just 1 thing, why are you moving yay/paru to tmpdir, since they often have aur builds, and if you dont have a baller setup (i definitely do not), downloading the source and the compiles are not really temporary waste, also a general tip, dont remove browser cache also (depending upon how aggressively should the cache, like i have a slow cpu, but i got a ram upgrade and fair speed, i get almost near instantaneous load time when going to pages i have cached(for configuration, please check betterfox speed setup))

why would i want to delete my bash history, like to refer to my old commands (and yes i semi-regularly clear the XDG_CACHE_HOME because many apps treat them as temporary locations, STATE_HOME would be better, but i also do not remember about its existence all the time, and thank you for the librewolf script, i had something similar (i did not actually specify with this granularity though)

I have not setup these particular XDG variables, but i have been able to use bash without creating any files in my home dir (i was also able to use firefox (librewolf) without having .dir in my $HOME)

first I do not use bash as my default shell (I am on arch and installed dash and a package which basically symlinks /bin/sh to dash (I think i it is called dashbinsh), because it is slightly faster (I have many shell scripts, for some of them difference is perceivable) and it does not create any files by default

also I use a login display manager (ly) (if you use something else, then that does not really change anything, if you just type out the command in tty, just the command will change), and I have edited my sway desktop file (/usr/share/wayland-sessions/sway.desktop), you can use any other de/wm, just replace the specific command to launch sway (here sway), with something else (for example, in xfce (a de), you have start-xfce4 command), and the desktop file used

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Sway
Comment=An i3-compatible Wayland compositor
Exec=sway-wrapper
Type=Application

I made a script sway-wrapper, placed it at /home/sg/.local/bin/sway-wrapper (my user name here is sg), and symlinked it to /bin/sway-wrapper

these are the only changes made to root system

here is my full sway-wrapper, it launches sway, and also declares all my system variables

#!/bin/sh
# here i have exported many variables, not necessary for now
# export A_LOT_OF_THINGS
exec sway

now I use bash as my shell (I also tried zsh, but was not really amazed), and I only use it in my terminal emulator (if you use it elsewhere (if in editors, most have some way to set the shell used, if in tty, then I think you can set via some systemd init thing that I have forgotten, but most likely you would not have to set it at many places), so I edited my terminal emulator’s (foot) config file to launch with bash, but with a specific rc file,

shell=bash --rcfile /home/sg/.local/bin/bashrc.sh

(most terminal emulators have some way to set this)

and in my bashrc, i have

# many things, this is just your bashrc, you can simply move your old one here with almost no changes (if you pull some variables/aliases with relative path, then change them)
export HISTFILE=${XDG_DATA_HOME}/bash-history

and also do

touch ${XDG_DATA_HOME}/bash-history

beforehand, as bash does not create hist file if it does not already exist

I also started using different programs or use hem with different cli flags (with help of launch scripts) to have there stuff in different directories

Outside of xdg specification dirs, I have .librewolf (if you want to not have this(this approach works with pretty much all firefox derivatives/family), then make a script, which basically launches librewolf with different home, like HOME=$XDG_DATA_HOME librewolf (or wherever you want), after doing so, you may have to reinstall extensions, but they do not lose there data, also maybe have to reset the download path, or if you use nativemessaging (some extensions use this), you may hae to slightly edit them, then either create a different desktop file to launch browser with this script, or edit the existing desktop file for your browser(with first approach you would have to reset your default browser everywhere (either by choosing it again, or editing your mime file in .config), with the latter approach, you may have to edit your desktop file after each browser update))(i stopped doing because i have some broken mime issue that pretty much every file type that i have not already set the default opener for, got opened with browser, and that created the .dot dir again and again), and some proprietary stuff that i have tried with the browser approach, and it still does not work

deleted by creator

2024-05-12 23:51:46 WARNING: No server certificate verification method has been enabled.  See http://openvpn.net/howto.html#mitm for more info.
2024-05-12 23:51:47 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: ***********
2024-05-12 23:51:47 Socket Buffers: R=[212992->212992] S=[212992->212992]
2024-05-12 23:51:47 UDPv4 link local: (not bound)
2024-05-12 23:51:47 UDPv4 link remote: ******************
2024-05-12 23:51:47 TLS: Initial packet from *************
2024-05-12 23:51:47 WARNING: this configuration may cache passwords in memory -- use the auth-nocache option to prevent this
2024-05-12 23:51:47 VERIFY OK: depth=1, C=IN, ***************
2024-05-12 23:51:47 VERIFY OK: depth=0, C=IN, ***************
2024-05-12 23:51:48 Control Channel: TLSv1.2, cipher TLSv1.2 DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384, peer certificate: 3072 bits RSA, signature: RSA-SHA256, peer temporary key: 1024 bits DH
2024-05-12 23:51:48 [vpn.*******] Peer Connection Initiated with ****************
2024-05-12 23:51:48 TLS: move_session: dest=TM_ACTIVE src=TM_INITIAL reinit_src=1
2024-05-12 23:51:48 TLS: tls_multi_process: initial untrusted session promoted to trusted
2024-05-12 23:51:49 SENT CONTROL [vpn.iitd.ac.in]: 'PUSH_REQUEST' (status=1)
2024-05-12 23:51:49 PUSH: Received control message: ************
2024-05-12 23:51:49 OPTIONS IMPORT: --ifconfig/up options modified
2024-05-12 23:51:49 OPTIONS IMPORT: route options modified
2024-05-12 23:51:49 OPTIONS IMPORT: --ip-win32 and/or --dhcp-option options modified
2024-05-12 23:51:49 OPTIONS ERROR: failed to negotiate cipher with server.  Add the server's cipher ('AES-128-CBC') to --data-ciphers (currently 'AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM:CHACHA20-POLY1305') if you want to connect to this server.
2024-05-12 23:51:49 ERROR: Failed to apply push options
2024-05-12 23:51:49 Failed to open tun/tap interface
2024-05-12 23:51:49 SIGUSR1[soft,process-push-msg-failed] received, process restarting
2024-05-12 23:51:49 Restart pause, 1 second(s)

this repeats over and over, i killed it, also i tried to connect with our vpn a year or 2 ago this method, and had same/similar errors even back then, and it only used to worked with network manager

sorry for editing it heavily, but would love to not be doxxed

i tried to change the verbosity level in config (it was 3, i did with 4 and 6), nothing came, and for some reason, nothing is coming in journalctl logs also

compression was already enabled in config (the config is given to us by institute), i will reply with logs

i tried a live usb (i had a linux mint one) - same error

since i forgot to mention it earlier, we have to renew our certificates almost every 6 months, and i renewed them recently (around the time of breakage start, but (i may be misremembering) i think i connected with new certs also, before renewal, the vpn worked both on my phone and laptop, now it only works on phone, i am now trying to use it on a live usb

i dont see a change

but it works over on my phone, so something has to be borked over my end, i have also recently renewed my certificates, that may have something to do with it, since vpn has also not been working pretty much since then