GNU Stow needs a co-maintainer

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

What GNU Stow Does and Typical Use Cases

  • Described as a “symlink farm” manager: install software into versioned directories (e.g., /opt/pkg-1.2.3) and expose them under a common tree via symlinks (e.g., /usr/local).
  • Main benefits:
    • Multiple versions of software without file conflicts.
    • Simple rollbacks and upgrades by switching which directory is stowed.
    • Cleaner uninstalls: remove only symlinks and delete the package directory.
  • Historically used on shared clusters and NFS setups where each machine or user had its own view of /usr/local.
  • Some people use Stow only occasionally now, e.g., for “messy” source installs without uninstall targets.

Dotfiles Management and Alternatives

  • Many commenters use Stow to manage dotfiles by symlinking from a repo tree into $HOME.
  • Others prefer dedicated dotfile tools: chezmoi, yadm, rcm, xdot, dfm, or just “bare git repo” setups.
  • Key reasons to move away from Stow for dotfiles:
    • Symlink-related edge cases and confusion.
    • Desire for templating and per-host configuration.
    • Integrated secret management (e.g., chezmoi with password managers).
  • Some argue plain git works well for single-machine use, but branches become unwieldy for many divergent machines.

Symlinks vs. Modern Approaches (Nix, containers, overlayfs)

  • Several comments note that symlink farms are still used internally at large companies and in research clusters.
  • Critics say symlink-heavy setups can confuse some software and are conceptually superseded by:
    • Nix/Guix (symlink-based but with full package/build systems).
    • Containers, Flatpak, snaps, overlayfs, and “modules” systems.
  • Others counter that Stow remains faster, simpler, and good enough for occasional local use.

Project State, Perl, and Maintainability

  • Some see Stow as “zombie-like” (Perl, low activity, single maintainer, dotfiles repurposing) and suggest it might be time to let it fade in favor of newer tools.
  • Others strongly disagree:
    • The tool is small, stable, and “done”; minimal maintenance is fine.
    • Perl scripts are described as very stable over decades.
    • For this use case, language fashion and web-scale concerns are considered irrelevant.

Technical Notes and Installation Practices

  • Discussion around using --prefix vs. DESTDIR when building from source for use with Stow.
  • DESTDIR is highlighted as the standard for staged installs, though some packages’ prefix handling can complicate usage.
  • Uninstall strategies without Stow include make uninstall, manual tarball-based tracking, or never uninstalling from /usr/local at all.