💡 tl/dr; You can set up a new system using dotfiles and an installation script in minutes. This post tries to explains some things about dotfiles and we will build a repository together
Dotfiles are configuration files typically stored in a user's home directory (the directory represented by the symbol ~ on Unix-based operating systems) and that begin with a dot (.) in their file name.
These files are used to store settings for the various programs and tools that a user can use on their system. Files like .bashrc, .zshrc, .vimrc and .gitconfig are examples (just to name a few) that practically every user has on their machine.
Make a test on your machine and run the following command to view just some of the dotfiles that are in your user directory.
find ~ -type f -iname ".*" -maxdepth 1For example, the file .bashrc is a configuration file for the Bash shell (a popular command-line interface for systems Unix-like). It can contain settings such as the prompt displayed when the shell is opened, aliases (or shortcuts) for frequently used commands, and custom functions. Another example is the .vimrc file is a configuration file for the Vim text editor and can contain settings such as the color scheme to use, the line format and custom keyboard shortcuts.
In this post, we will talk a little about how to start your dotfiles versioning, what to version, good practices, security issues and I will share with you my own version of dotfiles
Why is this important?
Many users choose to manage their dotfiles using version control systems such as Git so that they can track changes to their configurations over time and easily synchronize their configurations when starting a new development environment on a new machine.
Imagine that your development machine, whether used for studies or work, has a problem that prevents you from continuing to use the system. Regardless of the reason, “fixing” this problem usually involves a new OS installation and all the work of reconfiguring a development environment from scratch. This new installation will certainly have a multitude of details that you usually configure little by little, over time, things like color of your terminal, font of your text editor, etc.
The objective of versioning your dotfiles is to save time with this process and maintain a development environment with your changes over time, being able to return to old configurations if something goes wrong during a change or there is simply a need to reconfigure the environment on a clean install of your OS.