Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

neok · 2012-03-15 15:47:15

Hi

I am trying to stop GTK from writing to the ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel file, as this creates a heavy load of writes on the SSD, when I select multiple files in a file chooser for opening. If I delete that file, and even the .local directory, it is still re-reated by the system. Any way to get rid of this problem, without hacking and recompiling whatever is responsible for this?

My thanks in advance.

alphaniner · 2012-03-15 16:18:18

Have you tried making it read only? Or using a symlink? For the latter you could have the destination file created in /tmp or /dev/shm when you logon.

schalox · 2012-03-15 16:41:48

It seems symlinking doesn't work, it gets recreated(switched from symlink to a regular file) if something(like firefox) needs to to access the file. This guy seems to have found the solution: add "gtk-recent-files-max-age=0" to your ~/.gtkrc-2.0. It seems though that the modification time changes even though nothing gets written into the file every time you e.g. save something in firefox.

Last edited by schalox (2012-03-15 16:43:09)

Radioactiveman · 2012-03-15 17:27:33

Create a directory called "recently-used.xbel" inside "~/.local/share/".

neok · 2012-03-15 18:15:50

Radioactiveman wrote:

Create a directory called "recently-used.xbel" inside "~/.local/share/".

Clever! that stops writing to recently-used.xbel. So does chattr +i recently-used.xbel or making it read-only.
Unfortunately though GTK first creates a temporary recently-used.xbel.xxxxx file and then apparently moves
it to recently-used.xbel, so writng to the SSD never stops.

Someone seems to have done everything possible to make sure this file is written to... so it seems the only
way to save my SSD is to make the .local/share/ directory a symlink to /tmp or /dev/shm. Unfortunately this
would mean that the geeqie and gegl directories wil be lost on reboot, although they are also re-created
by geeqie and gimp.

Thanks fr the tips!

Xyne · 2012-03-15 19:40:41

I had exactly the same problem with recently-used.xbel. Even though I'm not using an SSD, it annoyed me to no end that it was constantly writing to the disk. I also view it as a privacy issue as I may not want every file and directory I view to have been written to the disk.

I used chattr +i at first too, but eventually I just changed my active home directory to /tmp (which is one big ramdisk on my system). I wrote synclinks specifically for the purpose of maintaining a subset of files in the active home directory. I just add files and directories that I want to keep to a plaintext list and run synclinks when I log in and out. The list enables fine-grained control over exactly what is symlinked into the directory and what changes are propagated back to the disk.

neok · 2012-03-16 05:55:21

Xyne wrote:

I wrote synclinks specifically for the purpose of maintaining a subset of files in the active home directory. I just add files and directories that I want to keep to a plaintext list and run synclinks when I log in and out. The list enables fine-grained control over exactly what is symlinked into the directory and what changes are propagated back to the disk.

That sounds good - thanks! I will give it a try. I have something similar for the firefox directory to avoid caching etc on disk. With synclinks I guess I won't need it anymore.

squiidux · 2014-03-28 23:08:31

you could also use...

ln -s /dev/null recently-used.xbel

this will stop write errors and keep your terminals clean if you are starting from a terminal session. -cheers

jasonwryan · 2014-03-28 23:25:18

Please don't necrobump: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … Bumping.27

Closing

Xyne · 2014-03-29 00:06:55

squiidux wrote:

you could also use...
ln -s /dev/null recently-used.xbel
this will stop write errors and keep your terminals clean if you are starting from a terminal session. -cheers

<mod power abuse>
Many applications remove the existing file and create a new one so that will not work. The symlink will soon be replaced by a regular file.
</mod power abuse>

ewaller · 2014-03-29 00:34:03

Wonderwoofie , after the close wrote:

You should add to this post that it might be worth trying to use 'chattr -i recently-used.xbel' to try to stop any program from replacing it. I guess having a blank file with this attribute might also work...
Maybe it is +i... I can never remember.

Last edited by ewaller (2014-03-29 00:34:23)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-03-15 15:47:15

Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#2 2012-03-15 16:18:18

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#3 2012-03-15 16:41:48

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#4 2012-03-15 17:27:33

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#5 2012-03-15 18:15:50

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#6 2012-03-15 19:40:41

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#7 2012-03-16 05:55:21

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#8 2014-03-28 23:08:31

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#9 2014-03-28 23:25:18

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#10 2014-03-29 00:06:55

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

#11 2014-03-29 00:34:03

Re: Can I stop apps from using recently-used.xbel?

Board footer