79 lines
2.8 KiB
Text
79 lines
2.8 KiB
Text
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;;;;;
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title: rcm: Another dotfile manager
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tags: software, rc
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date: 2014-07-03 17:53
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format: md
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;;;;;
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A little while ago I saw a link pass by about
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[rcm](http://robots.thoughtbot.com/rcm-for-rc-files-in-dotfiles-repos),
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a RC file (or dotfile) manager. It seems a lot like using
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[GNU Stow](https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/) for your dotfiles.
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The basic idea seems to be that you create links to all your dotfiles
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and the actual files are all kept in a single directory structure,
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presumably for easy sharing with, for example, git.
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## The good...
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It seems that rcm has a few interesting features.
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### Host-specific dotfiles
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It gives you an option to have host-specific dotfiles, which is very
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handy when you're working on multiple (types of) system. My laptop
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doesn't always have the same needs as my PC and my server(s)
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definitely have different needs.
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## The bad...
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In the short time I've spent with it, I've also found a few things I
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don't much like.
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### Everything in a single directory
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I'm not so sure about the choice to put everything in a single
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directory structure, which top-level dotfiles in the top-level
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directory. This links all the files together in a repository-idea
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kind-of way. I can't have a zsh repository and an Emacs repository
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without also having different rcm source directories.
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Actually, this isn't entirely true. I can still separate them, with
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the use of [labels](#labels), but not in an ideal fashion.
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### Unfriendly to directories
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It doesn't seem to like linking directories, though it can. Linking
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directories is essential for me as I can on occasion remove a file
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from one of my configuration directories and I don't want to have to
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keep track of dead links like that manually. If you do link a
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directory, instead of it showing up in `lsrc` as a single entry, all
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the files in the directory are shown separately.
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<a name="labels"></a>
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### Labels
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The labels are a nice idea, but they aren't what I expected them to be
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when I read the description. Like host-specific dotfiles, labeled
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dotfiles are put in their own directory. This allows you to separate
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the dotfiles from others. What I didn't like about this implementation
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is that afterwards you always have to specify which label you want to
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use, which seems to make it impossible to still setup your dotfiles in
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a single command.
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## Conclusion
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I personally won't be using rcm to manage my dotfiles. The solution I
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have right now with GNU Stow works better and is easier to setup,
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although that too has its drawbacks.
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This is not a definitive description or review of the software, I have
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spent only a small amount of time with it and these are the findings I
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made when trying to set it up with a few config files. If you really
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want to know about it you should try it, it has quite a bit of
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documentation to get you going.
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