Modetc: Move your dotfiles from kernel space (maxwell.eurofusion.eu)

I struggle to see a valid usecase for this that isn’t handled by symlinks.

One of the annoyances of Linux is working out where configuration information is, following through multiple layers of indirection and files over-riding other files. This looks like adding another layer, another place to look, and if you're reading the man file for a shell (for example) it probably won't even mention that this could invalidate the information contained in that in the man file.

I absolutely love this and have wanted to take the time to build this for years precisely because of dotfiles. Thank you!

I didn’t understand what this was from the title. Perhaps a better description would be “mod_rewrite for your homedir”

From the example:

  # XDG "compliant" programs
  .config/ etc/
  .local/state/ var/lib/
  .cache/ var/cache/

This is the first I’ve heard of using ~/etc instead of ~/.config as $XDG_CONFIG_DIR. Is there any precedent for that?

The limit of 16 rules is interesting. Where does that come from?

Every time I see yet another dotfile-management solution I just can't help but wonder: maybe it's the dotfiles that are the problem?

NixOS solves the same problem without having to mess with the kernel

XDG doesn't handle complex environments, especially not heterogeneous computing environments. Something long the core strength of Unix is acknowledged by XDG and then left utterly unaddressed. Without this, the "standard" is as much an impediment as an aid.

It's amusing that modetc goes through all this effort to twist dotfiles into the XDG half-solution, and here I am using symlinks through /dev/shm/xdg/* to warp XDG into sort-of working in an actual heterogeneous environment.

Because XDG by itself is a failure beyond trivial cases.