I decided to create this repo to backup my dotfiles, but also to share what I use. Sharing my dotfiles is important to me as it is a way to give back to the community. I was inspired by a few repos on GitHub and it helped me tremendously in my quest to fine-tune my setup. I use Linux, more specifically openSUSE, so be aware that I haven't used my dotfiles on another OS or Linux distribution.
I use this repo to store my dotfiles and explain how to setup the files on my computer.
By adding all my dotfiles in a git repo and cloning to a local ~/dotfiles directory I'm able to consolidate accomplish a few things.
- All dotfiles are in one directory
- The git repo doesn't exist in my home directory
- All files are version controlled
GNU Stow is used to link the files in ~/dotfiles to the $HOME directory. Because the symlinks exist in $HOME, they are sourced as normal by tools such as vim, zsh, .etc
To understand how to use GNU Stow, I recommend you to read the link Using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles from the Credits section below.
- create dotfiles project on github.com
- https://services.github.com/on-demand/github-cli/create-remote-repository
- select initialize repo with a README
- clone repo from $HOME
cdgit clone https://github.com/jfrerich/dotfiles.git
- Add dot files to dotfiles/ dir
mv ~/.vimrc to dotfiles/vim/.vimrc
- git add, commit and push
git add .zshrcgit commit .zshrcgit push
- stow files to create symlinks from $HOME
stow vimstow tcshstow zsh
- Only setup the .vimrc and my plugins
- .gitignore includes .vim/bundle and .vim/view
- .vim/bundle uses git to build the bundles, so I ignore these and let PluginInstall do the install
- .vim/view also does not need to be managed
brew install stow
Bits and chunks of my config files come from these sources. Thanks to the people behind them!