dotfiles

This is my personal setup, I strongly discourage using the initialization script unless you're me. I recommend looking through the files and picking bits and pieces that fit your workflows.

Setup

Make sure git and curl are installed before running the dotfiles initialization script. For example, in Ubuntu:

sudo apt install -y git curl

Then run the dotfiles script, which installs everything into your $HOME directory:

curl -sSL benelan.dev/s/dotfiles | sh

If the link above dies, use the dot script's init subcommand instead:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/benelan/dotfiles/master/.dotfiles/bin/dot | bash -s init

The scripts do the same thing, but the first link is easier for me to remember and type.

The script will backup any conflicting files to ~/.dotfiles-backup. It will set up the dotfiles as a bare git repo, which makes syncing changes easy. You can also create separate branches for different machines. Read this Atlassian tutorial for more info. A common alternative is managing dotfiles with symlinks (e.g., GNU stow), but in my experience that can get messy.

dot command

The dot script has the following custom subcommands:

• init: Initialize the dotfiles bare repo, as mentioned above.

• clone: Clone a repo to the $LIB directory (see exports.sh) instead of $PWD.

• deps: Install various dependencies, including development tools, GUI apps, shell scripts, fonts, themes, and more. See dot deps -h for usage info.

• edit: Open nvim/vim with environment variables set so git plugins work with the bare dotfiles repo.

All other subcommands and their arguments are passed to git with environment variables set to ensure dot always runs on the bare repo. A typical workflow for adding a new config file to the repo is:

dot add .config/xyz/config.yml
dot commit -m "chore(xyz): add config"
dot push

Technically, the whole home directory is under version control. However, .gitignore blacklists everything, and then whitelists specific directories and files. This adds an extra level of security and prevents most files from being untracked. The remaining untracked files are hidden from dot status, so you need to dot add new files/directories before they show up.

Git's bash completion and the git aliases defined at the bottom of ~/.config/git/config will also work for dot.

Operating systems

Linux

My setup was primarily created for Ubuntu/Debian and their derivatives. However, I try to separate the Ubuntu-only code and make sure executables exist before using them. The main issue you'll face with other linux distros is missing dependencies, which I install with dot deps -U on Ubuntu. See the apt dependency lists, although names may vary depending on your distro's package manager.

macOS

Mac users should switch to the GNU version of command line utilities. I strongly suggest switching even if you don't copy anything from this repo, because it will align your local development environment with production. Linux uses the GNU version of utils, and most servers, containers, and continuous integration runners use Linux.

Windows

It's safe to assume nothing in this repo will work on Windows. However, I occasionally need Windows for my job and can confirm this setup works in WSL running Ubuntu.

Configuration

Put machine-specific stuff in ~/.profile.local and/or ~/.bashrc.local, both of which get sourced (if they exist) by their respective files.

The following environment variables are flags that accept a value of 1 or 0 to enabled/disable tools and other functionality.

• DESKTOP_MACHINE - Install and use GUI tools that only work on desktop machines.

• WORK_MACHINE - Setup the environment for work (aliases functions, etc.)

• COPILOT - Use the GitHub Copilot plugin in Neovim.

• CODEIUM - Use the Codeium (free Copilot alternative) plugin in Neovim.

• NERD_FONT - Use developer icons in Neovim/Vim/Vifm/etc. Wezterm ships with Nerd Font glyphs, so the icons are displayed by default unless explicitly disabled by setting the option to 0. If you don't use Wezterm, make sure to install a Nerd Font (e.g. dot deps -t font) before enabling the icons by setting the option to 1.

Credits

I learned and stole a lot from the following sources. There are credits/links in specific files as well, when relevant.

• Copyright (c) 2020-2021 Bash-it MIT [code]

• Copyright (c) LazyVim Apache License 2.0 [code]

• Tom Ryder [code]

• Seth House [code]