📑 .dotfiles

... for Bash / ZSH / Git Bash (Windows) / Cygwin (Windows) / Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

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📚 Documentation

• Technical Documentation - Comprehensive technical guide covering architecture, design, components, and security
• Quick Start - See Installation below
• Customization - See Add custom commands

Installation

Using Git and the bootstrap script

You can clone the repository wherever you want. (I like to keep it in ~/Projects/dotfiles, with ~/dotfiles as a symlink.) The bootstrapper script will pull in the latest version and copy the files to your home folder.

# get the code
cd ~ ; git clone https://github.com/voku/dotfiles.git; cd dotfiles

# only for Debian based e.g. Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu etc.
./firstInstallDebianBased.sh

# only for Cygwin (Windows)
./firstInstallCygwin.sh

# copy the dotfiles into your home directory
./bootstrap.sh

To update, cd into your local dotfiles repository and then:

./bootstrap.sh

Add custom commands without creating a new fork

If ~/.config_dotfiles does not exists, the "bootstrap.sh"-script will create a default config for you.

My ~/.config_dotfiles looks something like this:

#!/bin/sh

CONFIG_DEFAULT_USER="lars"
CONFIG_ZSH_PLUGINS="(git zsh-completions zsh-syntax-highlighting)"
CONFIG_BASH_PLUGINS="(git)"
CONFIG_ZSH_THEME="voku"
CONFIG_BASH_THEME="voku"
CONFIG_CHARSET_UTF8=true
CONFIG_LANG="en_US"
CONFIG_TERM_LOCAL="" # terms: screen byobu tmux
CONFIG_TERM_SSH=""

If ~/.extra exists, it will be sourced along with the other files. You can use this to add a few custom commands without the need to fork this entire repository, or to add commands you don’t want to commit to a public repository.

My ~/.extra looks something like this:

#!/bin/sh

export DOTFILESSRCDIR="/home/lars/dotfiles/"

GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Lars Moelleken"
GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
git config --file=$HOME/.gitconfig.extra user.name "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"

GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="lars@moelleken.org"
GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
git config --file=$HOME/.gitconfig.extra user.email "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"

git config --file=$HOME/.gitconfig.extra push.default simple

You could also use ~/.extra to override settings, functions and aliases from my dotfiles repository. It’s probably better to fork this repository instead, though. And you can use ~/.vimrc.extra to edit the vim settings without touching the main configuration.

🔧 Advanced Usage

For detailed information about the architecture, components, and advanced usage patterns, see the Technical Documentation.

Run the tests

bash .redpill/tests/functions-tests.sh
zsh .redpill/tests/functions-tests.sh

Key Features

• Modular Architecture: Separate configuration files for aliases, functions, exports, and more
• Plugin System: Extensible .redpill plugin architecture with themes and Git integration
• Cross-Platform: Works on Linux, macOS, Windows (Git Bash/Cygwin/WSL)
• Safe Defaults: Built-in safety mechanisms for file operations
• Easy Customization: Use .extra and .config_dotfiles for personal settings without forking

Feedback

Suggestions/improvements welcome!

Thanks to…

• DrVanScott and his dotfiles repository
• TuxCoder and his dotfiles repository
• Mathias Bynens and his awesome dotfiles repository
• @ptb and his OS X Lion Setup repository
• Ben Alman and his dotfiles repository
• Chris Gerke and his tutorial on creating an OS X SOE master image + Insta repository
• Cãtãlin Mariş and his dotfiles repository
• Gianni Chiappetta for sharing his amazing collection of dotfiles
• Jan Moesen and his ancient .bash_profile + shiny tilde repository
• Lauri ‘Lri’ Ranta for sharing loads of hidden preferences
• Matijs Brinkhuis and his dotfiles repository
• Nicolas Gallagher and his dotfiles repository
• Sindre Sorhus
• Tom Ryder and his dotfiles repository
• Kevin Suttle and his dotfiles repository and OSXDefaults project
• Haralan Dobrev
• anyone who contributed a patch or made a helpful suggestion