[HN Gopher] Using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles (2012)
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Using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles (2012)
Author : matthberg
Score : 37 points
Date : 2020-12-27 07:19 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (brandon.invergo.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (brandon.invergo.net)
| mongol wrote:
| I have found that managing dotfiles is not enough. The dotfiles
| serve no purpose without the software that uses them. My method
| is to write small scripts, I call them setuplets, that install
| the software and then symlink the dotfile to its master that I
| manage in git. In the simplest case, it is just a two line script
| in a directory, but I have one for each program, and a tool to
| select which I run when setting up a new linux machine. The more
| complex ones may install a number of tools and set up environment
| variables etc. For environment variables, the script drops a
| script file in a directory, where my bashrc sources it.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| I've been logging each install as a markdown document with
| directions, and manually symlinking my dotfiles, but tiny
| scripts that do both are a great idea!
| mongol wrote:
| Yes, as soon as I have installed a program which I like and
| think is a "keeper", I write my setuplet script, usually by
| copying and pasting from the bash history.
| iib wrote:
| I am not an expert in Ansible, or any other software of the
| kind, but I think this is one of the easier use-cases of
| such a program. I wrote an ansible script to compile emacs
| from source, after some initial configuration, and it
| serves me pretty well.
| mongol wrote:
| I started with Ansible for automation, and still use it,
| but have abandoned it for setting up my personal
| environment. I still use it to set up services, such as
| sshd, webserver, smartd etc. I found it was more
| cumbersome for personal environment setup than my script
| method. My method of re-initializing my environment rests
| on three pillars:
|
| Ansible, for server/OS setup. Things run by init/systemd,
| involving anything outside of $HOME basically
|
| Backup, using borgmatic. I use this to restore most
| things in $HOME, except random dotfiles. My documents, my
| checked out git repos, etc.
|
| Script "setuplets". These I run on demand, to set up my
| environment piece by piece. Perhaps I do not want to
| restore my programming environment just because I want to
| have my custom prompt on a host, for example.
|
| Finding the balance between these have been difficult.
| Especially, how to handle credentials. My backup is
| encrypted, but how would I make sure I had the keys to
| restore it? I could restore it from my pass password
| store, but how would I get the gnupg keys in place first?
| I have not solved this completely satisfactorily yet
| mattalbie wrote:
| I do this but include the symlink command in the document.
| That way all the links become one copy and paste.
| kevlar1818 wrote:
| I really like this method as opposed to using a bare Git
| repository. For one, it's conceptually simpler in my mind; you
| don't have to understand Git internals to get this working.
| Secondly, this lets you pick and choose which config files you
| want to "install" on a machine.
|
| I feel obligated to share my Bash script, dotfiles.sh[1], that
| accomplishes what Stow does, but with a few tweaks that I found
| particularly useful:
|
| dotfiles.sh targets the user's home directory by default (i.e.
| stow -t $HOME).
|
| dotfiles.sh never symlinks directories, only files (i.e. stow
| --no-folding). (This was the straw that broke the camel's back
| and made me roll my own script in the first place.)
|
| dotfiles.sh makes backups of local config files and can restore
| them if you remove your symlinked version.
|
| My script is quite old now, and I use it so seldomly I'm not
| convinced there aren't bugs. YMMV.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/kevin-hanselman/dotfiles
| knoebber wrote:
| I made https://dotfilehub.com as another solution for this.
| lwhsiao wrote:
| I originally went with the bare git repo technique, but found
| myself not liking how to store multiple computer's dotfiles in a
| single repo.
|
| I ended up switching to https://www.chezmoi.io/, after learning
| about it here on HN.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| I use this technique, based on a bare git repo
| https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles
|
| Works quite well ... but I'm really, really ready for a rebuild
| of how Linux systems are built. I hope systemd-homed will
| deliver.
|
| Imagine you could ssh into a machine with a flag that forwards
| your local config. Or even your local bin.
| Arnavion wrote:
| I don't think systemd-homed does anything for dotfiles, let
| alone portable dotfiles. The user record only contains a
| skeleton directory use to create the homedir if it doesn't
| already exist. Populating such a newly-created homedir with
| your dotfiles is still your responsibility.
| politelemon wrote:
| That sounds really convenient. How far away is the homed system
| from adoption?
| wbl wrote:
| You mean what we had with project Athena for decades? Or NFS
| mounted homework? Or plan 9?
| segfaultbuserr wrote:
| NFS, The Network is the Computer (TM).
|
| It's a bit strange that now it's a Cloudflare trademark.
| jamespwilliams wrote:
| I've been using stow to manage my dotfiles for a long time, works
| very well.
|
| Recently I've moved to NixOS and have been considering trying out
| Nix's home-manager (mostly just out of curiosity - I'm perfectly
| happy with stow). If anyone has tried both stow and home-manager,
| I'd be interested to know your thoughts on how they compare.
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