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Dylan Kinnett edited this page Dec 22, 2021 · 3 revisions

These are configuration files I use across a variety of environments including two Windows desktops (running Ubuntu within Windows) and two Ubuntu laptops. Do I still use Mac OS sometimes?

Files Overview

I don't use all of these but this list helps me to remember what different dotfiles are supposed to do.

.bash_profile Customizes the terminal

.gitconfig Global Git configuration to specify my name and email, shortcuts, colors, and more.

.gitignore Global git ignore list of files to exclude from git repositories

.bashrc - Gets run when bash is not a login prompt

.bash_profile - Gets run when bash is a login prompt

.inputrc - Configuration for everything that uses libreadline (including bash)

.profile - like .bash_profile, except works for any bourne shell, not just bash

.xprofile - no idea

.xinitrc - clients to run for startx command.

.xinitrc - runs when you use xinit either directly or through startx. Useful if you don't use a login, to run commands for window manager, etc.

.xprofile - is pretty much the same thing, but for the login manager.

.inputrc - configures readline, which a lot of things use, so that's where you put your global keyboard combos and data input preferences.

.profile - is supposed to be sourced by every shell that is run as a login shell. These days, with graphical environments and terminal multiplexers, this means almost every shell, but originally, this would only execute once per login, PATH for example.

If your login shell is bash, it will first try to find .bash_profile, which a bash specific replacement for .profile. If it fails (and only if it fails) it will try to find and source .bash_login, another bash specific replacement for .profile. Only after it fails to find .bash_profile or .bash_login will it consider running .profile.

.bashrc will load and reload on every session, so it is good for aliases, functions, and so on. It is only sourced by non-login shells, though. Since you need aliases in login shells as well, almost every .profile, .bash_profile and .bash_login in the world contain something like:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi

.config/ - config files for applications go here. For example .config/i3/ and config/xfe/ store the configs for the i3 window manager and the xfe file explorer.

.fonts/ - user's installed fonts go here. All in one folder or using subdirectories, however you like.

sources:

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