dotfiles

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I scraped the r/unixporn and made it filterable by distro, WM, and colorscheme
2 months ago
- The site features over 4000 unique desktop configurations (rices) scraped from r/unixporn.
- Users can filter rices by distro, window manager, colorscheme, or utils used.
- Sort options include newest, oldest, or random selection, with search by title or username.
- Each rice includes links to the original Reddit post and a GitHub dotfiles repository.
- The platform solves the problem of good Reddit posts sinking below the timeline by offering an easy preview and filter in a grid format.
- Users can submit their own setups via instructions on the about page.
TIL: Symlinking NixOS Dotfiles
2 months ago
- The author avoids home-manager for dotfile management due to aesthetic and practical objections: dependency management complexity, single-user package preference, and need to rebuild system for config changes.
- The author prefers storing dotfiles in the same repository as flake.nix and symlinking them in place.
- NixOS does not natively support declaring symlinks for home directories (e.g., ~/.config), but systemd-tmpfiles can be used declaratively via NixOS configuration.
- The author contrasts this approach with manual symlinking or using tools like GNU Stow, noting the roundabout method using systemd-tmpfiles.
Syncthing for Dotfiles: Sync vs. Manage
2 months ago
- Syncthing is a peer-to-peer, block-level file sync engine that replicates bytes continuously, not a dotfile management strategy.
- chezmoi treats your home directory as a build target, using templates to render per-machine configurations, handling differences like work vs. personal settings.
- Using Syncthing for dotfiles can propagate mistakes quickly, lacks per-machine customization, and syncs secrets in plaintext without redaction.
- Dotfile managers like chezmoi offer better safety with version control (e.g., git history) and bootstrapping new machines with one command.
- Syncthing excels for continuous, frictionless sync of large or non-config files (e.g., tool state, plugin directories) and identical environments without third parties.
- A combined setup is recommended: use chezmoi for templated, per-host configs and Syncthing for host-agnostic tool-state, avoiding conflicts with tools like .stignore.

dotfiles

I scraped the r/unixporn and made it filterable by distro, WM, and colorscheme

TIL: Symlinking NixOS Dotfiles

Syncthing for Dotfiles: Sync vs. Manage