Hello, i would like to know how you manage your dotfiles.

Do you use some gui or tui?

There are many ways i don’t what to do.

Probably im going to do git repo with lazygit. I like tuis. I am managing files on two artix linux systems 1- pc and 2- laptop

  • Ooops@feddit.org
    1·
    7 minutes ago

    I do manage them via git. But I only do it so have settings (and their changes) synchonised between 2 PCs and a laptop.

    With just one main device I don’t even see a reason to “manage” anything… a basic backup strategy completely independent of just dotfiles aside.

  • Grntrenchman@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 hours ago

    Nothing at all. If things go south on the install I’ll have a clean slate. Really the only thing I have backed up are keys, everything else is nonessential.

    • chaos@beehaw.org
      1·
      16 minutes ago

      It doesn’t have to be a big baroque thing. When there’s a dotfile I configure regularly, I move it to a Git repo and use stow to put it “back” into place with a symlink. On new machines, it isn’t long before I try something that doesn’t work or see the default shell prompt and go “oh yeah, I want my dotfiles”, check out the repo, run a script that initializes a few things (some stuff is machine-specific so the script makes files for that stuff with helpful comments for me to remember the differences between login shells or whatever) and then I’m off to the races.

      • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
        2·
        11 minutes ago

        So its more a general question how to backup (with versioning) these files. I just always wondered what “manage” in this context meant. I don’t handle them differently than any other file to backup.

  • hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org
    32·
    7 hours ago

    I don’t… when setting up a new system I just copy what I need from any random machine I have logged into at the time. As I need different config for different systems it doesn’t really make sense to have one perfect config on all either…

    • flatbield@beehaw.orgEnglish
      4·
      7 hours ago

      Besides. What is there to really mange. There are only a few that one are likely to change. Every thing else is in /etc. Besides all of thia is in whole system backups and snapshots anyway.

  • Nick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    5 hours ago

    I just wrote a bash script copies the relevant files or directories I want to back up from either ~ or ~/.config and places them in a local git directory which I then push to a private repo on Codeberg. Super janky and manual but I update dotfiles so seldom that it works for what I need.

  • confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    2·
    4 hours ago

    I created a file tree that looks similar to my system’s file tree, except it only contains all the files that I modified or added and only their respective directories. From there I just use rsync to sync those files/file tree to the system’s /.

    It’s convenient to see what changes I currently have but it requires a bit of manual maintenance. I only really started doing it that way because I was learning how to use rsync and I just kept going on with it because it was working for me.

    I’m only working with my laptop, android phone and two Raspberry Pi’s so I can get with my little rsync based setup.

  • tvcvt@lemmy.ml
    2·
    4 hours ago

    I do a git repo for my dot files with an installer that configures it based on whether I’m using Linux, macOS, or FreeBSD; a server or desktop; and whether I’m in bash or zsh. It also includes a bunch of functions and aliases that I find useful. It’s not always pretty because I also use it as a practical place to try new shell script bits when I have time. I’m hoping to change some things around soon thanks to some ideas from Dave Eddy’s bash course at ysap.sh.

    • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      4 hours ago

      i used to do this, but couldn’t figure out how to stay on top of the changes introduced by distro’s and updates to the apps; did you figure these out somehow?

      • tvcvt@lemmy.ml
        1·
        2 hours ago

        I pretty much stick to straight bash and core utils, so it’s not much of a burden. Plus on the Linux side, I mostly stay with Debian and its derivatives, which limits some of the work.

        But really I don’t consider every feature of my dot files to be a finished product. The core stuff is reliable, but if I catch a problem with anything more esoteric or if I see some functionality that looks interesting, it’s a brain teaser I get to tackle.

  • Hundun@beehaw.org
    13·
    8 hours ago

    I used to have everything in a git repo, but nowadays I use Nix with Home Manager, and I don’t want to look back.