Dot files

Managing dot files using GNU stow

It is really simple managing dotfiles using GNU stow.

How it works

Stow manages dot files using symbolic links. Create a dotfiles directory in $HOME directory to keep all the dotfiles to be managed by stow.

Each dot file in the ~/dotfiles/<dotfile_name> directory must have the same directory structure as the dotfile from ~. For example, if .zshrc is in ~, then it must be located at ~/dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc.

So, we want to backup ~/.tmux.conf then in the ~/dotfiles directory, it would be located at ~/.dotfiles/tmux. Feel fee to name the directories as you please. Directory names are not important,just that the files in the directory must be at the same location from $HOME (~) directory.

Limitations

A limitation of stow is that is does not support multiple profiles. But that can be a workaround by just creating a unique repo for all “different” computers.

TL;DR

md ~/dotfiles ~/dotfiles/zsh ~/dotfiles/tmux ~/dotfiles/p10k

cp ~/.zshrc ~/.zshrc.backup
cp ~/.tmux.conf ~/.tmux.conf
cp ~/.p10k.zsh ~/.p10k.zsh.backup

mv ~/.zshrc ~/dotfiles/zsh
mv ~/.tmux.conf ~/dotfiles/tmux
mv ~/.p10k.conf ~/p10k

cd ~/dotfiles

stow zsh
stow tmux
stow p10k

touch .stow-local-ignore
echo ".git" >> ".stow-local-ignore"
echo ".gitignore" >> ".stow-local-ignore"

touch .stow-global-ignore
echo "/.DS_Store" >> .stow-global-ignore

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Added dot files with stow"

Step By Step Guide

Install stow

Download and install GNU stow.

sudo apt install stow

Create `~/dotfiles` directory

Create a directory called dotfiles in home directory ~.

md ~/dotfiles

Backup existing dotfiles

Now, to backup ~/.zshrc, first create a backup of the same file.

cp ~/.zshrc ~/.zshrc.backup

Create a directory called zsh inside /dotfiles where .zshrc will live.

md ~/.zshrc

Then, move the ~/.zshrc to ~/dotfiles/zsh.

mv ~/.zshrc ~/dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc

Move dotfiles to appropriate directories in `~/dotfiles`

Do this process for all the dot files that you want to manage.

cp ~/.tmux.conf ~/.tmux.conf.backup
mv ~/.tmux.conf ~/dotfiles/tmux

cp ~/.p10k.zsh ~/.p10k.zsh.backup
mv ~/.p10k.zsh ~/dotfiles/p10k

cp ~/.tmux.conf ~/.tmux.conf.backup
mv ~/.tmux.conf ~/dotfiles/tmux

Directory structure of `~/dotfiles`

The directory structure should look something like this. There is a file called .stow-local-ignore, more about that later.

- - .zshrc
- - .tmux.conf
- - .p10k.zsh
- .stow-local-ignore
- .stow-global-ignore

Have stow create the symbolic links

Now, from the ~/dotfiles directory, run stow <directory_name>, for example, stow zsh for .zshrc. Stow will automatically create a symbolic link to ~/.zshrc from ~/dotfiles/.zshrc.

cd ~/dotfiles

stow zsh
stow p10k
stow tmux

Initialize git repo

Initialize a git repo.

git init

Add files and directories to `.stow-local-ignore` and `.stow-global-ignore`

❓

Add any files or directories that you want to ignore in the .stow-local-ignore and .stow-global-ignore files. For example, you can add .git to .stow-local-ignore so that stow ignores the git directory.

.stow-local-ignore file is like a .gitignore file for stow. .stow-local-ignore ignores per package (directory) and .stow-global-ignore ignores files and directories globally.

We will add .git to .stow-local-ignore so the stow ignores that directory.

.git
.gitignore

Push to github

Push to a github repo.

git push origin main

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