Brandon Invergo

A few years ago I read a blog post [0] on using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles, I loved the idea and it inspired me to create xdot, a minimalist dotfiles manager [1] which I have been using ever since. [0]: https://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-y… [1]: https://github.com/malobre/xdot

stow is pretty great http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

For anyone interested in this topic, [0] contains the best setup I've found for storing dotfiles in a git repo, then linking them with GNU Stow. Steps are just: git clone https://github.com/me/my-dotfile-repo cd my-dotfile-repo stow --target=$HOME zsh stow --target=$HOME vim ... Elegant, cross-platform, easy to remember. [0]: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

I use stow, which has some nice advantages vs managing symlinks yourself https://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-y…

source control + GNU stow GNU Stow is a symlink farm manager which takes distinct packages of software and/or data located in separate directories on the filesystem, and makes them appear to be installed in the same place. For example, /usr/local/bin could contain symlinks to files within /usr/local/stow/emacs/bin, /usr/local/stow/perl/bin etc., and likewise recursively for any other subdirectories such as .../share, .../man, and so on. https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

If on *nix, gnu stow + git is the holy grail (imo). https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

For dotfiles, a good workflow seem to have a git/hg repo and combine it with GNU stow. http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

I do this as well! I have this repo [0] at ~/cfg, then I symlink what I need [1] as an init script. My end goal is to be able to run a single script and get everything [2] set up on a new machine (I change machines somewhat frequently and I got the manual process to under 45 minutes, so there's room for improvement). More on setting up Macs [3]. There is also GNU Stow [4] that does something similar, and probably better. 0: https://github.com/andreis/cfg 1: https://github.com/andreis/cfg/blob/master/init.sh#L64-L69 2: brew and brew cask, dotfiles ofc, and a _lot_ of system settings on mac os can be changed via the CLI, see 3: https://github.com/iCHAIT/awesome-macOS#setup 4: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

+1 for this method! Good post. I originally learned about this through: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

I actually version control my config files (https://github.com/tombert/dotfiles) after reading this tutorial:http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo… Obviously you should change that to git instead of CVS.

GNU stow and git, per this tutorial: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

If anyone is interested in setting up multiple platform dotfiles or more complicated setup, GNU stow [1] is just pure genius. It's a very simple approach which works very well for me. It's described in this blog post: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo… [1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/

I am using GNU stow [1] to share more than just Vim (though you could just do Vim) and it's been easy-breezy. ----- [1]: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

If you're managing dotfiles with Make (which I attempted once...) then may I direct you to GNU Stow instead? It's much easier to manage a bunch of files centrally and just symlink to them all: http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo…

Well, this is what you get when you rely on non-free software. But hopefully Elsevier can at least put some decent software engineers on it to make it somewhat less excruciating to use, e.g. http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-12-13-Damn-It-Mendeley.html

Which seems to be a bit of a genre, actually: - https://alexpearce.me/2016/02/managing-dotfiles-with-stow/ - https://protesilaos.com/codelog/gnu-stow-dotfiles/ - https://www.baty.net/2018/managing-dotfiles-with-gnu-stow/ - http://codys.club/blog/2015/07/07/managing-your-dotfiles-with-gnu-stow… - https://www.bharatkalluri.in/post/manage-dotfiles-using-stow/ Not to mention these closely-related pages: - http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-yo… - https://dotfiles.github.io/ - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dotfiles Seems like it’s a bit of a well-kept secret. I last used it in the early 2000s for Unix system administration, when I wanted to deploy GNU tools on Solaris boxes without blowing away the native Solaris tools. That was … just a bit of time ago.