Managing your dotfiles with GNU Stow

Dennis "@the_metalgamer" Fink

18 March 2015

Table Contents

• Why?
• What?
• How?

Why?

• Version Control System
• Sharing (between machines / with the world)
• Backup

What?

• No configuration
• Symlinks
• Easy to use
• By packages/program
• Automatic handling of shared directories

GNU Stow

software package installation manager

GNU Stow

The approach used by Stow is to install each package into its own tree, then use symbolic links to make it appear as though the files are installed in the common tree.

GNU Stow

• Can be used to build our own package manager
• Can also be used for custom-compiled packages

Tutorial

Thank you for your attention!

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