Overview

This is a collection of my global dotfiles which remain same across my different machines. Rather than overriding the existing dotfiles files in the machine, it creates references in the existing dotfiles to these global files.

Requirements

• git (only needed for fresh-machine bootstrap)

Installation

Clone the repo and run the installer:

  git clone https://github.com/sharjeel/dotfiles.git ~/.personalconfig
  cd ~/.personalconfig
  ./install.sh

For full setup (core + optional tools) in one command:

  ./install-enhanced.sh

Or use one-step bootstrap on a fresh machine:

  bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sharjeel/dotfiles/master/bootstrap.sh)"

Optional dry run:

  ./install.sh --dry-run

For Windows, use install.py (currently emacs-focused).

Optional Tools

Install optional utilities and shell add-ons (cross-platform best-effort: Linux/macOS/FreeBSD):

  ./install-optional.sh

This also enables Prezto autosuggestions in ~/.zpreztorc during setup.

Useful flags:

  ./install-optional.sh --dry-run
  ./install-optional.sh --skip-chsh
  ./install-optional.sh --skip-python
  ./install-optional.sh --only-zsh

install-enhanced.sh forwards the same flags to install-optional.sh and also honors --dry-run for install.sh.

Testing

Run automated smoke checks in a clean Podman container:

  ./test/container-smoke.sh test

Open an interactive shell in the same clean environment (repo mounted at ~/.personalconfig) for rapid manual testing:

  ./test/container-smoke.sh shell

Rebuild only the base test image:

  ./test/container-smoke.sh build

For faster repeated apt-get update in shell mode, the script persists apt metadata/cache in Podman volumes: dotfiles-apt-lists and dotfiles-apt-cache (override via APT_LISTS_VOLUME / APT_CACHE_VOLUME).

The smoke image also pre-installs common Ubuntu optional packages (best-effort), so rerunning install-optional.sh in shell mode is usually much faster.

The test image already includes zsh for faster iteration, and install.sh still installs zsh if missing on real machines (runs apt-get update before apt-get install zsh on Debian/Ubuntu). This may require sudo on non-root hosts.