Stow Template

Ever wanted all your dotfiles in one folder, with version control and an easy way to deploy it on new machines? If yes, then this template is for you.

Template Installation

To setup and install this Stow template execute:

git clone https://github.com/Paradiesstaub/gnu_stow_template.git ~/.dotfiles
cd ~/.dotfiles
./INSTALL

What is GNU Stow?

GNU Stow is a program, which allows you to create symbolic links out of one base directory. The Stow base directory of this template is named .dotfiles and should be saved in the home folder (~/.dotfiles). To use Stow the base directory sould follow a certain structure:

~/[stow dir]/[random name]/[content]
~/.dotfiles/git/.gitconfig

When executing stow git, Stow makes symbolic links from the content of the git folder to ~/.gitconfig.

This also works for home sub-folders like ~/.config:
~/.dotfiles/config/.config/random_cfg

Stow Setup Script

GNU Stow allows us to easily have something like profiles for different working enviroments e.g. git and git_work, both could contain a .gitconfig, but a slightly different one.

For a really lazy installation, we would need a script that downloads needed packages, configures your local enviroment and runs GNU Stow. Luckily, there is already one! Have a look at the INSTALL script, edit it to fit your needs & have fun.