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Dotfiles: Unofficial Guide to Dotfiles on GitHub

dotfiles.github.io

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Re: Dotfiles: Unofficial Guide to Dotfiles on GitHub

#5

Post by kjuulh »

This site seems much more like an some of the awesome- repositories on github than a guide. Although it does give some extra information on the packages.

To not make it took negative. I personally use Chezmoi, which I've been super happy with. The ability to maintain files in a central repository and then pull them into the file system on an update is quite nice.

You can handle merge conflicts and whatnot between your local copy and the upstream dot files. You can opt your files into using go templates in your files which is useful when I need to maintain differences in configs between mac and linux, or in general for just storing secrets out of your dotfiles.

There are some small annoyances but overall it is the only dotfile manager, I've managed to stick with.

Re: Dotfiles: Unofficial Guide to Dotfiles on GitHub

#8

Post by theshrike79 »

I've been bikeshedding with dotfiles for 20 years and ended up with Chezmoi[0] in the end.

It came down to the fact that it's easy to install and easy to bootstrap as long as your dotfiles are in a public Github repo. It also integrates with a bunch of password managers to grab any secrets you might need in addition.

I use the "run_onchange_install-packages.sh.tmpl" to install basic packages to computers I bootstrap chezmoi on, it adapts based on the operating system using chezmoi's templating system[1]

It takes a few tries to remember the flow of "chezmoi add"ing a file after editing it so that you can push it to Github. After that it's just a matter of chezmoi update on your other computers to bring them up to date.

For .gitconfig I use a .gitconfig.local file on my work computer to override my personal credentials and not have to mess with templating the file.

[0] https://www.chezmoi.io [1] https://www.chezmoi.io/user-guide/advanced/install-packages-...

Re: Dotfiles: Unofficial Guide to Dotfiles on GitHub

#9

Post by DylanSp »

kjuulh wrote: post #5

This site seems much more like an some of the awesome- repositories on github than a guide. Although it does give some extra information on the packages. To not make it took negative. I personally use Chezmoi, which I've been super happy with. The ability to maintain files in a central repository and then pull them into the file system on an update is quite nice. You can handle merge conflicts and whatnot between you…

Seconding Chezmoi, it's what I use, and it works well.
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