_   _                           _
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|  \| |/ _ \| '_ ` _ \ / _` |/ _` |
| |\  | (_) | | | | | | (_| | (_| |
|_| \_|\___/|_| |_| |_|\__,_|\__,_|

Nomad

Nomad is my personal dotfile repository. Much has been 'borrowed' from the many other excellent dotfile repositories out there, but then broken down and reassembled to suit my personal tastes, needs, and working style.

To paraphrase the YADR documentation: "Vim is the best editor. Zsh is the best shell. Solarized is the best colour scheme..." BUT I work as a consultant and contractor. I might find myself working on my OS X laptop, a modern FreeBSD installation, a Debian machine, and a crufty old server with minimal facilities within the space of a day. This repository is my attempt to make the best of whatever is available, in order to provide myself with the most productive environment possible.

Shell

Aliases

Git

• kco - git checkout
• kci - git commit
• kcia - git commit --all
• kcp - git cherry-pick
• kd - git diff
• kdc - git diff --cached
• kf - git fetch
• kl - git log
• klg - git log --graph --all with custom format
• kp - git push
• kpf - git push -f

Misc. Utilities

• ncd - Create and change into a new directory in one step

Vim

Vim Keymaps

Command-T

• ,t - fuzzy match filenames.
• ,b - fuzzy match buffers.

Vim Plugins

• LustyJuggler
• LustyExplorer
• Ack
• Fugitive
• Command-T
• Gundo
• NERDCommenter
• Syntastic
• Tabular
• Tagbar
• Ultisnips
• Abolish
• Coffeescript
• Solarized
• Repeat
• Surround

Nix Home Manager

Fresh installation

$ cd $HOME/.nomad
$ nix-shell
$ home-manager --flake . switch

GNU Stow

When working on a remote system, I often find that it doesn't have all the tools and libraries that I might wish for. Assuming I have root and the tool I want is packaged for the relevant distribution or OS, no problem. However, if I don't have admin, or I want to install the software using options other than those with which it was packaged (this is often the case with Vim) then I end up compiling it by hand.

The problem with this approach is the lack of package management; over time you lose track of what belongs to what and upgrades and uninstallation become difficult.

GNU Stow solves the problem by automatically managing a symlink farm; allowing you to install each package in its own directory and then merging them together into a shared tree.

Nomad doesn't come with Stow, but does support it if you need it.

To get started:

1. Create $HOME/.nomad/local

2. Install Stow in $HOME/.nomad/local/stow/stow-X.Y.Z

3. Re-exec your shell (ez)

4. $STOW_DIR/stow-X.Y.Z/bin/stow stow-X.Y.Z

5. Read the Stow documentation for the details of package installation, but in essence:

   $ ./configure --prefix $HOME/.nomad/local
   $ make
   $ make install prefix=$HOME/.nomad/local/stow/package-X.Y.Z
   $ stow package-X.Y.Z
   

NPM

NPM 'global' installations are installed in $HOME/.npm-packages

Stow and node.js

There are a few quirks when using node.js with GNU Stow, due to the fact that node.js is itself a package manager.

To start with, you'll need a version of Python that supports the bz2 module. To test if yours does, run python -c 'import bz2'. If it exits silently, all is well. If not you might find yourself needing to install libbzip2 and a custom version of Python. To do this:

1. Download and unpack the bzip2 source.

2. Run the following in the source directory:

   $ make -f Makefile-libbz2_so
   $ make install PREFIX=$HOME/.nomad/local/stow/bzip2
   

3. stow bzip2

4. Build and install Python in the usual way; it should pick up on your local bzip2 installation.

5. Once the python -c 'import bz2 test is passing, download and unpack the node.js source.

6. Build and install node.js as normal, except that instead of the 'split prefix' approach described in the main Stow section you should:

   $ configure --prefix=$HOME/.nomad/local/stow/node-x.y.z
   $ make
   $ make install
   

7. stow node-x.y.z

8. You should now be able to do 'global' installations, such as npm install -g handlebars and have it install to $HOME/.nomad/local/stow/node-x.y.z/bin/handlebars

9. In summary, this results in node keeping everything neatly within the prefix it was configured with, but you need to re-Stow node every time you install a new package to create the new symlinks required.