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It's 2022 and I still use this program since I read that article so many years ago. It's handy but sometimes a bit of manual preparation must be done on a new

by j1elo 4y ago

It's 2022 and I still use this program since I read that article so many years ago. It's handy but sometimes a bit of manual preparation must be done on a new clean machine. For example if you want to stow only some files under ~/.config/program/ and not the whole program/ directory, you must first run an mkdir and then run stow to put the appropriate symlinks in place.

heyoni 4y ago
I use this too but every other time I come back to it I have to really read through the docs to figure stuff out. That’s just me not writing very useful notes though -_-
- marcinreal 4y ago
  When I did the setup I kept the commands I used in a Makefile. In theory, running `make` should do all the setup for me on a new machine.
lasftew 4y ago
Use the --no-folding flag to prevent stow from linking directories.
BrotherBisquick 4y ago
To reiterate, the --no-folding flag prevents creation of symlinked directories, and it really should be the default behavior. I don't blame you for not knowing about this flag. Here's its description in the manpage: > Disable folding of newly stowed directories when stowing, and refolding of newly foldable directories when unstowing. This is confusing because it's a circular definition. It doesn't explain what "folding" means. It should just read, "prevents creation of symlinked directories" or something.
- j1elo 4y ago
  Problem is, this still makes sense in some cases but doesn't in others, and stow, as it is, doesn't care about the distinction. For example, on a machine where ~/.config/autostart/ doesn't still exist, I do not want that either ~/.config or ~/.config/autostart are created as symlinks to my stowed package; otherwise any newly installed file, from unrelated apps, would end up in my package! I just want this path to exist as a proper dir, and only contain whatever symlinks are needed from stow. Thus an `mkdir -p` is still needed before running stow. On the other hand, I do want that ~/.config/wireshark/ is a symlink to the stow repository. So no mkdir in this case. Regardless, having a script that adds extra per-package pre-process/post-process logic before/after running stow is still needed, anyway.

by j1elo 4y ago

heyoni 4y ago

I use this too but every other time I come back to it I have to really read through the docs to figure stuff out. That’s just me not writing very useful notes though -_-

marcinreal 4y ago
When I did the setup I kept the commands I used in a Makefile. In theory, running `make` should do all the setup for me on a new machine.

lasftew 4y ago

Use the --no-folding flag to prevent stow from linking directories.

BrotherBisquick 4y ago

To reiterate, the --no-folding flag prevents creation of symlinked directories, and it really should be the default behavior. I don't blame you for not knowing about this flag. Here's its description in the manpage: > Disable folding of newly stowed directories when stowing, and refolding of newly foldable directories when unstowing. This is confusing because it's a circular definition. It doesn't explain what "folding" means. It should just read, "prevents creation of symlinked directories" or something.

j1elo 4y ago
Problem is, this still makes sense in some cases but doesn't in others, and stow, as it is, doesn't care about the distinction. For example, on a machine where ~/.config/autostart/ doesn't still exist, I do not want that either ~/.config or ~/.config/autostart are created as symlinks to my stowed package; otherwise any newly installed file, from unrelated apps, would end up in my package! I just want this path to exist as a proper dir, and only contain whatever symlinks are needed from stow. Thus an `mkdir -p` is still needed before running stow. On the other hand, I do want that ~/.config/wireshark/ is a symlink to the stow repository. So no mkdir in this case. Regardless, having a script that adds extra per-package pre-process/post-process logic before/after running stow is still needed, anyway.