dotfiles

Carefully Curated Dotfiles for Popular Linux Programs

This repository contains the configuration files (i.e., "dotfiles") used to configure the programs regularly used by me, Gregory M. Kapfhammer. Please note that the dotfiles in this repository are, at least to some extent, "hard-coded" to work for my development environment and projects. For instance, I created these configuration files under the assumption that a developer will use Arch Linux. Even though they are heavily customized, my hope is that they are largely reusable and, additionally, will give examples of how to configure various programs such as i3, mutt, nvim, polybar, tmux, vim, and zsh.

This is a summary of some of the dotfiles and program configurations that I created and actively maintain:

• .Rprofile: initialization for the R programming language
• .Xresources: configuration for the Rofi for displaying menus
• .bibtoolrsc: configuration for the bibtool program's BibTeX management
• .ctags: extensions for exuberant-ctags to handle new languages
• .compton.conf: configuration for the compton compositor used with i3
• .gitconfig: configuration file for Git, including customized aliases
• .gitignore_global: configuration of the files to exclude from Git repositories
• .gvimrc: legacy configuration of gvim text editor
• .indentconfig.yaml: pointer to configurations for the latexindent program
• .chopsentences.yaml: configuration for the latexindent program to do semantic linefeeds
• .inputrc: configuration of all input-enabled tools with vi-like mappings
• .latexmkrc: configuration for the latexmk wrapper for LaTeX compilers
• .mailcap: configuration for how MIME-enabled programs load files
• .minivimrc: minimal configuration of vim and nvim for testing purposes
• .msmtprc: legacy configuration for the msmtp SMTP client
• .muttprintrc: configuration of the muttprint program for printing emails
• .muttrc: configuration of the mutt mail user agent
• .oh-my-zsh.sh: customized script to load the oh-my-zsh framework
• .zprofile: script to run when first starting the shell environment
• .signature: footer displayed by mutt in all email messages
• .tmux.conf: configuration of the tmux terminal multiplexing tool
• .urlview: configuration for the urlview program used with mutt and tmux
• .vimrc: configuration for the nvim and vim text editors
• .xinitrc: configuration for to set environment variables and to start i3
• .zshrc: configuration for the zsh shell to use oh-my-zsh
• .config/bat/themes: theme configuration to ensure that bat looks like nvim
• .config/alacritty: configuration and color scheme for the alacritty terminal window
• .config/dunst: configuration and scripts for the dunst notification manager
• .config/gtkrc-2.0: configuration of GTK 2.0 to support legacy GTK programs on Arch Linux
• .config/gtkrc-3.0: configuration of GTK 3.0 to support GTK programs on Arch Linux
• .config/i3: configuration and scripts for the i3 window manager
• .config/polybar: configuration and scripts for the polybar used with i3
• .config/termite: configuration and color scheme for the termite terminal window
• .config/zathura: configuration for the zathura PDF viewer
• .local/bin: scripts for regular use through the terminal window and rofi

Are you looking for some neat configurations to improved your own dotfiles? If so, then I encourage you to review the .vimrc, .zshrc, and .tmux.conf files that I regularly improve. Interesting in learning how to configuration the i3 window manager? Then, you are invited to review the .config/i3 and .config/polybar directories. Please note that many of these files have groupings with beginning and ending marks that respectively look like {{{ and }}}, thereby helping to group the regions.

To ensure that my development environment is largely self-contained, this repository also includes Git submodules of the packages that I actively use in, for instance, the zsh shell. When I needed to heavily customize a specific plugin or tool I forked a specific GitHub repository and then made my improvements in that fork. Otherwise, I added the needed repository as a sub-module to this one. These are the current submodules that I maintain:

• fastsyntaxhighlighting
• fzftab
• gitstatus
• tpm
• zshautosuggestions
• zshdefer
• zshgitprompt
• zshsyntaxhighlighting

Installation Instructions

You can type the following command if you want to clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/gkapfham/dotfiles.git

Now, you can type cd dotfiles and start to browse the configuration files that are available. I suggest that you make symbolic links from your home directory to this repository if you want to maintain and use these configuration files. For instance, if you use the bibtool program to manage your BibTeX files and if you were in your home directory and the dotfiles/ directory was in configure/, then you would type the following command to create the .bibtoolrsc as a symbolic link to the file in the ~/configure/dotfiles/ directory containing this repository.

ln -s ~/configure/dotfiles/.bibtoolrsc .bibtoolrsc

As an alternative to manually creating all of the symbolic links in the aforementioned fashion, this repository has a Makefile with rules that use stow to create these symbolic links automatically. If a system already contains dotfiles that you no longer needed and you want to remove them from the system, then please type the command make purge. Next, typing the command make dotfiles will create all the needed directories and subdirectories and make symbolic links to the dotfiles in this repository from the correct destination directories. In summary, the main command to type is:

make dotfiles

Problems or Praise

If you have any problems with downloading or understanding these configuration files, then please create an issue associated with this Git repository using the Issues link at the top of this repository. As the sole contributor to the dotfiles repository, I will do everything possible to resolve your issue and ensure that all the configurations are clear and, potentially, best suited to working in your development environment. Remember, this repository is being made publicly available to provide examples of how to write configurations for programs like vim, nvim, and i3. If you find that these files help you in preparing your own configurations, then I also encourage you to "star" and "watch" this project!