Clean up remaining dotfiles that don't comply with XDG_BASE_DIRS

[TLATER]

Likely feasible

• ~/.python_history
  • Need to write a python shell setup script as documented here
• ~/.esd_auth
  • Need to disable the module-esound-protcol-unix.so pulseaudio module
  • This is set system-wide in /etc/pulse/default.pa, and I'm not
    sure how to override module loads
• ~/.mailcap
  • Only used by mutt currently, need to see if its location can
    realistically be changed
• ~/.mbsyncrc
  • Set by home-manager, should be easy to change
• ~/.stumpish_history
  • Need to see if this can be changed
• ~/.Xresources ~/.xprofile ~/.xsession
  • All created and used by home-manager, though they are default
    paths, it should be possible to change
• ~/.lyrics
  • Probably ncmpcpp? Should be easy to fix.
• ~/.bash_history
  • Not sure what calls bash, but this should be easy
• ~/.ipython

Less feasible

• ~/.zcompdump
  • Fixed in zsh: Correctly set zcompdump location #48
  • Not actually fixed
  • Fixed again in Clean up non-xdg-compliant things a bit further #76
• ~/.mozilla
  • Infuriating issue open for 18 years
• ~/.pki
  • Also caused by Firefox. Seriously, I need a different browser. Maybe I will switch to chrome after all. Or maybe patch Firefox.
• ~/.stumpwm.d
  • Seems hard to change since it's defined both in a function which would need to be overridden, but isn't on time,
    and in a variable
  • Go upstream with this one!
• ~/.java
  • I set _JAVA_OPTIONS, not sure why this is created anyway. Seems it's a bug
• ~/.profile
  • Fairly standard generic "env variable" definition point, unlikely to be able to change this one
• ~/.nix*
  • Said to be obsolete as of 5 years ago, but flakes never happened, did they?
  • See also the upstream issue

[winston0410]

Hey I was doing the same thing, and I found this guide from Arch really useful.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory

And yes I want to remove .nix-* as well, thats well I bumped into your issue again.

[TLATER]

Heh, thanks, I've already fixed all things that were recorded on that wiki page, what's left are things that were either inaccurate, tied to nixos or not listed there :)

There was an unofficial roadmap for nix that included some stabilization of nix flakes, which would likely make ditching ~/.nix* easier to achieve. Of course this is behind schedule already (as always with software), but there is at least a push to finally making flakes happen. Once they're a little further down the road I'll probably revisit that issue upstream.

There are also some projects floating around that create modules for nixos which enable all these environment variables; it's worth looking into them, though when I started this they weren't yet usable enough. It might be worth contributing to those projects instead nowadays.

[winston0410]

Good:)

There are also some projects floating around that create modules for nixos which enable all these environment variables; it's worth looking into them, though when I started this they weren't yet usable enough. It might be worth contributing to those projects instead nowadays.

Can you name those? I don't want to do this by myself alone. It is tedious.

And I wonder if you have moved your ~/.Xresources into XDG CONFIG HOME? I have done that yesterday, ok with xrdb, but it is not picked up by many softwares I use (wezterm and brave). And I cannot find any environment variable for its path.

[TLATER]

Don't know the projects off the top of my head, sorry. I've not moved my Xresources yet, but only xrdb should read it; if other applications do they're doing it wrong.

[winston0410]

I have just created a flake here, feel free to add anything in!

https://github.com/winston0410/xdg.nix

[wesleyjrz]

I put it in my configuration.nix to disable .esd_auth:

hardware.pulseaudio.extraConfig = "unload-module module-esound-protocol-unix";

Something that's very annoying for me is the .serverauth.* file, but I don't know how to disable it.

[wesleyjrz]

About .pki you can just move it to ~/.local/share/pki and it will work out-of-the-box with Firefox, but Chrome is hardcoded and keeps creating it in ~/.pki

[TLATER]

Nice to know, thanks!