I’m looking for recommendations for a dotfile manager - there are so many out there I’ve got a bit of options paralysis!
I’d like a system that can backup all my dotfiles - with version management - and, if I nuked my home directory, could restore them all for me with a simple command.
I use git-annex and Guix (particularly Guix Home in this case) for managing all of my data, including dotfiles. git-annex handles syncing (and backups via delivery to a Borg repo) and version management as git does, while Guix takes care of installing programs and setting up configuration files.
I previously wrote a custom Guix service that utilized Stow as well for managing writable files, but have since replaced it with another custom Guix service that handles some cleanup processes better.
Depending on how much you want simplicity of restoration, this approach might be on the heavier side since it’s concerned with a lot more than just dotfiles. You could replace git-annex with git to simplify the syncing part if you’re only interested in managing configuration files, though. Here’s what my Guix config looks like; the readme file shows how I would set up a system from scratch. <a href=""></a>
I’m extremely happy with chezmoi. It’s very simple to use, but when you need more advanced features, it has them. It can do templates, ignoring and other stuff allowing you to easily manage dotfiles on multiple machines or even multiple operating systems (like windows on PC, Linux on laptop). Here is a comparison table of some dotfiles manager (it’s on chezmoi’s website, so it may be biased) Also here are my dotfiles (as a Linux user, I cannot resist the urge to share my dotfiles whenever I have the opportunity)
Just so it’s clear for everybody: Nix is a programming language, build system, and package manager. NixOS is a Linux distro built with (and upon) Nix. Home Manager is a dotfile and home management tool using Nix, allowing control of dotfiles, but also per-user software, systemd services, and more. You can use Home Manager in any distro, not just NixOS (but you do need to install Nix).
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