frosch03.de/posts/2017-03-17-dotfiles

So actually I decided to start publishing my dotfiles. This is not due to the fact, that I think my configuration is in any way superior. It is much more that I'm able to have some kind of backup of my own configuration. Another nice side effect is, that I'm able to go back to a working version of a configuration. And also I'm much faster able to get a new system working, the way I'm used to.

So a lot of good reasons to publish dotfiles :-).

In the following I would like to show you three things:

• Folders - where do i put my files
• Git - how do i manage my git repository
• Scripts - how to add something

As I'm going to show you in the next section, I will put my dotfiles under version control. So typically dotfiles live within home directories. But as everything will be within my home directory, I do not like to just put my home under version control. I therefore need another location to store my dotfiles.

For various other reasons I have a folder within my home, called localStorage. Within that folder I add another folder DotFiles and that will be my location of my dotfiles.

So all files that live directly within my home, will be moved into the mentioned folder. Within home, I will keep a symbolic link which points to the moved file.

There are also files, that live within a sub folder underneath the home directory. This substructure is mirrored within DotFiles so that it could easily be shifted onto a new system without having a to remember all the sub structure to be created within home.

The whole folder DotFiles is under version control of git. I use multiple branches within that git repository. These are:

• master
• development
• incoming
• release\_github
• feature\_various

I actually are not quite sure, if I really need to have that many branches, but for now it's works for me. So I use the incoming branch for adding new config files. I use that branch to freshen up the configuration before merge them into the development. I branch of the development into feature branches for developing new configurations. The release_github branch is used to release the stuff into github. Actually that is one branch that might be not needed. And also the master branch might be unnecessary.

So the last thing I would leave here with you is an explanation of the dotAdd.sh script. I use that script to mirror the folder structure within my home, of where a dot file lives. The script extracts the relative path to the dotfile. It then checks, whether that folder structure is present in the target folder (DotFiles). If that structure isn't there yet, it's created and otherwise it's just used.

Once the remote folder structure is set up, the dotfile is moved from the home into the target folder. Last but not least, the symbolic link is put where the configuration file once was.

So with that script, it's just a single call to add another configuration under version control. For example to add my xmonad.hs under version control I have just to call:

dotAdd.sh .xmonad/xmonad.hs

That will leave a symbolic link instead of xmonad's configuration. The configuration itself is moved into the target folder. Within the script, the target folder can be configured.

And that's basically it. Dotfiles are moved into a different folder. That folder is under version control and for simplicity there is script that does the whole work for myself.

Feel free to contact me if you want me to clarify on something.