Dotfiles and version control

JonnyRobbie · 2015-09-24 20:30:04

I was reading through the wiki page https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dotfiles, and there was one thing that I'm still unsure about. The page suggests to treat whole home folder as a git folder. And while it suggests to exclude everything at the beginning, I cannot help but wonder, what are the advantages/disadvantages over creating a separate folder, symlinking dotfiles into that and sharing it on github? What's safer/more used/good practice/etc?

graysky · 2015-09-24 20:33:33

Don't think there's a right answer to your question.

JonnyRobbie · 2015-09-24 20:34:49

That's why I don't want answers, but opinions.

Alad · 2015-09-24 20:53:58

Some people use "symlink farms" because they fear commands like `git clean` will delete untracked files. Thing is, when you exclude everything, there's no untracked files. So it's added complexity at little to no benefit.

Last edited by Alad (2015-09-24 20:55:28)

ayekat · 2015-09-24 21:02:18

Otherwise there is vcsh. But this adds an additional dependency for handling my dotfiles, and I'm usually happy if I can fetch my dotfiles repo from any machine that's got git (which is usually a reasonable assumption), so I don't use it personally. But some people combine it with mr.

Last edited by ayekat (2015-09-24 21:04:42)

Slithery · 2015-09-24 21:08:51

I use dotbot to handle my dotfiles.

Take a look at the link in my sig if you want to see how I've set everything up.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-09-24 20:30:04

Dotfiles and version control

#2 2015-09-24 20:33:33

Re: Dotfiles and version control

#3 2015-09-24 20:34:49

Re: Dotfiles and version control

#4 2015-09-24 20:53:58

Re: Dotfiles and version control

#5 2015-09-24 21:02:18

Re: Dotfiles and version control

#6 2015-09-24 21:08:51

Re: Dotfiles and version control

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