the hidden "trashbin", .Trash-$(uid), invented by Ubuntu
This isn't some “idiotic principle invented by Ubuntu”, it just follows the freedesktop.org Trash specification. For many users, it can be really beneficial, see also the spec's introduction:
An ability to recover accidentally deleted files has become the de facto standard for today's desktop user experience.Users do not expect that anything they delete is permanently gone. Instead, they are used to a “Trash can” metaphor. A deleted document ends up in a “Trash can”, and stays there at least for some time — until the can is manually or automatically cleaned.
Whether an application like Prism Launcher should use the trash can or delete the files directly is an entirely different question.
1 Abstract # The purpose of this Specification is to provide a common way in which all “Trash can” implementations should store, list, and undelete trashed files.specifications.freedesktop.org
and proper trashing is actually really helpful, so you can trash files on encrypted volumes without leaking them to a unencrypted trash dir.
trashing saves time and has a more continous workflow, as you don't have to confirm each file to prevent accidents, because you can restore if you deleted too much
This isn't some “idiotic principle invented by Ubuntu”, it just follows the freedesktop Trash specification
So an idiotic spec invented by freedesktop then
Depending on your file manager, you may be able to hold Shift while triggering the delete to get a hard delete.
Shift+Del is pretty much standardized as the keyboard shortcut. And here on KDE, I can hold Shift while clicking the "Move to Trash" menu entry, too (well, it actually replaces the menu entry with one for permanent deletion, but that's effectively the same).
I use command trash-empty
to empty all trashcan of all the users, after each system update. It's a non standard program, but most likely available in your distributions repository: github.com/andreafrancia/trash… And my alias/function will show each file that is about being deleted (just put it in .bashrc, if you have installed trash-cli
, which includes trash-empty
):
::: spoiler old function (click to expand)
empty() {
echo "Files to delete:"
trash-empty -f --dry-run |
awk '{print $3}' |
grep -vF '/info/'
echo
trash-empty
}
Edit: After I posted I just realized there is a more straightforward way of doing it:
New and more simple alias:
alias empty='trash-empty -f --dry-run ; trash-empty'
trash-empty -f
it deletes without asking.Command line interface to the freedesktop.org trashcan. - andreafrancia/trash-cliGitHub
I have several 4 and 8 TB disks filled up with various stuff just waiting to be cleaned up. Why do you think I'm preaching about storage space management?
My dual 10's are starting to fill up because I don't move stuff off-site as I should. And then reclaiming space through disk analyser and freeing up reserved space is a life saver.
I'm more of a dust man, myself. It runs recursively so it's easy to pinpoint the culprit.
[Image source: the project's README]
A more intuitive version of du in rust. Contribute to bootandy/dust development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
You can easily set it up to do this automatically with something like timeshift...
I recently switched to an Atomic distro (Bazzite), and they have made it so easy to rollback to previous commits without any additional software.