You can clone the repository wherever you want. (I like to keep it in ~/Projects/dotfiles
, with ~/dotfiles
as a symlink.) The bootstrapper script will pull in the latest version and copy the files to your home folder.
git clone https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles.git && cd dotfiles && ./bootstrap.sh
To update, cd
into your local dotfiles
repository and then:
./bootstrap.sh
Alternatively, to update while avoiding the confirmation prompt:
./bootstrap.sh -f
To install these dotfiles without Git:
cd; curl -#L https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/tarball/master | tar -xzv --strip-components 1 --exclude={README.md,bootstrap.sh}
To update later on, just run that command again.
If ~/.path
exists, it will be sourced along with the other files, before any feature testing (such as detecting which version of ls
is being used) takes place.
Here’s an example ~/.path
file that adds ~/utils
to the $PATH
:
export PATH="$HOME/utils:$PATH"
If ~/.extra
exists, it will be sourced along with the other files. You can use this to add a few custom commands without the need to fork this entire repository, or to add commands you don’t want to commit to a public repository.
My ~/.extra
looks something like this:
# PATH additions
export PATH="~/bin:$PATH"
# Git credentials
# Not in the repository, to prevent people from accidentally committing under my name
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Mathias Bynens"
GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
git config --global user.name "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="mathias@mailinator.com"
GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
git config --global user.email "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
You could also use ~/.extra
to override settings, functions and aliases from my dotfiles repository. It’s probably better to fork this repository instead, though.
When setting up a new Mac, you may want to set some sensible OS X defaults:
./.osx
When setting up a new Mac, you may want to install some common Homebrew formulae (after installing Homebrew, of course):
./.brew
Suggestions/improvements welcome!
- Gianni Chiappetta for sharing his amazing collection of dotfiles
- Matijs Brinkhuis and his homedir repository
- Jan Moesen and his ancient
.bash_profile
+ shiny tilde repository - Ben Alman and his dotfiles repository
- Nicolas Gallagher and his dotfiles repository
- Tom Ryder and his dotfiles repository
- Chris Gerke and his tutorial on creating an OS X SOE master image + Insta repository
- @ptb and his OS X Lion Setup repository
- Tim Esselens
- anyone who contributed a patch or made a helpful suggestion