[Ecco]

Dumb yet serious question : what problem is a dotfile manager even trying to solve?

Personally I have a git repo in my home directory and just commit dotfiles to it. The only drawback is that git always think there’s a git repo no matter where I am in my home, so I usually rename the .git folder to .git_hidden. And on the (rare) occasion that I want to update one of my dotfiles I just rename the .git_hidden directory back to .git.

It’s really just two “mv” commands, I can’t believe you need a tool for just that.

What am I missing out on?

[para_parolu]

I recently learned it. I have personal and work laptops (two work laptops as of now for different companies). 90% of dotfiles should be the same. But rest is pain to sync. I’m using chezmoi that has templating mechanism that helps me.

[mdaniel]

FWIW, you don't have to do that rename dance; git allows specifying the name of the .git metadata directory via `git --git-dir=$HOME/.git_hidden ...` or `GIT_DIR=$HOME/.git_hidden git ...`

I don't know how big your .gitignore must be when trying to use a tool that wants to own every file and directory to manage your /home but if that works for you, more power to ya

[Ecco]

Oh, interesting, thanks!

And I don’t even bother with ignoring files! I just git add the ones I want to track :)

[bean-weevil]

Start with ls -a -w1 > .gitignore, then edit it and delete everything you want to track.