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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Anybody have a solution for dotfiles outside /home (feddit.de)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

on gentoo for example I have accrued a few files under /etc/portage that to my knowledge just have to live there...

right now I basically rely on my backups for this. but maybe somebody knows a clever way to handle this?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Seems like an odd software choice to create actual dotfiles under /etc. Often files there have much the same name as a user's dotfiles but without the dot. Thinking of things like /etc/profile vs ~/.profile and so on.

Without knowing precisely why those decisions were taken (good reason? ignorance? insanity?) it's not clear what steps to take.

Vaguely leaning towards symlinking or hardlinking but precisely what to do and which way around is still unclear.

Do those dotfiles have your user permissions or are they owned by a system account like root?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Those configuration files are for managing system's package manager, so I don't think $HOME would be a better place.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Then they shouldn't have dots on them (bad design decision) and should be backed up by the system backup/restore mechanism, whatever that might be, not the user's own homedir backup, which is what I assume OP is talking about.

If they're talking about a full system backup including home directories, that's a moot point because I'd expect they'd be included anyway, dot or not.