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Managing dotfiles with GNU stow (alexpearce.me)

submitted 1 year ago by dark776174657273@lemmy.sdf.org to c/vim@lemmy.sdf.org

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Does anyone have experience using GNU Stow for managing dot files? I'm especially interested in using it to build a git repo to include my .vimrc file so I can sync it between hosts.

I know I've seen other methods, such as making your home directory a bare git repo, so you can check-in your config files without moving them. There is also the chezmoi golang project.

How do others sync .vimrc between hosts?

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[–] igemnace@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree with @glad_cat@lemmy.sdf.org, all of these are just different ways to skin the cat. Whatever gets the files in the proper directories. Once you pick one (even arbitrarily, to a degree), you'll very likely find no reason to push you toward another solution. I myself use symlinks with GNU cp -s

[–] dark776174657273@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've never heard of cp -faTs before. I did some experimenting and was surprised that it was recursive. I thought you needed an -R for that, but you don't. So, cp -faRTs appears to do the same thing, but is funnier.

In any case, thanks for sharing your repo. I take it, that after the initial install, you can just repeatedly git pull https://git.sr.ht/~igemnace/vim-config and then run vim-config/scripts/install-cfg to keep your config files up-to-date.

[–] igemnace@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Right! Recursive is implied by -a

Yep. There's a single ./install script in project root that calls install-cfg and install-plugins. I only really need to run it once (first time I set up on a machine), and every time I add a new file. If all I've done is update existing files, a simple git pull will update my dotfiles' content automatically, as everything is symlinked already.

[–] nsp@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice! I never knew cp could do that. No more struggling to remember in which order the ln parameters should be!

[–] igemnace@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Worth noting that this is GNU-specific! For macOS for example, you'd have to install GNU userland (e.g. from homebrew) to get the flag. There's still value in using other solutions (such as ln), portability-wise.

As an aside: I mostly think of the ln param orders as exactly the same as cp and mv:

cp FROM TO
mv FROM TO
ln [-s] FROM TO

Maybe that could help!