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?
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
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 runvim-config/scripts/install-cfg
to keep your config files up-to-date.Right! Recursive is implied by
-a
Yep. There’s a single
./install
script in project root that callsinstall-cfg
andinstall-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 simplegit pull
will update my dotfiles’ content automatically, as everything is symlinked already.Nice! I never knew cp could do that. No more struggling to remember in which order the
ln
parameters should be!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 ascp
andmv
:cp FROM TO mv FROM TO ln [-s] FROM TO
Maybe that could help!