Toothbrush

This repository holds my self contained unobtrusive dot(less)files that I published here to the request of friends and colleagues. I don't know if the thing as a whole can be of any use to anyone given the fact that dotfiles are as personal as a toothbrush, but if you find some interesting stuff in here do not hesitate to send me some feedback! Who knows, this could motivate me to bend all that mess carried from computers to computers since 20 years toward something a bit more impersonated.

Fun fact: Since 2024, a subset of those dotfiles is available by default on all Odoo.sh containers with a custom Odoo theme for midnight commander. Not bad for a personal tootbrush :)

Self contained

The repository can be stored anywhere and the environment will be activated when start.sh is launched. Everything needed for the environment is contained in the folder, which is convenient when connecting to remote machines through ssh because I can then literally bring my environment to the remote machine. (see sshrc)

Unobtrusive

The environment launched with start.sh will not interfere with the current user's dotfiles. When launched, start.sh will point $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and other environment variables to one of it's subfolder, and when the shell is exited, the underlying configuration is back and untainted.

dot(less)files

By using $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and other tricks, I manage to keep my so-called "dotfiles" actually without dots in their filenames which is of course an unobjective preference. To make the environment persistent, it is possible to trigger start.sh -i than will symlink the start.sh script itself to the following locations (making backups of existing files if any):

- ~/.bashrc
- ~/.profile
- ~/.xsessionrc (this one is experimental, use at your own risks)
- ~/.zshrc

I doubt those could be of any use to anyone as-is because of the chaotic structure and all the bloat accumulated since 20 years of linux usage, but some friends asked me to have a look at them so here they are.

Platforms

I try to maintain this environment for the following platforms:

• Linux Debian, Kali, Ubuntu and derivates
• OSX with Homebrew (assuming that the [GNU coreutils] (http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/69332) shadows the BSD versions, including less)
• Cygwin (I use it rarely so don't expect it to work thoroughly -- like the rest :-)

with the following shells:

• bash
• zsh

What's cool ?

• sshrc: allows you to connect to a remote host and bring the environment with you.

  $ sshrc remote.host

  You might want to configure the remote location of the uploaded config so just run profile (when running the environment) and uncomment+edit the SSHRC_LOCATION value.

• vimrc: my vimrc is not exceptional but it has some funny stuff you'd might be interested to look at, unless you're an emacs user. Don't forget to install the plugin the first time you run it ( :PluginInstall ). I also have integration with terminator and vim/neovim. When -clicking on a filename it will be opened in a vim/neovim instance whose cwd is equal to or is parent of the file's path. This is very specific to my workflow tough as I use one terminal tab per project and one vim instance in each tab's pane. An animated gif is worth a thousand word:

TODO

Quick testing

If you just want to give a quick test:

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/amigrave/toothbrush; ./toothbrush/start.sh

To make it permanent at login:

$ ~/toothbrush/start.sh -i

Note: start.sh -i will backup any existing file before doing the symlink

Warning

start.sh and it's ability to be symlinked to .profile, .bashrc, ... is a horrible hack. A clever hack if you ask me but a hack nevertheless.

If you install it with start.sh -i I suggest your first test without the .xsessionrc symlink because I didn't tested it on all Display Managers (far from it) and an error in the script during the loading of the X session will result to a logout and a return to the DM login screen, hence it's a nightmare to debug.

Note