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 /bin/zsh

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

Supported Platforms

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

Cygwin

When you install dotfiles under Cygwin the bootstrap script tries to create native NTFS symlinks by exporting 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 <somewhere>
$ cd <somewhere>
$ ./bootstrap

The bootstrap script installs 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 in /home/agross for platform linux
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles == /home/agross/.dotfiles
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/bash/bash_profile.symlink == /home/agross/.bash_profile
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/bash/bashrc.symlink == /home/agross/.bashrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/bash/inputrc.symlink == /home/agross/.inputrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/git/git-wtfrc.symlink == /home/agross/.git-wtfrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/git/gitshrc.symlink == /home/agross/.gitshrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/git/gitconfig.symlink == /home/agross/.gitconfig
  [ INFO ] Skipped /home/agross/.dotfiles/mintty as it is excluded for platform linux
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/ruby/gemrc.symlink == /home/agross/.gemrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/ruby/guard.rb.symlink == /home/agross/.guard.rb
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/ruby/irbrc.symlink == /home/agross/.irbrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/screen/screenrc.symlink == /home/agross/.screenrc
  [ INFO ] Skipped /home/agross/.dotfiles/ssh as it is excluded for platform linux
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/vim/vim.symlink == /home/agross/.vim
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/vim/vimrc.symlink == /home/agross/.vimrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/wget/wgetrc.symlink == /home/agross/.wgetrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/zsh/zlogin.symlink == /home/agross/.zlogin
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/zsh/zprofile.symlink == /home/agross/.zprofile
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/zsh/zshrc.symlink == /home/agross/.zshrc
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/zsh/zshenv.symlink == /home/agross/.zshenv
  [  OK  ] Linked /home/agross/.dotfiles/tmux/tmux.conf.symlink to /home/agross/.tmux.conf

  [ 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
|  ├─ .exclude-platforms     # bootstrapper #1: specifies excluded platforms for this topic
|  ├─ example.symlink        # bootstrapper #2: symlinked to ~/.example
|  ├─ .install.sh            # bootstrapper #3: performs additional installation after symlinking
|  ├─ zprofile.zsh           # zsh #1: run for login shells
|  ├─ path.zsh               # zsh #2: modifies $PATH
|  ├─ something.zsh          # zsh #3: additional setup
|  ├─ postinit.zsh           # zsh #4: run after additional setup
|  └─ completion.zsh         # zsh #5: zsh completion setup
└─ git
   ├─ bin                    # contains git scripts
   |  └─ git-specific-script
   ├─ gitconfig.symlink      # symlinked to ~/.gitconfig
   ├─ 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.

bootstrap-specific files

topic/*.symlink

Files and directories with a .symlink extension are symlinked to your home directory with the .symlink extension removed and a dot character prepended.

There is an implicit symlink for the dotfiles directory itself: It will always be symlinked to $HOME/.dotfiles (unless you git cloned the dotfiles there.)

topic/.install.sh

An optional installer script that is run after the topic's symlinks have been created.

topic/.exclude-platforms

bootstrap will not process the topic if the current platform is listed in the file (one platform per line). The bootstrapper currently detects platforms cygwin, windows, linux, mac, msys and freebsd.

If the .exclude-platforms file does not exist or if it is empty, the topic is processed on all platforms.

zsh-specific files

I use the excellent zplug project to manage my zsh plugins and initialization.

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

topic/**/zprofile.zsh

These 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.

topic/**/path.zsh

These files are expected to modify the PATH environment variable and are loaded before other scripts below are run.

topic/**/*.zsh

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

topic/**/postinit.zsh

Postinit scripts are loaded last, i.e. after all zplug plugins are loaded and before completion setup is run. Put any last-minute setup here. I use them on Windows to make my Cygwin SSH agent environment variables known system-wide.

topic/**/completion.zsh

Completion scripts are run after zplug calls zsh's compinit to initializes 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.