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How do you manage your dotfiles?
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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I'm using stow, and then git for versioning. The only question I'm currently facing is whether to keep my stow packages as individual got repos (so I can switch branches for radically different configs or new setups) or treat the whole lot as a big repo, and set the others up as subtrees.
IMO you shouldn't use branches for switching between configs. It makes it hard to compose and reuse your configuration.
Just imagine you have a new config file that you now want to add to all of your machines. You'd now have to commit/cherry-pick on all of your branches. Change that file? Now you have to distribute the changes again and might even get conflicts.
Additionally, many programs allow you to change your configuration directory via environment variables (usually
XDG_CONFIG_HOME, I think). So you can even keep all machine-specifig configuration files in a single repo under different prefixes for those.