💠 dotfiles ¹

A better way to manage your dotfiles (or any other non directory-specific files ²).

You will never have to put all your dotfiles into one folder or use symlinks ever again.

(The instructions below have been made to work on Linux operating systems, specifically on Ubuntu (20.04 and 22.04) along with the prerequisite of having Git installed on your system.)

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Create a new dotfiles repository:

1. mkdir $HOME/.dotfiles
2. git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles
3. echo "alias dotfiles='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'" >> $HOME/.bashrc
4. bash
5. dotfiles config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no
6. create a new repository on GitHub (or any other Git server hosting service) but do NOT include a README.md or any other files such as a license
7. dotfiles remote add origin https://github.com/<username>/<repository_name>.git

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Add / update a dotfile:

1. dotfiles add <file/directory_name>
2. dotfiles commit -m "Add/Update <file/directory_name(s)>"
3. dotfiles push ³

Update all dotfiles:

1. dotfiles add -u
2. dotfiles commit -m "Update all files"
3. dotfiles push ³

Remove a dotfile:

1. dotfiles rm <file_name> or dotfiles rm -r <directory_name>
2. dotfiles commit -m "Remove <file/directory_name(s)>"
3. dotfiles push ³

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Update the local repository:

• dotfiles pull

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Clone (download) a dotfiles repository:

1. echo "alias dotfiles='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'" >> $HOME/.bashrc
2. echo '.dotfiles' >> .gitignore
   3a. git clone --bare https://github.com/<username>/<repository_name>.git $HOME/.dotfiles (general dotfiles repository)
   3b. git clone --bare https://github.com/zahradnik-ondrej/dotfiles.git $HOME/.dotfiles (this dotfiles repository)
3. bash
4. dotfiles checkout -f
5. dotfiles config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no
6. bash

Footnotes

1. Inspired by a YouTube video from DistroTube - Git Bare Repository - A Better Way To Manage Dotfiles and a blog post by Nicola Paolucci - Dotfiles: Best Way to Store in a Bare Git Repository. ↩

2. While this approach mainly serves as a better way to manage dotfiles, there is nothing special about it so that it couldn't be used for other types of files. That means you could use this approach for backing up any kind of data such as documents (Word, PDF, etc.), media files (pictures, videos, music) or software, especially if you are hosting your own Git server or paying for one (that's mainly due to storage, security and privacy concerns when it comes to backing up your data this way). ↩

3. You might sometimes come across this or similar error message which prevents you from pushing (uploading) your dotfiles to the repository when you run the dotfiles push command: To https://github.com/<username>/<repository_name>.git ! [rejected] main -> main (fetch first) error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/<username>/<repository_name>.git' hint: Updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do not have locally. This is usually caused by another repository pushing to the same ref. You may want to first integrate the remote changes (e.g., 'git pull ...') before pushing again. See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details. To solve this issue, simply run the dotfiles pull command which will then proceed to open your default text editor. You can then just exit the text editor (for nano: Ctrl + x / for emacs: Ctrl + x followed by Ctrl + c) and run the dotfiles push command once again and everyting should be taken care of. ↩ ↩² ↩³