Dotfiles

Dotfiles for Linux and MacOS.

Structure

• At the top level are directories for each operating system:

  • common: Contains dotfiles common to MacOS and Linux.
  • linux: Contains dotfiles specific to Linux.
  • macos: Contains dotfiles specific to MacOS.

• Within each OS directory, each subdirectory is a parcel, containing dotfiles, setup, and install commands for a program or related set of programs.

Deployment

Deploying With Robot

• The easiest way to deploy the dotfiles is with Robot Framework with my custom Dotfiles Library.

Setting Up Robot

• Install dependencies and bring them into the current shell's PATH.

  • Option 1: Run the following in your shell:

  DOTFILES=<path to git root directory of this repo>
  source bootstrap.sh

  • Option 2: If you are already using direnv, you can enable the repo's .envrc file to automatically load and unload the dependencies from your PATH when you enter and leave the directory.

    • The dotfiles contain a parcel to set up direnv once they are deployed.

• Both options will run the following steps:

  1. Install asdf from source to ~/.asdf.
  2. Use asdf to install the latest version of python.
  3. Create and load a python virtual environment.
  4. Install pip packages from requirements.txt to the virtual environment.
  5. Set default options for the robot command when invoked.
  • On future runs, the installation steps will be skipped. Only the dependencies will be added to the PATH.

Invoking Robot

• Each parcel contains a .robot file with commands for linking dotfiles, installing programs, and other general setup for that parcel.

• All .robot setup files are idempotent.

• Tags are applied to Robot tasks to select which parcels to deploy. Current tags are:

  • macos: works on MacOS.
  • linux: works on Linux.
    • xorg: requires X window system on Linux.
    • no-de: Intended for use only on a Linux installation without a desktop environment.
  • headless: only requires a shell to work.

• Default options for Robot are set automatically in .envrc and bootstrap.sh, but more options can be added when Robot is run.

  • The linux or macos tag will be included automatically based on the result of uname -s.
  • The output directory for Robot logs is set to .logs.
  • Variables will be set to configure execution of the DotfilesLibrary.

• To deploy all dotfiles for the current OS with symlinks, run robot . from the top level directory.

• To additionally install required programs, run robot -v INSTALL_WITH:<package manager> .

  • <package manager> must be one of the functions defined in installer.sh corresponding to a package manager to use.

• After installing, some configurations will require logging out and back in to take effect.

Manual Deployment

• In some cases, like sshing to a server, installing new packages may not be desired or permitted.

• The headless.sh script can be run from the top level directory to only symlink configs for headless dotfiles without installing anything.

  • This is a pure shell script with no dependencies.

• This is useful to configure common programs like bash and vim that most machines already have, even if you cannot or do not want to install anything new.