Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Way to Manage Dotfiles

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 44 posts

Re: A Way to Manage Dotfiles

#5

Post by podiki »

Personally, I use git [0] along with GNU stow [1], combined with making the files directly from a literate Readme.org (e.g. [2]). I sync this repository between machines to update files, and when I make changes in the org-mode Readme file it automatically generates the new file. There are ways to pull in changes made to that file directly, but haven't needed to do that. My repo doesn't walk you through it completely, but I think is pretty straightforward. If you want to see it in action along with a few links and pointers, do take a look at [0]. I really like having it all together in one place, and with org-mode everything is very (human) readable.

[0] https://github.com/podiki/dot.me

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/

[2] https://github.com/podiki/dot.me/blob/master/x11/README.org

Re: A Way to Manage Dotfiles

#6

Post by tdfirth »

I've been using this bare repository approach for a while. I forget where I first saw it, I'm pretty sure it was on HN but it was not this project. I do like it, but I have a few minor issues.

The first is that I have a habit of running `git add .` when I'm working on source code, and as a result I have accidentally added my entire home directory to the bare repo more than once... Easy enough to undo but a bit inconvenient. `dotfiles add -u` is the safe option, or just be explicit about which files you are staging.

The second issue is the 'branch per machine' approach, which I do use. I have two machines I use regularly, and a third occasionally. There are some bits of config (e.g. for vim) that are shared across all the machines, while other bits are not. If I use one machine for a while, then I end up with lots commits that I need to cherry pick when I next use another machine. Depending on how long it has been, this can be a bit of a faff.

Finally, because there is no clear mainline branch, you have to pick commits to/from any of the branches. If you are undisciplined like me, then this will leave you with a 'three way ahead and behind' scenario at some point.

Anyway, I like the approach overall. If anyone has a suggestion to ease those pain points I'm all ears.

Re: A Way to Manage Dotfiles

#9

Post by bewuethr »

tdfirth wrote: post #6

I've been using this bare repository approach for a while. I forget where I first saw it, I'm pretty sure it was on HN but it was not this project. I do like it, but I have a few minor issues. The first is that I have a habit of running `git add .` when I'm working on source code, and as a result I have accidentally added my entire home directory to the bare repo more than once... Easy enough to undo but a bit inconv…

I, too, saw this approach on HN first – here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11071754

I combined the bare repo approach with a per-machine custom branch approach described in https://www.anishathalye.com/2014/08/03/managing-your-dotfil...

The idea is that you have the shared configuration in one repo, and at the end of each config file, you include a local version. The local versions live in a separate repository and use a separate branch for each machine.

For example, at the end of .bashrc, you'd have

    if [[ -r $HOME/.bashrc_local ]]; then
        . "$HOME/.bashrc_local"
    fi
and so on, for each config file. My general dotfiles repo is public here, if you want to take a look how I did it for the tools I use: https://github.com/bewuethr/dotfiles

This still isn't ideal. For example, I use Git submodules for Vim plugins in the shared repo – but maybe I don't need all of that on my Raspberry pi. I feel like at some point, a config file based solution could be better; or using a tool such as https://yadm.io/, which is using bare repos under the hood.

Re: A Way to Manage Dotfiles

#10

Post by sneak »

I sync a directory of dotfiles across my workstations using syncthing. The .bashrc and .profile simply do:

    for FN in ~/.paths/sneak-sync/bashrc.d/*.sh ; do
        source $FN
    done
Then updates (by adding or removing files to these directories) propagate to all my workstations. I have machine-specific ones, too, that also sync but aren't included due to differing hostnames.
Post reply on HN