A clean Unix home

Anything but clean at this point, as I work my way toward the goal of having a works-out-of-the-box Unix setup to use and sync on all my devices.

Installation:

Automated setup (recommended):

- Clone repository to location of your choice (${CLONE})

- Run the setup script:
    cd ${CLONE}
    ./setup.sh

  This script will:
    - Safely merge any pre-existing ~/.config and ~/.local into the repo directories.
    - Back up any conflicting user configuration files to ~/.unix-home-backup-TIMESTAMP.
    - Create symlinks ~/.config -> ${CLONE}/config and ~/.local -> ${CLONE}/local.
    - Copy/install ${CLONE}/system/etc/profile.d/clean_home.sh to /etc/profile.d/.

Manual setup (alternative):

- Clone repository to location of your choice (${CLONE})

- Copy ${CLONE}/system/etc/profile.d/clean_home.sh to /etc/profile.d/

- Symlink ${CLONE}/config to ~/.config

- Symlink ${CLONE}/local to ~/.local

Start a new bash, enjoy!

Git & Tracking New Dotfiles:

• .gitignore ignores all untracked files inside config/ and local/ by default.
• To track a new file or directory in git, use git add -f path/to/file.

Recommendations not part of this repo:

• Vim users: Install Microsoft PowerToys, and use the keyboard manager to remap Caps-Lock to Escape. This makes a huge difference as you don't need to take your left hand off the home row all the time. If you are straddled with a Dell laptop like me, which tells you about every press of the Caps-Lock key with a rather intrusive screen overlay notification, start the Dell Display and Peripheral Manager from the Start Menu, click on the gears icon in the titlebar, and in the "General" tab, disable the Caps-Lock notification.

• German users: Install the US International Alternate keymap, http://keyboards.jargon-file.org/altinter.zip, and get a US QWERTY keyboard. (NOT a UK QWERTY layout, NOT a "US International" layout. A genuine US keyboard, one where the key is not two rows tall, with the []{}| keys above it.) Apart from that, this layout gives you ;: on one key, '" on another, and <> next to each other, intuitively grouped and without combining AltGr with right-hand keys toward the center of the keyboard (awkward wrist-twister!). The Umlauts are on AltGr-q, AltGr-y and AltGr-p, plus the EsZett on AltGr-s. AltGr with backtick, caret or '" gives you "dead key" behavior for funnyness like ë or î, and çæåð©ñ etc. are also easily available. You get used to the new layout quickly, and again it makes a huge difference, especially when typing code. It also makes the Vim shortcut ZZ for save & exit easy.

Dependencies:

• Vim plugin CoC requires nodejs, npm, clangd. Using CoC with MSVC requires the Clang Power Tools plugin to MSVC (and exporting the compilation database for the solution -- right-click in the solution explorer on the solution, Clang Power Tools, Export Compilation Database -- this takes a while to complete).

Features:

• Moving .dotfiles from the home directory into ~/.config and ~/.local as appropriate

• Run clean_home to have your home directory checked for files that don't belong and should be merged / moved.

Settings:

• Bash startup files in ~./config/sh/ with various goodies already configured

  • Colored prompt

  • Command output colorization

  • Bash completion

  • Less / LessPipe

  • Ls-aliases la, ll

  • Git

    • Don't autoconvert line endings

  • Gdb

    • Silent startup (no text blurb)

    • Text interface as default

    • Command window focus as default (command history)

  • Vim / NeoVim

    • plug.vim preinstalled to handle your plugins comfortably

      • Run :PlugInstall to install the plugins configured in vimrc.plugins!

    • Meaningful default configuration

      • toggles paste mode

      • toggles expandtab

      • Mouse control, scroll offset, incremental search, result highlighting, whitespace visibility, statusline warning about problematic encodings

    • Selection of plugins preconfigured

      • a.vim

        • :A to switch between .c/.cpp and .h files

        • :AS, :AV to split the screen

        • :IH to switch to file under cursor (e.g. includes)

        • :IHS, IHV to split the screen

      • taglist.vim

        • to open / close file overview sidebar

      • vim-dispatch

        • :Make does not block editor, quickfix window accessible while build is still running

      • vim-latex-suite

        • You might not require its awesome LaTeX editing features, but using <++> (or <+comment+>) as placeholders and jumping to them to insert things with is nifty anywhere.

      • vim-startify

        • Start Vim empty and you get a nice most-recently-used list of files

      • vim-clang-format

        • Autoformat code according to .clang-format file (not yet properly configured)

      • coc.nvim

        • Language Server Protocol -- have Vim talk to Visual Studio for Autocompletion.

      • perforce_autoopen.vim

        • A little hack by myself to call "p4 open" on readonly files you are about to edit (should you have the misfortune to work with Perforce).

      • NERDTree

        • Press to get a file browser sidebar, where you can bookmark project directories.

      • Vim Fugitive

        • Instead of leaving Vim for Git commands, just go :Git .

        • Git Blame and other features integrated into Vim

...and a lot more yet to come, or which I have forgotten to write about at this point.