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Dotfiles Bare Repo

This is my second attempt at a dotfiles repo. The first attempt simply turned my $HOME directory into a repo with a .gitignore of *. This went ok, and I was able to set up a new computer with relative ease. But I kept running into issues with the setup, so I decided to go with another approach — a bare repo.

For more details about the issues I ran into in my first iteration, and an explanation of bare repos and their use in version-controlling your dotfiles, see my blog post on the subject.

Basic Features

  1. Collection of configuration files in .config/
  2. Collection of aliases in .aliases/
  3. An installation script, .scripts/initial-install.sh
  4. A backup script, .scripts/backup.sh

Setting up a new machine

These are the steps one would take to setup their dotfiles repo on a new machine. You could use them to try out this repo for yourself if you wanted to — just go through all the files and remove what you don't need. But I'd recommend taking a more DIY approach, following the initial setup instructions I give at the bottom of the page.

  1. Clone repo as non-bare repository

    # Clones as non-bare repo, so you get all the files and not just the history
git clone \
   --separate-git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles \
   git@github.com:kvnloughead/dotfiles.git \
   dotfiles-tmp

# --separate-git-dir places git history in ~/.dotfiles instead of `./.git`
# Working tree will be placed in `./dotfiles`.

  2. Copy the working tree to where each file should go.

    # I'm not sure if it is necessary to exclude `.git`.
rsync --recursive --verbose --exclude '.git' dotfiles-tmp/ $HOME/

  3. rm -rf dotfiles-tmp

  4. Run the install script with ~/.scripts/initial-install.sh.

    This script is nothing fancy, and far from perfect. It's really just a long list of commands that I've been compiling of programs that I figure I'll probably want on a new machine. I'd suggest pruning to suit your own needs.

Workflow

Once you have everything setup, the workflow is basically the same as with a normal repository.

dotgit add some-file
dotgit commit -m "message"
dotgit push origin main

The main difference is that it is somewhat trickier to manage file tracking.

Initial Setup

Instructions for getting a new dotfiles bare repo setup. I'm relying heavily on an [article by Greg Owens](https://stegosaurusdormant.com/ bare-git-repo/#fnref:no-home-git-repo) for these instructions.

  1. Create a new bare Git repo in ~/.dotfiles to store the history for your dotfiles. Feel free to change the directory name.

    git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles

  2. Git commands won't work without the addition of a few flags. You should create an alias to save you a lot of typing. Feel free to change the alias — I'm using dg. Add this to .bashrc and run source .bashrc.

    alias dotgit='git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'

# --git-dir tells git where the git history is
# --work-tree tells git where working tree is

  3. Ignore untracked files. I am torn between using this and adding a .gitignore with * in it the $HOME. Ignoring the untracked files is not without its annoyances (see comments).

    dotgit config status.showUntrackedFiles no

    Helpfully, when using this setting if you run dotgit status you'll be prompted with "(use -u to show untracked files)". Unfortunately, the -u flag shows everything in .dotfiles bare repo, recursively. With the -unormal flag, dotgit status shows only untracked files and directories in the cwd.

  4. Setup remote repo

    dotgit remote add origin remote-url

  5. Start adding files.