6 ms·

How do you store them? Just backup into a dotfiles repo or what? I've been looking into dotfiles + gnu stow.

by rublev 9y ago

falcolas 9y ago
I do exactly this myself, and it works remarkably well. I had a few conflicts I had to work around between different packages, but the updated vim package directory structure has mostly solved that problem. EDIT: The biggest problem, for me, is that since they are all dotfiles, they are invisible to normal ls operations within the stow directory. It's a minor nit, but it can be quite annoying to run up against.
- rublev 9y ago
  I've aliased ls to `alias ls='ls -GFhal'` to get around hidden dotfiles.
juandazapata 9y ago
I use a Github repo + gnu stow. I wrote a little post about it (http://juanda.me/managing-your-dotfiles-with-gnu-stow http://juanda.me/managing-your-dotfiles-with-gnu-stow). Notice that I've made my dotfiles repo private since then so you can't check it out, but the post still draws the general idea.
- dylanz 9y ago
  +1 for this method! Good post. I originally learned about this through: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-your-dotfiles.html http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to...
bphogan 9y ago
I use a Github repo, but I actually store it on Dropbox. I then symlink everything into place on a new computer. Any change I make to a dotfile then shows up on any other machines. http://github.com/napcs/dotfiles/ http://github.com/napcs/dotfiles/
xutopia 9y ago
Mine are on github. If you want to use this setup simply copy and paste the contents of your original files and use the `makesymlinks.sh` script to create the links. It takes me 30 seconds to setup a new computer with it. https://github.com/garyharan/dotfiles https://github.com/garyharan/dotfiles
- wyclif 9y ago
  That's the post that inspired me to start cloning my config files from GitHub.
Bluestrike2 9y ago
I store them in a dotfiles repo that gets pushed to Github occasionally. They get symlinked to my home directory, and I use thoughtbot's rcm[0] tool for managing that. Then I just use a small script that I keep updated to handle installation and setup on a fresh computer. I'll need to take a look at gnu stow now. It seems like it'd be a slightly simpler alternative, and would keep my dotfiles folder a bit better organized. 0. https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm
ansible 9y ago
I use vcsh: https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh I have separate repos for SSH, Bash, VIM, and other stuff (like .inputrc).
aerique 9y ago
I store my configs in a git repo on Seafile/Syncwerk (Dropbox alternative). This gives me a seamless experience on Unix, OSX and Windows where I just have to link to them from my home directory when on a new computer. Yes, it took an initial investment but now it just works everywhere and maintenance is low. (Some people say git repos in clouds sync are bad, but I have had zero problems with them over the years.)
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  Its just bad because the .git folder means that any time you delete an old git repo or anything, you get a fevered email from dropbox reminding you that you just deleted 10000 files.
cicloid 9y ago
Stow is probably the simplest way to do it. The only weird thing is the directory structure I have with `.` prefixes in order to be linked as I want them inside my home. Besides that, I don't see how a better way to do it.
mcintyre1994 9y ago
I was searching for this earlier, I came across a HN post which someone from Atlassian write up really nicely: https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2016/02/best-way-to-store-dotfiles-git-bare-repo/ https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2016/02/best-way-to-sto... No extra tools (just git), no symlinks.
nitemice 9y ago
I have different needs in my dotfiles for different contexts, so I've created a system where each file is represented by a folder, which contains separate file snippets for each context. So in my vimrc folder, I've got a work file, a school file, a home file, and a base file (which applies everywhere). Then I have a bash script that stitches all the relevant chunks together into a cohesive file for a given location. It can even do sub-locations by adding underscores to the name. E.g. 'work_nas' will produce a file consisting of the base, work and work_nas files, concatenated together. This all sits in a private git repo, and I just manually copy the output files to wherever they belong whenever there's an update to them. I've been thinking for a while about writing a script to copy them into place, but GNU stow looks pretty interesting.

How do you store them? Just backup into a dotfiles repo or what? I've been looking into dotfiles + gnu stow.

by rublev 9y ago

How do you store them? Just backup into a dotfiles repo or what? I've been looking into dotfiles + gnu stow.

I do exactly this myself, and it works remarkably well. I had a few conflicts I had to work around between different packages, but the updated vim package directory structure has mostly solved that problem. EDIT: The biggest problem, for me, is that since they are all dotfiles, they are invisible to normal ls operations within the stow directory. It's a minor nit, but it can be quite annoying to run up against.

rublev 9y ago
I've aliased ls to `alias ls='ls -GFhal'` to get around hidden dotfiles.

juandazapata 9y ago

I use a Github repo + gnu stow. I wrote a little post about it (http://juanda.me/managing-your-dotfiles-with-gnu-stow http://juanda.me/managing-your-dotfiles-with-gnu-stow). Notice that I've made my dotfiles repo private since then so you can't check it out, but the post still draws the general idea.

dylanz 9y ago
+1 for this method! Good post. I originally learned about this through: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-your-dotfiles.html http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to...

bphogan 9y ago

I use a Github repo, but I actually store it on Dropbox. I then symlink everything into place on a new computer. Any change I make to a dotfile then shows up on any other machines. http://github.com/napcs/dotfiles/ http://github.com/napcs/dotfiles/

xutopia 9y ago

Mine are on github. If you want to use this setup simply copy and paste the contents of your original files and use the `makesymlinks.sh` script to create the links. It takes me 30 seconds to setup a new computer with it. https://github.com/garyharan/dotfiles https://github.com/garyharan/dotfiles

wyclif 9y ago
That's the post that inspired me to start cloning my config files from GitHub.

Bluestrike2 9y ago

I store them in a dotfiles repo that gets pushed to Github occasionally. They get symlinked to my home directory, and I use thoughtbot's rcm[0] tool for managing that. Then I just use a small script that I keep updated to handle installation and setup on a fresh computer. I'll need to take a look at gnu stow now. It seems like it'd be a slightly simpler alternative, and would keep my dotfiles folder a bit better organized. 0. https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm

ansible 9y ago

I use vcsh: https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh I have separate repos for SSH, Bash, VIM, and other stuff (like .inputrc).

aerique 9y ago

I store my configs in a git repo on Seafile/Syncwerk (Dropbox alternative). This gives me a seamless experience on Unix, OSX and Windows where I just have to link to them from my home directory when on a new computer. Yes, it took an initial investment but now it just works everywhere and maintenance is low. (Some people say git repos in clouds sync are bad, but I have had zero problems with them over the years.)

joshuamorton 9y ago
Its just bad because the .git folder means that any time you delete an old git repo or anything, you get a fevered email from dropbox reminding you that you just deleted 10000 files.

cicloid 9y ago

Stow is probably the simplest way to do it. The only weird thing is the directory structure I have with `.` prefixes in order to be linked as I want them inside my home. Besides that, I don't see how a better way to do it.

mcintyre1994 9y ago

I was searching for this earlier, I came across a HN post which someone from Atlassian write up really nicely: https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2016/02/best-way-to-store-dotfiles-git-bare-repo/ https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2016/02/best-way-to-sto... No extra tools (just git), no symlinks.

nitemice 9y ago

I have different needs in my dotfiles for different contexts, so I've created a system where each file is represented by a folder, which contains separate file snippets for each context. So in my vimrc folder, I've got a work file, a school file, a home file, and a base file (which applies everywhere). Then I have a bash script that stitches all the relevant chunks together into a cohesive file for a given location. It can even do sub-locations by adding underscores to the name. E.g. 'work_nas' will produce a file consisting of the base, work and work_nas files, concatenated together. This all sits in a private git repo, and I just manually copy the output files to wherever they belong whenever there's an update to them. I've been thinking for a while about writing a script to copy them into place, but GNU stow looks pretty interesting.