Revisions: 8                   Personal Dotfiles                    Éric NICOLAS
Latest: 2026-04-25             =================                [email protected]

                           --- Usage w/ GNU Stow ---

Less is more [1]; I use Git [2] and GNU Stow [3].

    git clone [email protected]:ccjmne/dotfiles2025 dotfiles
    STOW_DIR=dotfiles      stow --dotfiles --target ~ home
    sudo STOW_DIR=dotfiles stow --dotfiles --target / root
    # STOW_DIR=dotfiles    stow --dotfiles --target ~ <workplace>

TL;DR: fzf, git, gnu, niri, nvim, tmux, zsh .............. in alphabetical order

                         --- One treacherous nicety ---

Sets XDG paths spec. vars. [4] through the PAM [5] module so as to essentially
bypass the ~/.local directory, and in general avoid using hidden files:

    XDG_CACHE_HOME  DEFAULT=@{HOME}/cache
    XDG_CONFIG_HOME DEFAULT=@{HOME}/config
    XDG_DATA_HOME   DEFAULT=@{HOME}/share
    XDG_STATE_HOME  DEFAULT=@{HOME}/state
    ZDOTDIR         DEFAULT=${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/zsh

    The runtime directory shall remain /run/user/$(id -u).

Philosophy .....................................................................

    1.  I don't want on my screen information that I don't need.
    2.  I don't want to install more software:
        I'd rather master and compose [6] the underlying tools.
    3.  Corollary: I don't want to tweak software to best suit my tastes,
        I'd rather adopt their defaults if they're sane.
    4.  I don't mind symlinks.
    5.  There's a difference between newbie-friendly and user-friendly;
        the very best tools are user-friendly.
    6.  A project that receives (little to) no new issues and commits isn't
        abandoned, it is *done*.

Post-install ...................................................................

    Log out and back in for PAM to pick up and propagate desired configuration.

    Set up the preferred locale, en_NZ.utf8 (configured in /etc/locale.conf):

        sudo locale-gen $LANG

    Install packages:

        sudo xargs pacman -Syu < PACKAGES

    Enable systemd units:

        home/config/systemd/user/all.sh enable --now
        sudo ./system-services                 # for non --user systemd services

References .....................................................................

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Less_is_more
    [2] https://git-scm.com/
    [3] https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/
    [4] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/
    [5] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PAM
    [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy

TODO ...........................................................................

    1.  Switch away from Neovim and back to the more poised Vim.
    2.  Rewrite this using proper Vim `help` filetype syntax.
    3.  Prefer OpenRC to systemd?  Would likely call for Artix.

Deprecated Procedure --------------------------- >8 ----------------------------

1.  Using a bare Git repo instead of symlinks.  It's rather neat, but your tools
    may not be too excellent at recognising that you're editing files that are
    tracked by Git.

    If you're using Vim and Fugitive, you can simply:

        :call FugitiveDetect('~/.d')

2.  Set up

    git clone --separate-git-dir=~/.d [email protected]:ccjmne/dotfiles2025 ~
    alias dotfiles='git --git-dir=~/.d --work-tree=~'
    dotfiles config status.showUntrackedFiles no
    dotfiles update-index --assume-unchanged LICENSE README
    rm ~/LICENSE ~/README

3.  Daily usage

    dotfiles status
    dotfiles add --update
    dotfiles commit
    dotfiles push

                                                          vim: tw=80 sw=4 et sta