Dotfiles

This repository contains the configurations of most of the tools I use in my terminal. These configurations are either defined as single (hidden) files at the root of this repository, or as files in sub-directories inside the ./.config/ directory, which also often come with individual REAMDE.md files.

Requirements

To use these configuration files, you need:

• Git, to clone this repository

• (optional) GNU Stow, to set up all the configurations at once with a single command (this might not be recommended for everyone, see details below)

• (optional) GNU Make, to use Stow with the recommended command and some additional set up

Usage

Cloning the repository

For Stow to work, the content of this repository needs to be cloned inside a sub-directory of your home directory. For instance, you can clone this repository with:

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/clementjumel/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles

If you don't want to use Stow, you can clone the repository anywhere you want, and you can skip the following section, but you'll need to set up the configuration files manually, for instance by creating symbolic links (like Stow), or copying or moving files around.

Creating symbolic links using Stow and Make

Using Stow will automatically create most of the relevant symbolic links to the configuration files in this repository. This is convenient if you want to use all the configuration files (which is my case), but this might not be what you want, and, more importantly, this might mess up existing configuration files. Hence, I recommend to use Stow only if you want the whole configuration and if you have backed up all your important configuration files, by creating local copies or, even better, by versionning them with a Version Control System like Git.

I recommand to use stow through the Makefile provided in this repository with the make command from within the ~/dotfiles directory, as it contains the right stow command as well as additional set up. This will create all the relevant symbolic links in your home directory ~/ and in sub-directories of ~/.config, replacing any conflicting configuration file. The content of any replaced configuration files will not be lost, though, it will be adopted by the linked file. If you want to discard the replaced configuration, you need to discard these changes in the ~/dotfiles directory. However, calling the make command will not install any software, this depends on your operating system and needs to be done manually for each relevant tool.

You can look for further instructions, especially operating-system-dependent installation instructions, in the README.md files in the sub-directories in ./.config/, if any, and in the tools' own documentations.

Neovim configuration

I use Neovim as my main text and code editor. Being a fork of a public repository, its configuration is versioned in a dedicated repository. I first started with a full-feature distribution of Neovim, installable with a one-liner, called NvChad, and versioned in this repository. However, I ended switching to a smaller but more customizable distribution, called kickstart.nvim, versioned in this repository.