In short, my question is “Is there a way to prevent a non-malicious but unknowledgable and clumsy user to ruin their own home directory?”

Say my grandma opens a file browser looking for a picture, finds those dot files or those mysteriously-named directories distracting, sets her mind to deleting them. And assume she somehow finds a way to do so. While I understand that dot files or mysteriously-named directories of a non-privileged user are of no ultimate importance, it is a maintenance nightmare.

Plus, it’s not only mysterious files that are prone to be targetted. She might well delete by accident the picture she was looking for.

Two kinds of solutions that come to mind are: -Restrict file permissions in an adequate way -Implement an easily operable, fool-proof, back-in-time scheme

Is there a mainstream, well-supported distro of GNU/Linux that has figured this use-case out?

I figure it might come in handy when Window 10 is no longer supported and the reports of hacks keep coming in.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Knowing absolutely nothing about NixOS, and never having heard of it before this moment, I’m going to guess it’s a linux distro themed after Richard Nixon.

    • j4k3@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      It is a special Linux version that is made for developers, and is quite complicated. It kinda unites all operating systems where anything can be built for anything and the dependencies for code libraries and stuff are independent from the base OS. So yeah, it is operation deep throat Dick’s OS /s

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I never understood why that was his code name. He’s like “I’m a secret undercover agent. Call me…deep throat”.

        “What? No. You can be literally ANY combination of words. You could be Red Fox, or Sleepy Walker, or AxelRod. Literally ANY combination of words, since nobody will ever know uour code name. You’re undercover.”

        “Call me Deep Throat”

        “C’mon man. I don’t want to tell my spy buddies that I’m going to go meet Deep Throat in an ally for a secret meeting.”

        “Call…me…Deep Throat.”

        “God dammit…”

        • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          For what it’s worth, Mark Felt didn’t choose the name, Woodward initially published with “My Friend”, but the editors picked it to personify the source. And yes, they actually just used the title of a popular porno video.