dotfiles

dotfiles store your personal settings. These are mine. When compared to Windows' broken registry, dotfiles are bliss.

Shell

I use zsh as my shell, because it's so much better than bash. Want to search your history using wildcards? No problem! Just bindkey '^R' history-incremental-pattern-search-backward.

zsh runs on Windows only through Cygwin. Other platforms support it natively through <package manager> install zsh; chsh --shell $(which zsh)

Don't expect a fancy bash setup, my dotfiles are organized around zsh.

Supported Platforms

I use these dotfiles on Windows, Cygwin, macOS and Linux. They should work on msysgit (a.k.a. Git for Windows) as well, but I don't use it on a daily basis.

Cygwin

When you install dotfiles under Cygwin the bootstrap script tries to create native NTFS symlinks by running ln with CYGWIN=winsymlinks:nativestrict.

Native NTFS symlinks can only be created if you are either an Administrator in an elevated shell or if you have the SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege privilege. Check with

• %SystemRoot%\system32\whoami.exe /priv (cmd.exe)
• $SYSTEMROOT/system32/whoami.exe /priv (bash or zsh)

and if necessary grant yourself this privilege.

msysgit (a.k.a. Git for Windows)

msysgit's implementation of ln just copies the file/directory to the symlink target.

As I don't use msysgit, I didn't bother working around this limitation. If you're interested in having native NTFS symlinks, you may want to code up a solution that works using this answer as a starting point and submit a pull request.

Installation

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/agross/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles
$ cd ~/.dotfiles
$ ./bootstrap

The bootstrap script installs (symlinks) dotfiles to your home directory.

The bootstrapper does not delete existing files; it will ask you for permission to overwrite files. Existing files can also be backed up before overwriting. You can run boostrap as often as you like, for example after adding new dotfiles or topics.

This is what you can expect from the boostrapper on a Linux system:

agross@linux ~/.dotfiles
$ ./bootstrap
  [ INFO ] Installing dotfiles from /home/agross/.dotfiles

  [ INFO ] Installing dotfiles to $HOME=/home/agross for $OSTYPE=linux
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles == /home/agross/.dotfiles
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/bash/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/bash/bash_profile == /home/agross/.bash_profile
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/bash/bashrc == /home/agross/.bashrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/bash/inputrc == /home/agross/.inputrc
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/git/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/git/gitconfig == /home/agross/.gitconfig
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/git/gitconfig.training == /home/agross/.gitconfig.training
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/git/git-wtfrc == /home/agross/.git-wtfrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/git/gitshrc == /home/agross/.gitshrc
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/mintty/bootstrap
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/ruby/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/ruby/gemrc == /home/agross/.gemrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/ruby/guard.rb == /home/agross/.guard.rb
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/ruby/irbrc == /home/agross/.irbrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/ruby/pryrc == /home/agross/.pryrc
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/screen/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/screen/screenrc == /home/agross/.screenrc
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/ssh/bootstrap
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/tmux/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/tmux/tmux.conf == /home/agross/.tmux.conf
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/vim/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/vim/vim == /home/agross/.vim
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/vim/vimrc == /home/agross/.vimrc
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/wget/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/wget/wgetrc == /home/agross/.wgetrc
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/zsh/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/zsh/zprofile == /home/agross/.zprofile
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/zsh/zshenv == /home/agross/.zshenv
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/zsh/zshrc == /home/agross/.zshrc
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/htop/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/htop/htoprc == /home/agross/.htoprc
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/elixir/bootstrap
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/elixir/iex.exs == /home/agross/.iex.exs
  [ INFO ] Running /home/agross/.dotfiles/gpg/bootstrap

  [ INFO ] All installed from /home/agross/.dotfiles

Structure

dotfiles are structured around topics. Topics are directories under the dotfiles root. Each topic directory contains settings specific to the application. This organization allows for a nice separation of concerns. E.g. if you have a new application with dotfile(s) or if the application requires setup in your shell sessions, just create a new topic directory and put files underneath.

dotfiles
├─ example
|  ├─ bootstrap              # bootstrapper: script to symlink files and install additional programs
|  ├─ zshenv.zsh             # zsh #1: run for all shells
|  ├─ zprofile.zsh           # zsh #2: run for login shells
|  ├─ fpath.zsh              # zsh #3: set up the $FPATH variable
|  ├─ path.zsh               # zsh #3: set up the $PATH variable
|  ├─ something.zsh          # zsh #4: additional setup (no guaranteed order)
|  └─ completion.zsh         # zsh #5: zsh completion setup
└─ git
   ├─ bin                    # contains git scripts, invoke with `git specific-script`
   |  └─ git-specific-script
   ├─ bootstrap              # bootstrapper to create symlinks
   ├─ gitconfig              # symlinked to ~/.gitconfig by bootstrap
   ├─ aliases.zsh            # sets up git aliases
   ├─ path.zsh               # adds dotfiles/git/bin to $PATH
   └─ ...

There are some special files that either the bootstrap script or zsh reads.

The bootstrapper

The bootstrapper will create an implicit symlink for the dotfiles directory itself. $HOME/.dotfiles will point to the dotfiles clone directory unless you git cloned the dotfiles into $HOME/.dotfiles.

This makes it easier to refer to other dotfiles from within dotfiles as you can use a static path. For example, my git mergetool scripts point to $HOME/.dotfiles/git/tools.

topic/bootstrap

bootstrap will run topic-specific topic/bootstrap scripts where topic is one of the top-level subdirectories like git. These scripts can then

• symlink files using the symlink $source $target function. $target may be omitted, e.g. symlink $topic/foo will create the symlink as $HOME/.foo pointing to $DOTFILES/topic/foo.
• install additional programs at the script's discretion.

Each topic/bootstrap runs in a separate shell and has the following environment variables available:

Variable	Description
$topic	Directory of the topic of the current bootstrap script (without trailing slash)
$OSTYPE	Operating system type, e.g. linux-gnu, darwin19.0.3, cygwin, i.e. the original $OSTYPE
$HOME	Home directory for the operating system, e.g. $HOME for all Linux-style $OSTYPEs and /c/Users/<you>/ for $OSTYPE == 'windows'

zsh-specific files

I use zinit to manage my zsh plugins and shell initialization.

You can configure verbose logging of the zsh startup process by setting ZSH_VERBOSE to a nonempty value.

topic/**/zshenv.zsh and topic/**/zprofile.zsh

zshenv.zsh files are loaded for every shell. Make sure they load fast.

zprofile.zsh files are loaded for login shells only (i.e. zsh --login). I use them to run screen or tmux when connecting to a server via SSH.

Documentation on startup files.

topic/**/fpath.zsh and topic/**/path.zsh

Add to the $FPATH (function path) and $PATH (binary path) variables here so later scripts (next section) can find your topic-specific functions and executables.

topic/**/*.zsh

You can put anything you want in these, e.g. set up topic-specific aliases.

topic/**/completion.zsh

Completion scripts are run after zinit calls zsh's compinit to initialize the completion system. Put any completion-specific setup here.

Thanks

This work, especially the boostrap script, is based on the dotfiles of Zach Holman.

git-sh by Ryan Tomayko has been adapted to my needs.