonts/
images: pictures, screenshots, wallpapers (I wanted to find a different name, because of the possible confusion with CD images, but the time made this concern obsolete)
$HOME itself is read-only (chmod -222 $HOME), but existing files and folders are still writable.
That’s how the amount of garbage .dotfiles is slowly decreasing on my machine: New ones can’t be added (because of the dir being read-only); and I’m removing existing ones as I migrate to better written applications.
Nice. I think this one is closest to what I currently do which is:
:: ls
base desk file plug self work
base: the same as your local and in addition has config subdirectory for config files.
desk: serves as 3-in-1: desktop + downloads + temp files.
file: the same as your bak.
plug: mount points, dropbox, googledrive, sshfs. and everything of this nature.
self: things I do for and by myself.
work: work on request of others, seems to be your pro.
Your adm would be within fille/documents and your mdc would be within self/teaching.
BTW: I also noticed all your directories start with a different letter. Not sure if this is intentional, but a nice benefit of quickly being able to auto-complete. I do not like the default of “Downloads”, “Documents” for this reason.
it’s my white/yellow pages. nested directories starting with last names or handles. i run a variant of research unix http://man.cat-v.org/unix_8th/7/tel to search an index generated by a cron job.
I have an archive/0next folder where I put any files which are not actively being edited (or stored in my personal monorepo in ~/sys).
Every 6-12 months I will rename 0next to archive-yyyy-mm-dd, and also save tarballs to AWS glacier and a Blu-ray disc.
The benefits of this system are that I have a clear distinction between mutable files and immutable files. At any one time I only have a few GBs of working files. The rest is checksummed and trivially easy to recover (rm + s3 cp)
Otherwise it’s a standard layout: documents, downloads, etc.
dev/<programming language name> – for my C++ projects/inventions/snippets in this language,
dev/<programming language name>/tests – for snippets related to a programming language that test one concept, helps to learn the language and reference this particular feature in the future,
temp – a directory for various temporary stuff that I know can be removed, everything here is either truly temporary or can be easily regenerated,
temp/build – development artifacts built from sources inside dev directory. Normally I use cmake (for c/c++) everywhere so that it always supports out-of-tree build. This way I can just remove all binaries instantly without figuring out how to clean some particular source tree,
lab – my playground, testing some tools, resources for scripts,
env – sourced shell scripts on machines that require some more environment settings. I use it on MSYS2 to integrate Visual Studio installation into bash command line,
.dotfiles – my dotfiles, configs are symlinked to this directory,
tasks - at work, I use it for Jira tickets,
req/<name> - if someone wants something from me that requires preparation of some files, often I setup a directory here with person’s name, and I put files in its own dir,
bin - added to $PATH for my user, some executables are symlinked from ~/temp/build/ to here, or directly from ~/dev/ if they’re scripts,
bin, downloads, drawings, game-ideas, games, gaming, models, music, my.src, presentations, school, src, sync, tmp, work. Can’t remember when I actually came up with this structure but it’s basically embedded in my brain by now.
Mine’s a mess, but I know where everything is, so I rarely bother cleaning it up.
I have:
~/bin/
~/data/ - I added this recently when I was downloading shapefiles to play with GIS. Basically just a collection of different data sets/
~/Downloads/
~/music/
~/images/ - I like playing with computer graphics, and the output goes here
~/pdfs/ - Books and papers in PDF form
~/src/ - My source code
~/oss_src/ - Open source projects I build from source but don't plan on contributing code to (SBCL, Emacs, etc.)
~/bin/foo.app (the target directory of some locally compiled project, like emacs)
~/bin/foo -> foo.app/bin/foo (see, I don’t want to pollute my path, so I put a symlink in ~/bin that points at the binary.)
~/bin/bar (shell script)
~/scratch (This is a directory I create on all my machines. It’s not exactly tmp. I use it like a junk drawer and workspace. It’s currently 7.6gb on my work machine and there are like three specific files in there that I know of. The rest could be deleted. The oldest files in there are from 2012.)
~/src or ~/projects (First I had src and it was a mixture of my projects, third party projects that I’d modified, and third party projects that I have no intention of modifying. Later, I got the idea of separating the wheat from the chaff. But, I’m pretty sure I now have some non-modified third party projects in my ~/projects now, because ~/src wasn’t mounted the other day or something, or I’m just really messy??)
~/Downloads -> ~/downloads (Now that /u/soc shared this “read-only $HOME” idea with me, I won’t have to create this symlink anymore.)
~/media or /media (These only exist on the older machines and they have subdirs like music and video)
~/old-home, ~/namagiri-home, ~/debzero-home (Of all my junk in $HOME, these are probably what I’m most ashamed of. They are just full copies of various previous $HOMEs on previous incarnations of the same machine or other machines. hold on let me hit ctrl-r real quick to show you something: ssh -i ~/old-home/hobbes/.ssh/id_rsa *****.*** See? Ashamed. So many reasons.)
~/scratch/left and ~/scratch/right These are persistent text files that always have the same name but with wildly varying contents. I keep them there for a great purpose.. I keep them open in an editor and I keep them open in a visual diff tool (meld or winmerge). So, I copy/paste some contents into them and refresh the diff tool. Bam. Any application that has a clipboard now has a visual diff feature. Kinda. I use this sooo often!
I don’t organize my $home. I’m a chaotic type of person. the oldest directory bears a september 1997 timestamp.
I use lots of finding “functions” which utilize locate or fd and lr
for example
lr -G -om $(fd --maxdepth 1 -t d '[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,10}-[0-9]{1,5}-sql$' ${HOME})
lists all project directories named like (customer abbreviation)-(ticket number)-sql
Some of these funktions are piped to fzf -because the list became too long- so I can find anything even quicker than the orderly and tidy guys click through the deep project directory hierarchy with the mouse in file browser.
A similar function finds sublimetext project files, and the subsequent fzf opens the project in sublimetext.
So my approach is to have a consistent naming and use custom tools to find things.
repos/ contains repositories I’ve cloned (including https://github.com/zg/dot_files, which I’ve symlinked contents up to ~, e.g. ~/.zshrc points at ~/repos/dot_files/.zshrc)
This is every folder I keep on all of my unix-like installations. I’ve found that this layout is pretty all- encompassing and is easy to look through.
repos - git repos and folders of code that I didn’t write
docs - any documents, books, code that isn’t in a repo, etc
downloads - self explanatory
media - all of my photos, music, and videos
files - backups of files
games - halo 2 and 3 running via wine, and ROM archives
.scripts - everything that I want to be executable that I don’t want in my $PATH
.minecraft - the most essential folder of the entire computer
prog/ - in-dev programming projects, basically whatever I write from scratch or fork for tweaking
dnload/ - downloads, further organised in coarse-grained subdirs, like nim-etc/, or editors-etc/, … - I try to never download anything without putting it in a subdir (old or new)
$MY_NAME/ - personal stuff, mostly in subdirs named by date, e.g. “2019-12 taxes/” etc.
photos/ - photos & videos, in dated subdirs, e.g. “2019-12-01..03 Some Place, trip with Some Friend/”
drafts/ - attempt at a log/notes, not working well yet
work/ - subdir present only at work, with subdirs for various tasks, and a separate mess in every one of them
bin/ - scripts
go/ - autogenerated by Go
tmp/ - stuff
a few temp. files lying around
I think that’s mostly all, though I’m doing it from memory. Also I am trying to use home-manager, works for me for some stuff (esp. vimrc) but not for everything.
bin, code, games, docs, dotfiles, downloads, vids, pics and leet. The last dir leet is something I’ve been keeping around in my home dir since my early Linux days – it essentially has code that isn’t mine, or other “leet” stuff. Haven’t bothered renaming it to something more mature. :’)
The games dir is hardly ever populated, but it’s for when I have non-Steam games that I decide to play.
I put my “leet” code into ~/code/clones/. Everything else that’s mine just goes into ~/code. I’m sure this opens up some useful cases where you want your parent directory to override things happening in clones/ but I haven’t needed to yet :)
I… don’t. Mind you, I have been trying, but I’d probably need to have at it for a week straight to remove/organize all the cruft that has been accumulating over the last few years.
I have sketched a tentative folder layout, though, which is in use on my netbook (and partially on my laptop):
doc/: assorted personal documents (PDF scans/JPEG photos + org-mode notes)
academy/
archive/
finance/
journal/
medical/
dev/: my own repositories, what I am actively developing
dat/: miscellaneous data files, minus books
etc/: assorted scripts & dotfiles, installed in their proper place via stow
lib/: books & assorted reading material, organized according to the Universal Decimal Classification - e.g.,
0.Science_and_Knowledge/
02.Librarianship/
025.450.Decimal_classifications/
1.Philosophy_Psychology/
2.Religion_Theology/
3.Social_sciences/
…
A.Fiction/
Pratchett_Terry/
tmp/: temporary files, including browser downloads and repos that I’m just checking out
I name most files according to the following pattern, while taking care to not include “weird characters” (or even just spaces) in my filenames:
[Author.][Date.][Series-NN.]Title[--tag-tag].ext
It can be a bit of an hassle, but it makes locate actually useful.
I know this is a really old thread, but thank you for the UDC idea! My $HOME/bib/text/ is the messiest part of my computer; I’ve been using a tentative author-name-title format, but it never struck me to use an actual indexing system. I’m going to implement this over the coming days.
My $HOME directory contains some config files, a Desktop folder (where I keep everything of value) and a Downloads folder, which is sort of an inbox of things to review.
I mainly work in the Desktop, which contains:
personal: which contains all my dotfiles (symlinked to where they should be), my files (invoices, ID and passport scans, digital backup of important paper documents…), my projects (basically a clone of all my repos and stuff in the works), my sites (SSH keys, Ansible playbooks, Terraform files, Kubernetes manifests, Docker stack files… As well as the source of my static sites) and my scripts (local cron jobs, mini utilities I use all the time, etc.). Also my encrypted password database file.
studies: I’m on my third year in university for CS, one folder per subject and a Python script where I track all my grades.
work: I do AWS as a side gig, so one folder per client, and one subfolder per project. Oh, and my CV in English and Spanish.
I keep everything in Desktop so that I can restic it all at once into my over-engineered backup system.
I’ve been happily using this system for half a decade, and I’m very happy with it.
I don’t think your system for file org is much important, but rather sticking to it and using it daily. I’m writing this off my memory, because I know where everything is and that’s what makes it productive.
~/media/{img,vid,music,...}:
specific media directories
~/etc/:
various other directories
~/etc/bin/:
user binaries
~/etc/{mail,news,pub}:
gnus related directories
and a function like this in by bashrc:
goto() {
case $1 in
read) cd ~/doc/read ;;
vm) cd ~/code/etc/vm ;;
c) cd ~/code/c ;;
img) cd ~/media/img ;;
compsci) cd ~/doc/read/compsci ;;
go) cd ~/code/go/src/ ;;
lisp) cd ~/code/lisp/ ;;
web|www) cd ~/code/web/www/ ;;
dl) cd ~/dl/ ;;
pers) cd ~/doc/pers/ ;;
uni) cd ~/doc/uni/ ;;
esac
}
which contains almost all of my configuration. Various dotfiles like .bashrc and .vimrc are symlinked into $HOME from std/bin. I replicate this hierarchy across 1000+ servers to give me my standard environment on those servers. I have a separate $HOME/bin for local additions applicable to only a single server environment. Almost all of my non-dotfile $HOME is symlinks.
binaries and scripts I want to include in my $PATH
development
I organize everything by repositories, like
development/sr.ht/jussi/repo-name
development/github.com/metosin/reitit
documents
A lot of various documents from my download directory, sorted by filetype, client name or content. I automate sorting these using Hazel.
archive
Automated by hazel as well. After a file has been in documents for 4 months, it’ll be archived (or deleted, depends on various things like content and client).
Maildirformat.I’ve been meaning to add a cron job to delete anything in down that’s older than three days.. that folder tends to blow up.
To keep junk from accumulating in $HOME, I use a shell function called “t” that will automatically cd to a temporary scratch space, so I don’t have to think about cleaning up junk that I don’t intend to keep. I use this almost every day.
Instead of a
tfunction, I have a~/tmpfolder.Because
~/tmpis persistent, I end up with stuff in there that I’m afraid to delete, so I made a~/tmp/tmpfor stuff that’s actually temporary.Because
~/tmp/tmp is persistent, I occasionally end up with stuff in there that I'm afraid to delete. I once just needed a temp folder quickly, but didn't feel like stuff in ~/tmp was safe to delete yet, so I made a~/tmp/tmp/tmp`.I should add that
tfunction to my rc.Ooo, I love the
tfunction. I make temp dirs for stuff all the time. So simple, but really helpful - thanks for sharing!I have a similar
jfunction which creates a named (default:junk) subdirectory in the current directory andcds to it. There is a correspondingjjjfunction which is essentiallyrm -fr junk. Because the new directory is under the current directory, I find it is easier to reference the original directory with..rather than using"$OLDPWD".It seems like I’m the only here whose $HOME looks like a junkyard.
Mine is a junkyard too. It (the
/homepartition) is also (relatively) small at 15gigs.Instead I keep a separate partition (
/mnt/awal/) all clean and organized, and then symlink/source a few files and directories back into home. I find that this conveniently allows me to separate machine-agnostic things from machine-specific.No, you’re not alone. The only folder I create besides the usual XDG user directories is
~/code, for/binthere is already~/.local/bin. In my humble opinion, micro managing dotfiles and$HOMEsubdirectories is plain procrastination (which is not a bad thing per se).Edit: typo.
$HOMEis read-only:- New applications are not allowed to create directories or files in
- Existing non-compliant applications are gradually replaced by compliant ones.
naming rules do you follow$HOME.All dirs lowercase for better auto-completion.
top level directories.cache: XDG cache dir
.config: XDG config dir
.local: XDG “local” dir
apps: unmanaged third-party application binaries
audios: subfolders music and casts
backup: obvious
code: sources for my coding projects
desktop: files that are displayed on the dektop
documents: obvious
downloads: obvious
fonts: symlink to .local/share/fonts/
images: pictures, screenshots, wallpapers (I wanted to find a different name, because of the possible confusion with CD images, but the time made this concern obsolete)
public: shared directory, network-accessible
remote: remote mounts
videos: obvious
easily the best idea that I have read regarding unix administration in a long time
Do you have a technical way to enforce this, or do you just pay attention to the files and directories an app creates?
Yes,
chmod -222 $HOMEdoes the enforcement for me.I wrote a more detailed step-by-step guide here.
WOW. Why didn’t I think of that?! Thanks!
I don’t understand. Home is read only, but you write a bunch of stuff there…what am I missing? Can you give me more details please?
$HOMEitself is read-only (chmod -222 $HOME), but existing files and folders are still writable.That’s how the amount of garbage .dotfiles is slowly decreasing on my machine: New ones can’t be added (because of the dir being read-only); and I’m removing existing ones as I migrate to better written applications.
I wrote a more detailed step-by-step guide here.
Ahhhh! Thank you!
Honestly,
not.
Nice. I think this one is closest to what I currently do which is:
base: the same as your local and in addition has config subdirectory for config files.desk: serves as 3-in-1: desktop + downloads + temp files.file: the same as your bak.plug: mount points, dropbox, googledrive, sshfs. and everything of this nature.self: things I do for and by myself.work: work on request of others, seems to be your pro.Your adm would be within fille/documents and your mdc would be within self/teaching.
BTW: I also noticed all your directories start with a different letter. Not sure if this is intentional, but a nice benefit of quickly being able to auto-complete. I do not like the default of “Downloads”, “Documents” for this reason.
Man, thanks for src. I just called it Projects but never found it fitting.
Don’t even know if it would be worth it to try to organize.
Downloads bin img lib sites src tmp torrents who www
Very similar to mine, except I use tmp as downloads. What’s in the who folder?
it’s my white/yellow pages. nested directories starting with last names or handles. i run a variant of research unix http://man.cat-v.org/unix_8th/7/tel to search an index generated by a cron job.
Can you share this (and perhaps others) script?
each final directory under who/ contains files like addr, email, tn, etc. cron runs http://plan9.stanleylieber.com/rc/nutel >$home/lib/tel to update the index. search using https://code.9front.org/hg/plan9front/file/754916eeedf1/rc/bin/tel
I have an
archive/0nextfolder where I put any files which are not actively being edited (or stored in my personal monorepo in~/sys).Every 6-12 months I will rename
0nexttoarchive-yyyy-mm-dd, and also save tarballs to AWS glacier and a Blu-ray disc.The benefits of this system are that I have a clear distinction between mutable files and immutable files. At any one time I only have a few GBs of working files. The rest is checksummed and trivially easy to recover (rm + s3 cp)
Otherwise it’s a standard layout: documents, downloads, etc.
dev– for development projects,dev/<programming language name>– for my C++ projects/inventions/snippets in this language,dev/<programming language name>/tests– for snippets related to a programming language that test one concept, helps to learn the language and reference this particular feature in the future,temp– a directory for various temporary stuff that I know can be removed, everything here is either truly temporary or can be easily regenerated,temp/build– development artifacts built from sources insidedevdirectory. Normally I usecmake(for c/c++) everywhere so that it always supports out-of-tree build. This way I can just remove all binaries instantly without figuring out how to clean some particular source tree,lab– my playground, testing some tools, resources for scripts,env– sourced shell scripts on machines that require some more environment settings. I use it on MSYS2 to integrate Visual Studio installation into bash command line,.dotfiles– my dotfiles, configs are symlinked to this directory,tasks- at work, I use it for Jira tickets,req/<name>- if someone wants something from me that requires preparation of some files, often I setup a directory here with person’s name, and I put files in its own dir,bin- added to $PATH for my user, some executables are symlinked from~/temp/build/to here, or directly from~/dev/if they’re scripts,apps– locally installed apps (IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, Ghidra, etc),bin,downloads,drawings,game-ideas,games,gaming,models,music,my.src,presentations,school,src,sync,tmp,work. Can’t remember when I actually came up with this structure but it’s basically embedded in my brain by now.snapcommand. If you know how to get rid of that, I’d be thankful !tmpfssomeday.There are also multiple hidden directory that I use on a daily basis:
There are a few directories present on all of my machines:
bin- scripts, tmp binariesmnt- user mountsworkspace- everything related to code$lang/$project- projects grouped by languagemisc/$project- projects using multiple languages, configs, documentationDownloads)Mine’s a mess, but I know where everything is, so I rarely bother cleaning it up.
I have:
~/bin~/bin/foo.app(the target directory of some locally compiled project, like emacs)~/bin/foo -> foo.app/bin/foo(see, I don’t want to pollute my path, so I put a symlink in~/binthat points at the binary.)~/bin/bar(shell script)~/scratch(This is a directory I create on all my machines. It’s not exactly tmp. I use it like a junk drawer and workspace. It’s currently 7.6gb on my work machine and there are like three specific files in there that I know of. The rest could be deleted. The oldest files in there are from 2012.)~/srcor~/projects(First I hadsrcand it was a mixture of my projects, third party projects that I’d modified, and third party projects that I have no intention of modifying. Later, I got the idea of separating the wheat from the chaff. But, I’m pretty sure I now have some non-modified third party projects in my~/projectsnow, because~/srcwasn’t mounted the other day or something, or I’m just really messy??)~/Downloads -> ~/downloads(Now that /u/soc shared this “read-only $HOME” idea with me, I won’t have to create this symlink anymore.)~/mediaor/media(These only exist on the older machines and they have subdirs likemusicandvideo)~/old-home,~/namagiri-home,~/debzero-home(Of all my junk in $HOME, these are probably what I’m most ashamed of. They are just full copies of various previous $HOMEs on previous incarnations of the same machine or other machines. hold on let me hit ctrl-r real quick to show you something:ssh -i ~/old-home/hobbes/.ssh/id_rsa *****.***See? Ashamed. So many reasons.)~/scratch/leftand~/scratch/rightThese are persistent text files that always have the same name but with wildly varying contents. I keep them there for a great purpose.. I keep them open in an editor and I keep them open in a visual diff tool (meld or winmerge). So, I copy/paste some contents into them and refresh the diff tool. Bam. Any application that has a clipboard now has a visual diff feature. Kinda. I use this sooo often!I don’t organize my $home. I’m a chaotic type of person. the oldest directory bears a september 1997 timestamp.
I use lots of finding “functions” which utilize locate or fd and lr
for example
lists all project directories named like (customer abbreviation)-(ticket number)-sql
Some of these funktions are piped to fzf -because the list became too long- so I can find anything even quicker than the orderly and tidy guys click through the deep project directory hierarchy with the mouse in file browser.
A similar function finds sublimetext project files, and the subsequent fzf opens the project in sublimetext.
So my approach is to have a consistent naming and use custom tools to find things.
$PREFIXfor software that’s installed less improperlyI keep all code inside ~/src sorted by theme. And search file system with Alfred to open projects in VS Code or
cdquickly to folder in iTerm.On Windows, aka where my more important private documents live (laptops are ephemeral): hardly at all.
On Linux, I’ve long stuck mostly with the Ubuntu/Debian defaults (which means Freedesktop I guess):
~/Documents~/Pictures~/Downloads~/codefor my code, subdivided by work/github/misc/dotfiles (from git)~/tmp~/binI have a few files in .
config/but it’s just one start and end-hook for zsh to overwrite params.I really don’t have a strong opinion on any of this. Except that I’m lazy and thus need a short bin and tmp dir :P
Archive.zipcreated every few days that zips MaildirMaildirmail contentsbinsymlinks torepos/bin_files/-> https://github.com/zg/bin_filesrepos/contains repositories I’ve cloned (including https://github.com/zg/dot_files, which I’ve symlinked contents up to ~, e.g.~/.zshrcpoints at~/repos/dot_files/.zshrc)sandbox/experimenting, so it’s a bag of dirtThis is every folder I keep on all of my unix-like installations. I’ve found that this layout is pretty all- encompassing and is easy to look through.
repos - git repos and folders of code that I didn’t write docs - any documents, books, code that isn’t in a repo, etc downloads - self explanatory media - all of my photos, music, and videos files - backups of files games - halo 2 and 3 running via wine, and ROM archives .scripts - everything that I want to be executable that I don’t want in my $PATH .minecraft - the most essential folder of the entire computer
I think that’s mostly all, though I’m doing it from memory. Also I am trying to use home-manager, works for me for some stuff (esp. vimrc) but not for everything.
Meme content/saves: I wget them directly into the home dir and move them into a archive storage at the beginning of each month.
Git/sourcecode: Lives in ~/src, usually
Config/Scripts: in ~/.config, which is tracked in git. There are various symlinks into ~/.config.
Accounts on shared hosts also have a public readable public_html, even if there is no http server running usually.
Like jtm, i use mktemp directories as scratchpad.
develProjects I have personally written.dlAssorted downloads.gamesSource code and other files for (non-packaged, non-steam) games I play.langMiscellaneous conlang files.media.txtList of media I would like to or have read/watched/listened to.musicVarious musical projects.optThe contents of/optbind-mounted since I ran out of space on/.picturesPictures.pnpPen-and-paper rpg files.schoolFiles I created for school.serial.txtDocumentation for my usb-serial converter so I don’t forget what wire are which.softwareSource code for any software I want to build/work on.SteamSteam games not installed on my SSD.taxesCopies of my tax returns and other forms.videosVideos I have recorded.workCopies of work-related forms.code documents downloads local sync private worksyncis a symlink to my dropbox folder under .localprivateis the encfs mountpoint for a encrypted disk image in dropboxlocalis bin/var/cache etcfixed the casing on documents & downloads with xdg vars, which most of the time works.
bin,code,games,docs,dotfiles,downloads,vids,picsandleet. The last dirleetis something I’ve been keeping around in my home dir since my early Linux days – it essentially has code that isn’t mine, or other “leet” stuff. Haven’t bothered renaming it to something more mature. :’)The
gamesdir is hardly ever populated, but it’s for when I have non-Steam games that I decide to play.I put my “leet” code into
~/code/clones/. Everything else that’s mine just goes into~/code. I’m sure this opens up some useful cases where you want your parent directory to override things happening inclones/but I haven’t needed to yet :)$ ls # i'm actually at work and just guesstimating what's on my computer from what's on my serverband_project_names bin c-programming documents downloads erlang elixir forth game nim python retro src TODO websitesbasically organised by what they are. src/ is like /opt or /usr/local/src but shorter to type. websites is ripped websites.
Downloads/ Mail/ Pictures/ bin/ docs/ sync/ work/
I… don’t. Mind you, I have been trying, but I’d probably need to have at it for a week straight to remove/organize all the cruft that has been accumulating over the last few years.
I have sketched a tentative folder layout, though, which is in use on my netbook (and partially on my laptop):
doc/: assorted personal documents (PDF scans/JPEG photos + org-mode notes)academy/archive/finance/journal/medical/dev/: my own repositories, what I am actively developingdat/: miscellaneous data files, minus booksetc/: assorted scripts & dotfiles, installed in their proper place viastowlib/: books & assorted reading material, organized according to the Universal Decimal Classification - e.g.,0.Science_and_Knowledge/02.Librarianship/025.450.Decimal_classifications/1.Philosophy_Psychology/2.Religion_Theology/3.Social_sciences/A.Fiction/Pratchett_Terry/tmp/: temporary files, including browser downloads and repos that I’m just checking outI name most files according to the following pattern, while taking care to not include “weird characters” (or even just spaces) in my filenames:
It can be a bit of an hassle, but it makes
locateactually useful.I know this is a really old thread, but thank you for the UDC idea! My
$HOME/bib/text/is the messiest part of my computer; I’ve been using a tentativeauthor-name-titleformat, but it never struck me to use an actual indexing system. I’m going to implement this over the coming days.My
$HOMEdirectory contains some config files, a Desktop folder (where I keep everything of value) and a Downloads folder, which is sort of an inbox of things to review.I mainly work in the Desktop, which contains:
dotfiles(symlinked to where they should be), myfiles(invoices, ID and passport scans, digital backup of important paper documents…), myprojects(basically a clone of all my repos and stuff in the works), mysites(SSH keys, Ansible playbooks, Terraform files, Kubernetes manifests, Docker stack files… As well as the source of my static sites) and myscripts(local cron jobs, mini utilities I use all the time, etc.). Also my encrypted password database file.I keep everything in Desktop so that I can
resticit all at once into my over-engineered backup system.I’ve been happily using this system for half a decade, and I’m very happy with it.
I don’t think your system for file org is much important, but rather sticking to it and using it daily. I’m writing this off my memory, because I know where everything is and that’s what makes it productive.
I’ve got (copied from my emacs.d):
~/code/: programming and sysadmin related files~/code/{c,haskell,go,...}: directories devoted to specific programming languages~/code/etc/...: various other projects~/dl/: downloads gathering directory, preferably empty~/doc/: texts, presentations and notes~/doc/org/: most org-mode related files~/media/: general directory for digial media~/media/{img,vid,music,...}: specific media directories~/etc/: various other directories~/etc/bin/: user binaries~/etc/{mail,news,pub}: gnus related directoriesand a function like this in by bashrc:
The main part of my
$HOMEis a hierarchy:which contains almost all of my configuration. Various dotfiles like
.bashrcand.vimrcare symlinked into$HOMEfromstd/bin. I replicate this hierarchy across 1000+ servers to give me my standard environment on those servers. I have a separate$HOME/binfor local additions applicable to only a single server environment. Almost all of my non-dotfile$HOMEis symlinks.bin
binaries and scripts I want to include in my
$PATHdevelopment
I organize everything by repositories, like
development/sr.ht/jussi/repo-namedevelopment/github.com/metosin/reititdocuments
A lot of various documents from my download directory, sorted by filetype, client name or content. I automate sorting these using Hazel.
archive
Automated by hazel as well. After a file has been in documents for 4 months, it’ll be archived (or deleted, depends on various things like content and client).