This is my personal setup, I strongly discourage using the setup script unless you're me. I recommend looking through the files and picking bits and pieces that fit your workflows.
To install the dotfiles in your $HOME
directory, run:
curl -sSL benelan.dev/s/dotfiles | sh
If the link above dies, use the dot
script's init
subcommand instead.
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/benelan/dotfiles/master/.dotfiles/bin/dot | bash -s init
The script will backup any conflicting files to ~/.dotfiles-backup
. It
will set up the dotfiles as a bare git repo, which makes syncing changes easy.
You can also create separate branches for different machines. Read
this tutorial for more info.
A common alternative is managing dotfiles with symlinks (e.g.,
GNU stow), but in my experience that can
get messy.
The dot
script has the following custom subcommands:
init
: Setup the dotfiles bare repo, as mentioned above.deps
: Install various dependencies, including development tools, GUI apps, shell scripts, fonts, themes, and more. Seedot deps -h
for usage info.edit
: Open nvim/vim with environment variables set so git plugins work with the bare dotfiles repo.get
: Clone a repo to the$LIB
directory instead of$PWD
.
All other subcommands and their arguments are passed to git
, with environment
variables set to ensure dot
always runs on the bare repo. Untracked files are
hidden, since technically the whole home directory is under version control.
Therefore, you need to add files before they show up in status and diff. 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
Git bash completion and the git aliases defined at the bottom of
~/.config/git/config
will also work for dot
.
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.
Mac users should follow these steps to 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.
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.
Put machine-specific stuff in ~/.dotfiles/shell/local.sh
, which gets sourced
in ~/.bashrc
if it exists. The following environment variables
are flags that accept a value of 1
or 0
(default) 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_ICONS
- Use developer icons in various tools. The icons are displayed in Neovim/Vim/Vifm/etc. by default when using Wezterm (since it ships with Nerd Font glyphs), but they can be disabled by setting the option to0
. If you don't use Wezterm, make sure to install a Nerd Font (e.g.dot deps -t font
) before setting the option to1
.
I learned and stole a lot from the following sources. There are credits/links in specific files as well, when relevant.