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My dotfiles

This repository contains the dotfiles/configuration files for programs that I want to have on any system I work on.

If you don't know what dotfiles refer to, basically any Unix-Like OS (basically anything other than Windows) normally hides files that start with a period. These files have, over the years, become a common way to store a user's configuration or customization option for a specific application. For example vim will read a file called .vimrc in a user's home folder when it launches , allowing you to configure vim how you want (check out mine right here for an example).

I also include some scripts and other files I've written that are nice to have.

Management

I use chezmoi to manage my dotfiles. Why? I generally set up my computers to boot multiple Linux distros, as well as a Windows install (though I won't be downgrading to Windows 11). In any case, I want to be able to use my dotfiles across multiple distros and operating systems (e.g. if my work computer runs Windows). That's hard to do with many dotfile managers.

Chezmoi, on the other hand, allows for changing configs based on OS and distro, as well as specific hosts. I'm able to maintain a dotfiles repo that I can use across all my systems without having to do a ton manually. Note that I paid for this flexibility with a lot of upfront time investment to make things work.

If you aren't as crazy as I am, and you only want your dotfiles repo to handle maybe 1 or 2 distros, I highly recommend yadm as a dotfile manager - it's what I used before chezmoi. yadm is basically just a wrapper around git with support for different files on different systems/OSes, and it's what I used before chezmoi (there's a tag in this repo for my last yadm commit if you want to look). While yadm doesn't provide the same power as chezmoi, it will likely work for most people.

Scope

Below is the list of all programs/system configurations I have dotfiles for.

• alacritty
• bash
• fontconfig
• fuzzel
• git
• GTK Theming
• Hyprland
• kitty
• lf
• mako
• Neovim
• River
• Sway
• vim
• Waybar
• zathura
• Zed

Alacritty

Not necessarily my preferred terminal emulator at the moment, but it's good. I primarily keep this config around for Windows, where kitty is unavailable - I get to use a terminal emulator that doesn't suck (that said, I need to create a custom config or something for windows that'll include this config). The config is broken up into a few files for organization.

bash

My bash config is divided into a few files. First, my .profile is just the minimum required for sourcing .bashrc. My .bashrc is based on the default Linux Mint .bashrc, with the following changes:

• Simplified the setting of the shell prompt to always use a color prompt (I'm willing to assume any terminal I use (even the TTY) supports at least some color)

• Customize my shell prompt a bit, including the git-provided function to get the current git branch if the working directory contains a git repo

• Source the file required to load the above git function if necessary - based on the OS name/distro name using a variable I set in my chezmoi config template.

• Sources a file called .shrc, which contains environment variables that I want to maintain constant between bash and zsh (once I get around to switching to zsh). These environment variables include my EDITOR, VISUAL, GTK theming, and the XDG base directories.

• I also set the QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME variable to qt5ct so that I can use Qt5ct and Qt6ct to set up how Qt apps look (Kvantum on Arch, QGtkStyle on Mint since that's built-in)

• Sets up an lf alias that allows me to exit lf into the last directory lf was in, rather than the directory lf was launched in.

Dependencies:

• git (specifically the __git_ps1 shell function)
• lf (kinda? There's an lf alias in .bashrc, so idk)

fontconfig

My font config file does two things:

1. Sets my preferred default fonts: DejaVu Sans, DejaVu Serif, and Fira Code
2. Provides automatic aliases for some Microsoft fonts - Calibri, Cambria, Times, Arial, and Courier New

Dependencies - all fonts:

• DejaVu Sans and Serif
• Fira Code
• Liberation Sans, Serif, and Mono
• Carlito
• Caladea

fuzzel

The launcher I'm using for Wayland right now. My config changes the colors to use some of my terminal colors, enables XDG Desktop file Actions (e.g. the private window option in the Firefox .desktop file), and uses kitty to open terminal apps.

git

I don't include my actual .gitconfig file (for security reasons). I do have a .gitconfig-common which I use to set configs that don't have any important info. This amounts to setting the defaultBranch attribute to master and setting a custom commit message.

GTK Theming

I use the Arc-Dark GTK theme, with the Papirus-Dark icon theme. These themes are set up in .config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini, which also sets the GTK font to DejaVu Sans.

In addition, in my .shrc, (if the OS is linux) I source a script called import-gsettings.sh which reads the GTK 3 config file and uses the values in there in the respective calls to gsettings (i.e. the gtk-theme-name in the GTK 3 config file gets passed to a call to gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme).

Finally, I also have a stylesheet called gtk.css in ~/.config/gtk-4.0/, which gets applied to libadwaita apps. This makes such apps (e.g. GNOME Calculator) have the Arc GTK colorscheme, even if other UI elements are still from Adwaita. It's not necessarily perfect matching, but it makes the apps fit my theme well enough for me (and doesn't depend on using the GTK_THEME environment variable, so it feels less hacky).

Dependencies:

• Arc-Dark GTK Theme
• Papirus-Dark Icon theme
• DejaVu Sans

Hyprland

I keep this around in case there's ever a feature on Hyprland I want to try out, but I don't actually have it installed on my Arch install right now.

My config basically does all the same stuff as my Sway config: handle audio with my volume script, sets a custom background, uses fuzzel for launching, etc. No screenshots yet - need to work on that.

Dependencies:

• blueman for a bluetooth applet
• fuzzel
• grim (in conjunction with slurp, screenshotting)
• My brightness and volume notification scripts
• gammastep for gamma control
• geoclue for determining location (this is a dependency of gammastep (for Arch at least))
• nm-applet for a network applet
• slurp
• udiskie for managing USB drives (I launch it as a tray applet)
• Waybar for the panel bar

kitty

Currently my preferred terminal emulator, mainly just for the windows and tabs. It's fast, I don't really care if it's faster than Alacritty. That said, I also have an Alacritty config because kitty isn't available for Windows (when I do need to use Windows 10 for some godforsaken reason, I want a terminal better than the one Git Bash ships)

My config:

• sets up my preferred color theme (some weird mix of the kitty Alabaster Dark and Alacritty Argonaut themes if memory serves) including opacity
• adds a keybind to open a new window in the same directory (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Enter)
• Sets the font (system monospace font) and font size (either 11 pt or 13 pt, depending on if the computer is desktop or laptop - determined by .chezmoi.toml.tmpl)

lf

My preferred terminal file manager. I originally tried ranger, but I prefer lf mainly for the easier configuration (just 1 pretty short file). Also, lf generally just uses existing system commands, which I feel makes more sense (e.g. just using mimeopen to open a file - in contrast, ranger has its own file opener, rifle).

My lf config is mostly just the default config from the lf GitHub repo, but with a few small changes.

• In my .bashrc, I have the following line: alias lf='cd $(command lf -print-last-dir)'. This sets up lf so that when I quit, it changes directory to the last directory I was in. However, I changed the quit key to Q. Pressing q will behave like lf normally does when quitting i.e. return to the directory it was launched in.

• The delete key is mapped to trash files instead of delete them

• The trash command uses trash-put from the trash-cli package (available for basically every distribution as far as I can tell). This way, trashing files in lf follows the FreeDesktop Trash Specification

Dependencies:

• mimeopen
• trash-cli

mako

A Wayland notification daemon I'm using at the moment (no particular reason why, I just chose it and found it to do what I need). The config sets up colors to match my terminal colors and set the font to sans-serif (i.e. use the user/system sans-serif font). It also sets a 3 second default timeout on notifications.

In addition, for my brightness/volume notification scripts (see below), it will make those notifications appear in the bottom center of the screen and slightly larger (trying to mimic Cinnamon's brightness/volume control)

Dependencies:

• Papirus-Dark icons

Neovim

My preferred CLI editor. I like vim in general, I mainly chose Neovim because configuration in Lua is easier than in vimscript IMO.

On that subject, I use lazy.nvim for plugins, so Neovim should be at least at version 0.8.0. As for plugins, I currently use the following:

• nvim-treesitter for AST parsing/syntax highlighting
• lspconfig - defaults for configuring LSPs.
• nvim-cmp for setting up completions
  • cmp-nvim-lsp to hook in LSP completions
  • LuaSnip as a snippet engine with cmp-luasnip
  • cmp-buffer for completions from the current buffer
• conform for formatting
• trouble for viewing diagnostic information
• mason for installing LSPs, formatters, linters, etc.
• gitsigns for, ya know, git information
• nvim-lint for linter support

Aside from the plugins, my Neovim config does the following:

• enables the mouse
• sets up syntax highlighting to just use the terminal colors - MASSIVE shoutout to vim-noctu, the colorscheme I based mine off of (I copied that one and made changes where I wanted to change it).
• uses the system clipboard (so you can copy and paste between Neovim and anything else using Neovim commands)
• sets tab width of 4, and to use tabs for indentation
• enables absolute line numbers and active line underlining
• enables incremental search
• disables highlighting search matches
• search ignores case by default unless an uppercase letter is entered
• sets up a nicer status bar

River

I keep this around in case I want to try something on the River compositor - I've been playing around with it for a bit and it's nice, but I still prefer Sway.

Basically does most of what my Sway/Hyprland configs do.

Sway

My current window manager/compositor on Arch Linux.

I'm not gonna bother describing an entire window manager config here, but it's mostly just the defaults with a custom background and changing the launcher to fuzzel. I also added a screenshot mode based on a config I found online - enter it using Super+P (by default. You can change it in your hardware_config file).

I also included handling of the XF86 keys for audio using wireplumber (because really, even Linux Mint defaults to Pipewire. Make the switch. And pipewire-media-session is deprecated, so for anyone using that, stop). Technically, I use my volume-notifications.sh script, but that just wraps wireplumber anyway.

I also have chezmoi template for config options for individual systems (at this point, I only have a config for my laptop Arch install). For my laptop, I'm using my brightness-notifications.sh script that wraps brightnessctl to control brightness, along with configuring my trackpad.

Dependencies:

• blueman for a bluetooth applet
• fuzzel
• grim (in conjunction with slurp, screenshotting)
• My brightness and volume notification scripts
• gammastep for gamma control
• geoclue for determining location (this is a dependency of gammastep (for Arch at least))
• nm-applet for a network applet
• slurp
• udiskie for managing USB drives (I launch it as a tray applet)
• Waybar for the panel bar

vim

I maintain a vim config primarily for situations where I can't use Neovim. Having vim is much more likely on a system I don't own, so if I'm on a different system I can just clone this repo and be all set with vim.

In general, this config just sets up the necessary stuff - using tabs and tab width of 4, absolute line numbers, mouse support, filetype detection, cursor underline, vim's native file searching, and using my personal color scheme - see the Neovim section for more.

Unlike my Neovim config, which I plan to eventually make pretty fancy, my vim config is gonna stay simple.

Waybar

The bar I use for Wayland compositors. Not gonna go in depth here yet, since my config is very much in flux. That said, I use Font Awesome for icons, and Fira Code for text. I also generally color my bar to match Arc GTK colors.

I maintain separate config files for each Wayland compositor in a waybar folder in that compositor's config folder. That file includes the main config file, which itself includes a hardware config file. The compositor configs include modules specific to a compositor e.g. sway/mode, while the hardware config file includes host-specific options (e.g. a battery module). The main config file just contains options that should always work.

Dependencies:

• wireplumber (again, because I'm using Pipewire)
• pavucontrol (because if I do need graphical audio configuration, pavucontrol does everything I could ever need)
• Fira Code font (for the text)
• Font Awesome

Zathura

The reader (mainly for PDFs) I use on Arch (also Mint sometimes). The config just changes the text size depending on the chassis type detected in .chezmoi.toml.tmpl.

Zed

Zed is a code editor I've been trying out in place of VSCodium. This config sets up Ruff and Pylsp as Python language servers, sets my color scheme, and just generally sets Zed up how I like it.

Miscellaneous Scripts

Aside from the dedicated dotfiles I have, I also use a few scripts I wrote.

System Management

These are files in ~/.local/bin, which is where I put any programs I want on PATH (pretty sure that follow the FreeDesktop Home Directory Specification).

• brightness-notifications.sh
• import-gsettings.sh
• volume-notifications.sh

brightness-notifications.sh

A script that wraps brightnessctl with notifications. Uses brightnessctl to get and set the brightness, and uses notify-send to send notifications.

When calling notify-send, the script specifies icon names without a path - thus the icons used should be the icons used by your notification daemon. In addition, calls to notify-send include an integer hint with the value of the current brightness - mako uses this hint to render a progress bar behind the text of the notification. I don't know how other notification daemons will handle the hint - you might have to remove the hint.

import-gsettings.sh

A tool to import settings from a GTK 3 config file and call the relevant gsettings calls to make GTK 4 match GTK 3 theming. Mostly taken from a Sway wiki page.

volume-notifications.sh

This script wraps wpctl to add notifications with notify-send. Right now, the script can increase/decrease volume of the default sink and mute/unmute the default sink and source (input and output).

When calling notify-send, the script specifies icon names without a path - thus the icons used should be the icons used by your notification daemon. In addition, calls to notify-send for the output (i.e. any commands but muting the input) include an integer hint with the value of the current volume - mako uses this hint to render a progress bar behind the text of the notification. I don't know how other notification daemons will handle the hint - you might have to remove it.

(yes I copied what I wrote for brightness-notifications, sue me).

logout_power_options.sh (and related scripts)

This script works in conjunction with some really simple wrapper scripts for shutting down, rebooting, suspending, logging out, and locking the screen. It just echoes the names of the scripts along with some other stuff that allows Fuzzel to display icons for them.

Install/Uninstall to .local scripts

I have install and uninstall scripts that "install" applications to .local using symlinks. install.sh creates symlinks from files in <program folder>/bin to ~/.local/bin, as well as <program folder>/share/{applications,man,icons,locale,terminfo,bash-completion,zsh} to the respective folders in ~/.local/share.

uninstall.sh deletes those symlinks.

Other Files

Backgrounds

Where I put whatever background I use. Right now, it just has a picture I got off of WikiChip of a AMD Zen 2 Core Complex Die that I edited to be darker (original image here).

Will probably add more soon.