Dotfiles

My dotfile repository

Why is this a git repo?

I have been wanting, for a long time, to make my dotfiles more managable, especially my zsh dotfiles. I looked at a lot of projects, such as oh-my-zsh, Zack Holman's dotfiles, and Ben Alman's dotfiles.

I liked all of the ideas, and none of the implementations.

The one that best suited my desires was Ben Alman's, so I have based my work off of his.

What, exactly, does the "dotfiles" command do?

It's really not very complicated. When dotfiles is run, it does a few things:

1. Git is installed if necessary, via APT or Homebrew (which is installed if necessary).
2. This repo is cloned into the ~/.dotfiles directory (or updated if it already exists).
3. Files in init are executed (in alphanumeric order).
4. Files in copy are copied into ~/.
5. Files in link are linked into ~/.

Note:

• Dotfiles named with a comma are installed, with the , replaced with a period (eg: ,zshrc => .zshrc)
• Dotfiles in the dotfiles repo are ignored.
• The backups folder only gets created when necessary. Any files in ~/ that would have been overwritten by copy or link get backed up there.
• Files in bin are executable shell scripts.
• Files in source get sourced whenever a new shell is opened (in alphanumeric order).
• Files in conf just sit there. If a config file doesn't need to go in ~/, put it in there.
• Files in lib, also, just sit there. Mostly used for git submodules.
• Files in caches are cached files, only used by some scripts. This folder will be created if necessary.

Installation

OS X

Notes:

• You need to be an administrator (for sudo).
• You need to have installed XCode Command Line Tools, which are available as a separate, optional (and much smaller) download from XCode.

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/jaqque/dotfiles/master/bin/dotfiles)" && source ~/.zshrc

Linux (Debian or Ubuntu)

Notes:

• You need to be an administrator (for sudo).
• If APT hasn't been updated or upgraded recently, it will probably be a few minutes before you see anything.

sudo apt-get -qq update && sudo apt-get -qq upgrade && sudo apt-get -qq install curl && echo &&
bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/jaqque/dotfiles/master/bin/dotfiles)" && source ~/.zshrc

The "init" step

These things will be installed, but only if they aren't already.

OS X

• Homebrew
  • git

Linux (Debian and Ubuntu)

• APT
  • git-core

Linux (RHEL and Others)

• Yum
• Dnf

Linux (Arch)

• Pacman

Linux (OpenSUSE)

• Zypper

The ~/ "copy" step

Any file in the copy subdirectory will be copied into ~/. Any file that needs to be modified with personal information (like .gitconfig which contains an email address and private key) should be copied into ~/. Because the file you'll be editing is no longer in ~/.dotfiles, it's less likely to be accidentally committed into your public dotfiles repo.

The ~/ "link" step

Any file in the link subdirectory gets symbolically linked with ln -s into ~/. Edit these, and you change the file in the repo. Don't link files containing sensitive data, or you might accidentally commit that data!

Aliases and Functions

To keep things easy, the ~/.zshrc file is extremely simple, and should never need to be modified. Instead, add your aliases, functions, settings, etc into one of the files in the source subdirectory, or add a new file. They're all automatically sourced when a new shell is opened.

License

Copyright (C) 2013 John H. Robinson, IV
Licensed under the MIT license.