Dotfiles

This is only public so I can easily share it across machines. There is probably nothing of interest for you here ... or is there?

My usage is mostly terminal-based, via Crostini on Chromebook, WSL2 on Windows, and (rarely) MacOS terminal. Making heavy use of:

• Bash / Tmux
• FZF / pistol / fd / ripgrep
• Neovim
• cmus

Graphical sections are Linux-only, and use:

• sway / swaync / waybar
• WezTerm
• Firefox

On MacOS, use:

• WezTerm
• Rectangle

Letting me own your machine

git clone https://github.com/fortes/dotfiles.git --branch debian-bookworm
./dotfiles/script/setup

Post-Setup

Once you've run setup, you'll still have to do the following universal manual steps (see platform-specific sections for more):

1. Generate this machine's SSH keys:

   ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "$(hostname)"

   Then add the key into GitHub and wherever else

2. Add any additional ssh keys into ~/.ssh

   Might need to extract out of 1Password, once downloaded will have the password removed. To restore, do

   ssh-keygen -p -f KEY_FILE

   Alternatively, try using the command line op to get the keys:

   op item get SSH_KEY_ITEM_ID --fields "private key" --reveal > ~/.ssh/xxx &&
   op item get SSH_KEY_ITEM_ID --fields "public key" > ~/.ssh/xxx.pub
   # Private key has quotes around it, so need to remove them before this next step
   ssh-keygen -p -f ~/.ssh/xxx
   chmod 400 ~/.ssh/xxx*

3. Authorize your public keys on the new machine:

   ssh-import-id gh:fortes

4. Add your favorite servers into .ssh/config.local

5. Setup .gitconfig.local:

   [user]
     name = Your Name
     email = [email protected]
   

   If you need to tweak any config based upon the directory path, do something like

   [includeIf "gitdir:~/src/company/"]
     path = ~/.config/git/company.gitconfig
   

6. Log into GitHub Copilot / Claude Code

   # GitHub CLI client
   gh auth login
   # Install the Copilot extension
   gh extension install github/gh-copilot
   # May also need to update the Copilot extensions
   gh extension upgrade gh-copilot
   
   # Launch Claude Code, which will take you through the flow
   claude
   
   # Copilot Vim extension by doing `:Copilot setup`
   # Make sure `ENABLE_GITHUB_COPILOT` variable is set in `~/.profile.local`

7. Log into Spotify via ncspot and psst

8. Add keys for llm via llm keys set xxx (or copy over from another machine from ~/.config/io.datasette.llm)

Ignoring changes to a file

git update-index --skip-worktree ./symlinks/npmrc

To make changes in the future:

git update-index --no-skip-worktree ./symlinks/npmrc

Firefox

• Log into sync accounts, extensions should automatically install
• Run dotfiles/script/stow manually to make sure to link user.js for Firefox now that a profile has been created
• Configure uBlock Origin
  • Enable in private mode
  • Enable cloud storage mode. Should do the following for you, but doesn't always work:
    • Enable annoyances filters
    • Add Bypass paywalls clean filter

Chrome

• Log into sync accounts, extensions should automatically install

Debian

• Run browser setup above

• Can install some optional apps via scripts:

  • dotfiles/script/setup_kvm
  • dotfiles/script/setup_signal
  • dotfiles/script/setup_zerotier
  • dotfiles/script/setup_zoom

• Depending on the machine, you may need pavucontrol in order to unmute your audio output via GUI. ** Alternatively, find the name of the desired output via pacmd list-sinks then run pacmd set-default-sink $SINK_NAME and make sure to unmute via pacmd set-sink-mute [name] 0

• If running multiple monitors, need to configure Wacom tablet to only use a specific monitor:

  input "type:tablet_tool" {
    map_to_output DP-1
  }
  

• For High DPI displays, create a ~/.Xresources.local file with the proper Xft.dpi (see .Xresources for example)

• To mount SMB shares on boot, add something like the following to /etc/fstab:

  //machine-name/share /media/share cifs nofail,user=,password=,ro	0	0
  

Chromebook

• Do setup via phone, should copy over everything
• Set local device password and PIN for quicker local login
• Extensions, settings, and play store apps should automatically sync
  • Night light might need to be manually set up?
• Chrome Extension Setup
  • 1Password: Login to account
  • uBlock Origin Lite: Set default config
• Enable Linux, choose a larger disk size (20GB fine?). Double check which debian version it is via lsb_release -a (should be bookworm)
• Run setup_machine
• Share Downloads folder with Linux, then symlink via ln -s /mnt/chromeos/MyFiles/Downloads ~/downloads
• Change terminal font by going to chrome-untrusted://terminal/html/nassh_preferences_editor.html
  • Add 'DejaVu Sans Mono Nerd' to the beginning of "Text Font Family"
  • Add the following to custom CSS:

    @font-face {
      font-family: "DejaVu Sans Mono Nerd";
      src: url(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/master/patched-fonts/DejaVuSansMono/Regular/DejaVuSansMNerdFontMono-Regular.ttf);
      font-weight: normal;
      font-style: normal;
    }

Windows

• Run all Windows Updates
• Install machine-specific drivers, update BIOS, etc
• Uninstall Teams, and other pre-installed unwanted things
• Enable BitLocker
• Adjust taskbar settings
• Adjust settings for Snipping tool, make sure to save to Downloads folder
• Disable browser tabs from being in Alt-Tab list (Settings -> System -> Multitasking)
• Disable "When I snap a window, suggest what I can snap next to it" in System -> Multitasking
• Turn on clipboard history by hitting Windows-V
• Set Windows Terminal as default terminal application
  • Download JetBrains Mono and set it as the default font in Windows Terminal
  • Choose reasonable default colors for Windows Terminal
• Enable Hyper-V (required for WSL, useful for VMs)
  • Search for hyper-v in start menu, will show up in obscure UI for settings
• Enable Windows Sandbox
• Accept MS Store terms for winget, running winget list should prompt
• Get WinGet via MS Store via App Installer
  • winget install AgileBits.1Password
  • winget install Mozilla.Firefox
  • winget install OpenWhisperSystems.Signal
• Depending on machine setup, the following might be of use as well
  • winget install Google.Chrome.Dev
  • winget install Microsoft.MouseandKeyboardCenter
  • winget install Microsoft.PowerToys
  • winget install Microsoft.VisualStudioCode
  • winget install Plex.PlexAmp
  • winget install VideoLAN.VLC
  • winget install Zoom.Zoom
• If gaming, also install:
  • winget install Blizzard.BattleNet
  • winget install Valve.Steam
• WSL
  • [Optional] Allocate more memory for WSL VM by creating/adding to %UserProfile%\.wslconfig:

    [wsl2]
    memory=16G
    

  • [Optional] Enable systemd for VM by creating/adding to /etc/wsl.conf:

    [boot]
    systemd=true
    

  • Install Windows Subsystem for Linux via running wsl --install Debian (in an admin terminal)
  • Enter the WSL2 container and run sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
  • Clone this repo and run ~/dotfiles/setup_machine
  • [Optional] Set Debian as the default terminal
  • To auto-mount network shares, do something like this in /etc/fstab (drvfs special for WSL):

    \\machine-name\share	/mnt/machine-share	drvfs	defaults,ro,noatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=022	0	0
    

• 1Password
  • Sign into account
  • Disable global keyboard shortcuts
• Firefox
  • Sign into account
• VS Code
  • Sign in via GitHub to sync
  • (optional) Sign into GitHub Co-pilot
  • Install extensions (in case sync doesn't work)
    • Copilot
    • SSH
    • WSL
    • vim
• Steam & Battle.net
  • Sign in and install games locally

Mac

Still a work in progress, but kinda works

• Set up TouchID, Apple account if required
• Remove all the junk from the dock
• Enable Night Shift and set to Sunset to Sunrise
• Turn off Natural Scrolling
• Increase keyboard repeat rate to max, delay to min
• Change Globe key to Control dictation
• Disable iCloud syncing of all but Find My Mac & Safari
• Set terminal.app profile, send option as meta key
• May want to install command line tools manually in order to get git: xcode-select --install
• Run setup_mac
• Make sure keys repeat properly in VSCode: defaults write com.microsoft.VSCode ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
  • For other apps that have this issue, do the following:

    # Get the app id
    osascript -e 'id of app "Cursor"'
    # Outputs something like `com.todesktop.xxxxx`
    defaults write -g com.todesktop.xxxxx ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

• terminal.app sucks with colors, switch to WezTerm and pin it in the dock
• Make sure Rectangle.app starts on login
• Install the 1Password extension in Safari (others should sync automatically)

Docker

Need to first build the thing

docker build -t dotfiles .

Then run it like so to do work via your home directory

docker run -it --rm --name dotfiles dotfiles

To share files, use -v /path/to/host:/path/to/container, for example if sharing the ~/src folder:

docker run -it --rm --name dotfiles -v ~/src:/home/fortes/src dotfiles

Also need to manually start neovim to install plugins

Known Issues

Mac

• Firefox and VSCode casks get ornery and no longer update via brew

Linux

• Media keys on Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard sometimes aren't detected, disconnect/reconnect USB may be enough to fix?
• Mouse wheel speed also sometimes goes to a better default after disconnect/reconnect
• 1Password can't manage to save authentication, dies trying to talk to keychain via dbus (for some reason, looking for org.kde.kwalletd5 and ignores gnome keyring)
• 1password GUI not installing correctly, something wrong w/ bash logic

TODO/Future Improvements

• Look into publishing a docker container via GitHub actions
• exa is now unmaintained, need to either go to eza or lsd
• Move from docker to podman
• Get devcontainer setup for this repo
• Get remote VSCode settings synced up as well, currently in ~/.vscode-server/data/Machine
• Figure out how to get M1 CI running to check builds
• Figure out what Windows 11 tweaks & usability improvements to copy
• Get things working in GitHub codespaces, which seems to use Ubuntu 20.04.06 LTS underneath. Currently fails silently trying to install backports sources. Troubleshooting instructions can be helpful
• Figure out how to use Hammerspoon to have media keys control cmus, instead of launching iTunes (gross)
• Try switching from docker to podman
• Look into glances and btop
• wshowkeys or similar for showing keypresses for screencasts, etc
• Figure out Lutris / Wine / Proton for Linux gaming
• Auto-publish Docker images
• Better colorschemes, coordinated everywhere
  • Check themer for generation
  • Easier swapping into light mode
  • dircolors can be better and used elsewhere: https://github.com/seebi/dircolors-solarized
  • RootLoops for generation
• Figure out how to get USB-C DP Alt devices to work, might need displaylink-debian or at the very least evdi-dkms
• Get Nvidia Drivers drivers with a reasonable resolution for linux console
  • Install nvidia-detect and run to check support
  • Install nvidia-driver
  • Get better resolution when booted into console by adding GRUB_GFXMODE=auto in /etc/default/grub, then run sudo update-grub
• Learn from Wayland Apps in Wireguard Docker Containers and see if anything worth copying
• Dotfile managers might have something better than GNU stow