mjhjmtu

I'm a software developer and only in the last year or so have I been using Linux Mint over Windows as my working dev environment. For the last year I figured I'd do things my way and adapt as I learn the proper way to do things. So far so good. Relevant to this question, I've been putting my source code to my work and personal projects in a folder I created in my home directory: ~/src

In the last week I updated to Mint 19 and Timeshift is a front and center feature in it. I've set up my backups but noticed that my encrypted home directory is marked as an exclusion from my backups. I do use remote git repos to store my source but I would also feel a lot better if my Timeshift backups had my code as well. I could add an inclusive filter to Timeshift but I think it's time I look into where my source SHOULD be stored. A little research produced the very helpful Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (pdf) and it brought /usr/local/src to my attention but doesn't go into detail about it.

I know this question seems a little subjective but Linux has always seemed to be a developer friendly OS which makes me believe there's an idiomatic place to keep my personal source code separate from source I download/make/install.

Where does Linux intend I place my source? Or should I just add an inclusive filter to Timeshift to backup ~/src?

/usr/local/src is the local equivalent of /usr/src, which the FHS describes as

Source code may be place placed in this subdirectory, only for reference purposes.

Neither /usr/src or /usr/local/src are intended as working directories, especially not for a specific user. All your data is supposed to live under your home directory, and the FHS doesn’t have much to say about what you do there.

I think the appropriate solution in your case is to configure Timeshift so that it backs your source code up.

First it is normal for everything to go in your home folder ~/ = $HOME usually equal to /home/$USER. If you install 3rd party stuff, it goes in /usr/local or /opt (depending on structure of the stuff).

The main difference between the layout of a Unix users home directory, and a MS-Windows users, is:

Traditionally on Windows/dos, one would put all of the .doc files in one place, and all of the excel files in another, and all the PDFs somewhere else etc.

Where as on Unix you will put all of project-1's files in one directory, and all of project-2's files in another. You may create a sub-directory to put auto-created files (compiled files).