bfairkun / dotfiles

dot files

My dotfiles

This repostory helps me keep the dotfile settings I like across different computers. The way I organize and install these is inspired by this blog post by Alex Pearce about using git and GNU stow to easily version track and install dotfiles. This repo essentially acts as a stow directory, making it easy to create symlinks in $HOME that point to the dotfiles in this repositroy (assuming this repo is in your $HOME directory).

I also picked up some tips from this post about dotfile organization and tips.

Contents

.
├── bash
├── bin
│   └── bin
├── git
├── local_dotfiles_MyMacbookAir
├── local_dotfiles_RCCMidway
├── ohmyzsh
├── other
├── sh
├── tmux
├── vim
└── zsh

12 directories

• bash : my bash specific settings (eg: my .bashrc and .bash_profile)
• bin/bin : Portable and distrutable executables that should be able to work on linux or mac without compiling. For example, a couple custom scripts which are generally useful to me. Also, the perl script ack is here (Artistic License 2.0), The nested structure is so that stow will create a symlink in $HOME to the child bin/bin instead of bin
• git : git settings
• local_dotfiles_* : settings with computer-specific dotfiles that will be sourced in the general dotfiles. See installation step3.
• ohmyzsh : git-submodule of oh-my-zsh. This includes some zsh themes and plugins sourced in my .zshrc. So there is no need to install oh-my-zsh independently; it is included in these dotfiles.
• other : other random dotfiles
• sh : shell settings that I like in both zsh and bash. Both my .zprofile and .bash_profile source sh/.profile
• tmux : tmux settings. Note the tmux/.tmux/* files for version specific tmux settings
• vim : My vim settings. A git submodule of my .vim repo which contains its own README to help with installation of plugins
• zsh : zsh specific settings. In addition to .zshrc, this also includes non oh-my-zsh plugins as a git submodule

Installation

Step1: clone this repo

First, clone this repo to your home directory, using git commands that will also clone the git submodules nested in this repo:

cd ~
git clone --recurse-submodules --remote-submodules https://github.com/bfairkun/dotfiles.git

Step2: Putting desired dotfiles (or symlinks to dotfiles) in `$HOME``

Now you can just copy or create symlinks from the relevant dotfile to your home directory:

cd ~/dotfiles

# Create a single symlink
ln -s ~/.bashrc bash/.bashrc 

To do this for many dotfiles easily, you can use GNU stow. But I have found recent versions of GNU Stow to be a pain to install where I don't have root privelages because recent versions require recent PERL version which itself was difficult to install without root privelages. An easier to install alternative for systems without root privelages and without up-to-date PERL versions (RCC Midway) is Xstow or an older version of GNU stow (version 1.3.2). Once installed, use like the following example:

cd ~/dotfiles

# Use stow to create symlinks for everything in bash Use the dry-run -n flag
# first. Remove -n when you feel comfortable you won't mess anything up
stow -v -n bash

# Or use xstow
xstow -v -n bash

Note that I also included a binary for stow in dotfiles/local_dotfiles_RCCMidway/bin/stow that you can give a try instead of installing yourself (but no guarantees that the binary works unless you are on the same architecture as UChicago midway. And also of course, if you don't trust running binaries from me maybe you should be installing from source or downloading from a more reputable place anyway...

Stow can also create create symlinks for all the files in multuple folders, like this example that uses a glob pattern with stow. The local_dotfiles_* should obviously only be for the desired computer.

#Use extended globbing to expand stow argument to all files in the directory
#but ignore the local dotfiles and README. This glob probably only works in zsh,
#but bash has a similar extended globbing option with slightly different syntax

#Start a temprary zsh shell session if you aren't already ising zsh, and allow
#for special glob patterns
zsh
setopt extended_glob

#Print the glob pattern
print ^(local|README)*

#Use it in stow command
stow -v -n ^(local|README)*

Stow will not overwrite existing files in $HOME. So if you want stow to creat a $HOME/.vim symlink to $HOME/dotfiles/vim/.vim but you already have a $HOME/.vim folder, you need to get rid of it (or move it somewhere else) or else stow will not write a symlink and it will complain of conflicts. I have created a helper script bin/bin/MoveStowConflicts.cli.py to systematically put all of the stow conflicts in $HOME into a new folder, which you might want to call MyOldDotfilesThatCreateConflicts/:

bin/bin/MoveStowConflicts.cli.py MoveStowConflictFilesToDir -n -v --NewDir ~/MyOldDotfilesThatCreateConflicts/ --SubtreeDirs ^(local|README)*

The script contains a dry-run (-n) parameter so you can preview what will happen before actually doing it. Use the -h help flag on that script for more.

Once you have gotten rid of your stow conflicts, you can consider revisiting the stow commands to create symlinks for all the dotfiles

Step3: Add local_dotfiles to override my general settings as needed.

When I need computer specific settings, just create an additional local dotfile that gets sourced in main dotfile. For example, a snippet at the end of my .bashrc:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc_local ]; then
    source ~/.bashrc_local
fi

Then you can create a ~/.bashrc_local to contain computer specific settings. I have included the local dotfiles I use on a few computers in local_dotfiles_* which can be stowed like this example:

cd ~/dotfiles
stow -n -v local_dotfiles_RCCMidway

Step4: All done!

But some extra notes to keep in mind:

• my vim settings may need some plugins installed, which you can do with :PlugInstall once you open vim. The readme in my .vim repo has a little more instructions if needed.
• Also, as I change things in my .vim repo (a nested submodule in this repo), pulling in changes can be kind of tricky if you don't know about git submodules. I read this primer on git submodules.
• chsh -s $(which zsh) to switch to zsh.
• There are a couple things in my vim or zsh settings that require external things to be installed in order to make use of them. For example, I recommend installing or setting up the following:
  • I have the pbcopy script in bin/bin/pbcopy and in my tmux and vim config I have remaps that reference this script. The usefulness of this script is mostly for working over ssh, so that you can copy the remote tmux clipboard or the remote vim clipboard to the local clipboard for copy/paste. But in order to make this work, you might need to follow the instructions from this blogpost by Sean Coates on how to set up ssh connection and a listener on your local machine.
  • Some of my local bashrc/zshrc have the lines for configuring conda. Obviously these will require conda package manager to be installed, and probably best to let conda init handle these lines.
  • fzf is something I find pretty useful and might be referenced in some of my dotfiles. and it's required for some vim plugins that I use. If you want to install this in a place without root privelages (eg RCC Midway), the git installation instructions should work. (But it won't be necessary to modify bashrc/zshrc when it prompts you during installation, since my bashrc and zshrc already have the fzf line)
  • Other unnecessary things to optionally install that I might have references to in my dotfiles collection include gitmux, nnn, i3-gaps window manager for linux