dotfiles

Personal shell, terminal and editor configuration, aimed primarily at headless Linux hosts reached over SSH (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora), with a desktop profile, Termux (Android) support and partial Windows support. Everything is symlinked from this repo, so edits here take effect immediately.

Quick start

On a fresh machine:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SennLabs/_dotfiles/main/bootstrap.sh | sh

That installs git, clones the repo to ~/_dotfiles, and links the configs. Add packages too with:

curl -fsSL .../bootstrap.sh | DOTFILES_APPS=1 sh

If you already have the repo:

git clone https://github.com/SennLabs/_dotfiles.git ~/_dotfiles
cd ~/_dotfiles
./Init.sh --profile server        # or: --profile desktop
./Init.sh --profile server --apps # also install packages

On Windows, from PowerShell in the cloned repo:

.\InstallApps.ps1 -InstallProfile desktop   # packages via winget
.\SetupSimLink.ps1 -InstallProfile desktop  # link the configs

On Termux, the same commands work: pkg install git first, then the quick-start curl | sh line or the manual clone. See On Termux below.

Re-running is safe. SetupSimLink.sh is idempotent, and anything already at a target path is moved to ~/.dotfiles-backup/<timestamp>/ rather than deleted.

Profiles

Cumulative — server includes core, desktop includes both.

Profile	Packages	Configs
core	git, curl, tmux, neovim, bat, fd, fzf, less, column	all non-GUI
server	+ fish, htop, jq, ripgrep, rsync, ncdu, unzip, yazi, python, rust, gh, docker	all non-GUI
desktop	+ VSCode, WezTerm, browsers, graphics apps	everything, incl. WezTerm & KZones

server is the default, since most installs here are headless. It deliberately does not link WezTerm or KZones.

Scripts

Script	Purpose
bootstrap.sh	One-shot setup on a bare machine (POSIX sh; installs git)
Init.sh	Records the repo path, then links configs
SetupSimLink.sh	Does the linking; idempotent, backs up what it replaces
InstallApps.sh	Installs packages from apps/app_list.csv via apt, dnf or Termux's pkg
InstallApps.ps1	Windows equivalent, via winget, same CSV
SetupSimLink.ps1	Windows equivalent of SetupSimLink.sh (see below)
SetupCron.sh	Installs the 2-hourly pull-only sync
AutoGitSync.sh	Pulls only. Never commits or pushes

apps/app_list.csv is the single source of truth for packages, with per-manager columns (Apt, Dnf, Winget, Termux). A - means "not available here". Packages missing from a host's repos are reported and skipped, not fatal.

Where things get linked

Repo path	Target	Profile
scripts/	~/.config/scripts	all
config/ssh/config	~/.ssh/config	all
config/git/config	~/.config/git/config	all
config/readline/inputrc	~/.inputrc	all
config/fish/config.fish	~/.config/fish/config.fish	all
config/fish/functions/	~/.config/fish/functions	all
config/nvim/	~/.config/nvim	all
config/yazi/	~/.config/yazi	all
config/tmux/tmux.conf	~/.tmux.conf	all
config/bash/.bash_aliases	~/.bash_aliases	all
config/bash/.bash_functions	~/.bash_functions	all
config/misc_env_var.sh	~/.config/dotfiles_env.sh	all
config/wezterm/.wezterm.lua	~/.wezterm.lua	desktop
config/kzones/layouts.json	~/.local/share/kzones/layouts.json	desktop

On Windows

SetupSimLink.ps1 links only what native Windows uses; bash, fish, tmux, readline and KZones are skipped. It honours XDG_CONFIG_HOME the same way each tool does.

Repo path	Target	Profile
config/ssh/config	%USERPROFILE%\.ssh\config	all
config/git/config	%USERPROFILE%\.config\git\config	all
config/nvim/	%LOCALAPPDATA%\nvim	all
config/yazi/	%APPDATA%\yazi\config	all
config/wezterm/.wezterm.lua	%USERPROFILE%\.config\wezterm\wezterm.lua	desktop

Real symlinks need an elevated shell, or Developer Mode plus PowerShell 7. Without that, directories become junctions and files are copied. Copies do not follow later edits, so re-run the script after pulling. -DryRun shows what it would do.

On Termux

Termux ships its own apt, so InstallApps.sh detects it (via TERMUX_VERSION) and reads the Termux column of the CSV, because package names differ from Debian's (fd not fd-find, python not python3, util-linux for column). It never tries sudo there: Termux installs unprivileged into its own prefix. Docker has no Termux package and is skipped.

The symlinks are the same as on Linux. Termux starts bash as a login shell, so the ~/.profile hook below is what loads the environment and chains to ~/.bashrc. The terminal supports OSC 52, so the tmux and Neovim clipboard setup works without termux-api.

Cron is not installed by default; SetupCron.sh tells you what to add (cronie plus termux-services) if you want the pull-only sync there.

Shell startup, and why it is split

SSH gives you a login shell, which reads ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile — never ~/.bashrc directly. Ubuntu's stock ~/.bashrc also returns early when non-interactive. So:

• Environment (dotfiles_env.sh) is sourced from the login file, so EDITOR, LANG and PAGER are set even for ssh host -t <cmd>.
• Aliases and functions are sourced from ~/.bashrc, because they are only meaningful in an interactive shell.

Both hooks are marker-delimited and added once. Check the environment loaded with ssh host 'echo $DOTFILES_ENV' (prints 1).

Working over SSH

Clipboard. A headless host has no X11 or Wayland selection, so yanking normally goes nowhere. tmux is set to set-clipboard on and Neovim emits OSC 52, which the terminal turns into a copy on your local machine. Neovim ≥ 0.10 does this itself when $SSH_TTY is set; the config wires it up explicitly for 0.9.

Reconnecting. ta attaches to the main tmux session, creating it if needed — the normal way back in after a dropped link. prefix + S does the same for a named session, prefix + R reloads the config.

Readline. ~/.inputrc gives case-insensitive completion and ↑/↓ history search on prefix, which is most of what makes a bare SSH prompt tolerable.

Machine-specific and private config

Nothing secret belongs in a public repo:

• SSH — config/ssh/config starts with Include ~/.ssh/config.local. Put private hosts and identity files there; it is gitignored, and because the include comes first it wins over the shared defaults.
• Git identity — config/git/config includes ~/.config/git/config.local, which is where user.name and user.email go:

  git config -f ~/.config/git/config.local user.email "you@example.com"

• Anything else — .gitignore covers *.local, .env* and key material.

Distro differences handled

bat and fd are packaged as batcat and fdfind on Debian/Ubuntu but as bat and fd on Fedora. Both shells detect which exists and export BAT_CMD / FD_CMD. Similarly, column comes from bsdextrautils on Debian and util-linux on Fedora, and lsh degrades gracefully when it is absent. EDITOR falls back through nvim → vim → vi → nano and stays unset if none exist, rather than pointing at a missing binary.

Automatic updates

./SetupCron.sh

Adds a 2-hourly cron job running AutoGitSync.sh, which only pulls — it never commits or pushes, and skips entirely if the tree is dirty or the branch has diverged. Committing stays manual.

Two caveats: cron is absent from most containers (use a systemd timer instead) and from Termux by default (pkg install cronie termux-services, then sv-enable crond), and cron has no SSH agent, so this only works while the repo is public over HTTPS.

CI

.github/workflows/ci.yml runs shellcheck, parses the fish and Lua configs, and then installs the dotfiles inside minimal debian:stable-slim, ubuntu:latest and fedora:latest containers — asserting that the run is idempotent, that every symlink resolves, that a login shell picks up the environment, and that the package installer actually resolves real packages on both apt and dnf. A further job does the same inside termux/termux-docker.

Requirements

Core: git, bash. Everything else is optional and detected at runtime.

TODO

• Neovim plugin management
• Per-host overrides beyond the .local files

License

MIT — see LICENSE.