Linux .gitignore template

This is the shortest template in the collection, and the reason is structural. Linux desktops do not write metadata files into every directory you open, so there is simply less debris to cover. What remains comes from a handful of specific tools rather than from the system itself.

*~ is the tilde backup file convention, produced by Emacs by default and by several other editors as an option. It is a copy of the previous saved version, written beside the original. Because the convention is shared across tools, this one rule covers backups from most of them at once.

.directory is the metadata file the KDE file manager writes, holding the view settings and custom icon for a folder. It is the closest equivalent to what the macOS and Windows file managers produce, and it appears only when someone using that desktop has customised the folder.

.Trash-* covers the per user trash directories created on a mounted volume. When you delete a file from a drive that is not your home filesystem, the file manager moves it into a trash directory named with your numeric user id at the root of that volume. A repository living on an external drive can collect one.

.nfs* files are the interesting case. When a file is deleted on an NFS share while a process still has it open, the server renames it to a hidden .nfs file instead of removing it, so the open handle stays valid. The file disappears when the last handle closes. .fuse_hidden* is the same mechanism in a userspace filesystem.