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# dotfiles
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My personal dotfiles used for Arch Linux. Use at your own risk ;)
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## First, a story...
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This is a rough outline of how these dotfiles evolved. Perhaps others can
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relate:
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1. Install Linux. Best day ever.
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2. Notice these annoying files with dots in front of them. There aren't too
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many, so whatever.
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3. Use Linux more, notice funny files with dots in front of them are
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exponentially multiplying.
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4. Research funny files with dots in front of them. Find they are called
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"dotfiles" and apparently they annoy others as well.
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5. Research more and find "dotfile management systems" that claim to be able to
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tame said "dotfiles."
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6. Try many "dotfile management systems" only to be disappointed. Resort to
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using git.
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7. Discover a terribly powerful tool called ansible. Get the brilliant idea
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to manage dotfiles with ansible.
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8. Spend a week setting up neat roles for ansible. All seems right in the
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universe.
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9. Change one tiny thing in my config. Ansible breaks. Abandon playbooks in fit
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of rage and revert to using git.
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10. Forget I'm using git to manage my dotfiles.
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11. SSD begins failing. Remember git exists and frantically commit "everything."
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12. Install fresh SSD. Deploy dotfiles with git.
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13. Realize half my config is missing and/or wrong.
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14. Research again what dotfiles management systems might exist. Discover
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chezmoi. Put all dotfiles in chezmoi...
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Which brings me here.
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These dotfiles are managed with chezmoi, which seems like a nice balance between
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the revision control aspects of git, the template-based configurability of
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ansible, and light scripting for extra wiggle room. I just started using chezmoi
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so only time will tell if it can fill my ultimate desire to have a clutter-free,
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OCD-friendly home directory with minimal hassle.
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## Design Overview
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### Headless Configuration
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#### Environment
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All environmental variables are set in `.pam_environment` which has the
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advantage of being loaded before everything else, including my shell. This
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allows me to neatly organize everything according to XDG base specifications (eg
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configurations files actually go in `~/.config`) which makes this repo
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exponentially more pleasent to use.
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#### Shell
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See [zsh config](dot_config/zsh).
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### X Server Configuration
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#### Window Manager
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Xmonad is minimalist window manager written and configured in Haskell, which
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makes it automatically awesome as well as super stable.
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See [my xmonad repo](https://github.com/ndwarshuis/xmonad-config) (which also
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includes xmobar).
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#### Rofi
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Rofi displays a pretty menu that allows the user to select something and
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possibly perform an action with that selection. It is infinitely useful and
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comes with many extensions.
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My use cases:
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- launching apps (Start Button (TM) replacement)
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- forking background daemons
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- managing the clipboard
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- selecting workspaces and windows
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- selecting monitor configurations
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- controlling networking interfaces
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- mounting block devices
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- querying passwords from Bitwarden
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Some of these are custom wrappers found
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[here](https://github.com/ndwarshuis/rofi-extras).
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#### Conky
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Conky is a super-configurable system monitor that runs on the desktop (your
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nerdiness on fully display). See [here](https://github.com/ndwarshuis/conky) for
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my configuration.
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#### Emacs
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Emacs is an operating system masquerading as a text editor. See
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[here](https://github.com/ndwarshuis/.emacs.d) for my emacs config.
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#### Keyboard Shortcuts
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I have gigantic hands, which means I need to contort my pinkies to press the
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control keys (among other things). The obvious solution is to remap my keyboard
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so these important keys are within reach.
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I do this with an [xkb layout](https://github.com/ndwarshuis/xkb-hypermode)
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which here is installed as a custom package because these files need to be
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root-owned along with the rest of the xkb layouts (X server limitation?).
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Since this layout will map some keys on top of one another (for example, the
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RETURN key is right control) I use xcape to differentiate between keypress,
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keyhold, and keyrelease (in the past example, keyrelease is mapped back to
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RETURN). To make this even more complicated, VirtualBox doesn't filter out
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xcape'd keybindings, which means some keys will be "pressed" twice from the
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guest viewpoint. This is handled as gracefully as possible with a small utility
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I wrote called [xman](https://github.com/ndwarshuis/xman) which will kill xcape
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when a VirtualBox window is in focus.
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If this isn't confusing enough, imagine the look on someone's face who dares
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to use my laptop, only to find that the ALT key is actually the spacebar :)
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## Usage
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If you are new to Linux or dotfile management in general, I would discourage you
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from blindly deploying these dotfiles. Instead, read each file and understand
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how it works. If you find something interesting, copy the interesting bit to
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your own config and experiment with that.
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### Distro Requirements
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Arch Linux only
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### Dependencies
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* chezmoi
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* yay
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* sudo
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Note that any build tools (stack for Haskell binaries) will be installed during
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deployment.
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### Pre-Installation
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These must be done before cloning and applying these dotfiles.
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1. create the user for whom these dotfiles will be deployed (including home
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directory)
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2. set up sudo privileges for the user who will be cloning these dotfiles
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3. set up makepkg to according to preferences
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4. set up yay according to preferences
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### Installation
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Deploy using chezmoi
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``` sh
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chezmoi init --apply --verbose https://ndwarshuis/dotfiles-chezmoi.git
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```
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This will:
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1. clone the dotfiles and apply them
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2. clone other git repos as applicable (emacs, xmonad, conky, etc)
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3. install system packages as needed
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4. install any custom PKGBUILDs (which many have some special compile flags or
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pull a different version that what is in the repos)
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5. compile any Haskell binaries as needed (xmonad and associated tooling)
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