minor bug fix

[distro-setup] / README

~4k loc bash, configs for my computers

Initial os install is also automated using a separate repo called
automated-distro-installer, also at iankelling.org/git. Beyond the
initial bare os, the rest is automated from scripts in this repo.

This is not meant for other people to run verbatum, but for them to read
and copy the good parts. It has dependencies on other repos at
https://iankelling.org/git.

The main thing missing for someone else to use things is the expected
location of repos in the filesystem. So you would need to lookout for
paths starting with /a and adjust them.

Background: reasoning behind using /a: The home directory is typically
used for local software development, but I use paths like /a instead,
for the following reasons:

1. I want to run code directly from where I work on it, instead of
always having to create and use some install process. If that code is in
a home directory, and you want to run it as root (especially in contexts
where SUDO_USER is not set, like cron/systemd), you have to hardcode the
username for /home/username, or create some install process where that
username is saved somewhere, and then you are stuck with a single
username. If it ever got packaged for a gnu/linux distro, it would rely
on a hardcoded path with no username in it, so let's just do that.

2. The home directory is inconvenient. It's filled with a bunch of junk
you don't care about, which makes directory listing horrible, makes it so
you can't back it up easily (for example, gvfs mountpoint in it breaks
lots of things), and has things you don't want to backup. So, you could
use a subdirectory. But typing /s is much faster than ~/s and in every
root context, /home/username/s.

Please email me if you have a patches, bugs, feedback, or republish this
somewhere else: Ian Kelling <ian@iankelling.org>.