If my .zshrc file is ~/.dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc, how can I create a symlink so that the file appears as ~/.zshrc?
The cd step in Alexej's answer isn't needed as you can call ln -s target destination explicitly.
ln -s ~/.dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc ~/.zshrc
run:
cd ~/ ; ln -s ~/.dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc
for me, when using relative path for symlink, it can show error: ~/.zshrc: No such file or directory error as #astephen2. You should change to absolute path then it working fine
You don't actually need a symlink. Add the following to ~/.zshenv:
ZDOTDIR=~/.dotfiles/zsh
zsh sources ~/.zshenv before any other files, and will use the value of $ZDOTDIR as the location for local configuration files in lieu of your home directory.
On MacOS, you can't use ~ in a symlink where the directory is quoted. You need to use full paths. I'd recommend running ln -s "$HOME/.dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc" "$HOME/.zshrc" Alternatively, you can forget the quotes, and use ~ in place of $HOME, however if there are any spaces (or variables with spaces) you'll probably run into problems.
Related
I am having trouble symlinking dotfiles. I have a folder in my home directory ~/dotfiles which I have synced to a github repo. I am trying to take my .vimrc file in ~/dotfiles/.vimrc and create a symbolic link to put it at ~/.vimrc. To do this I type in
ln -s ~/dotfiles/.vimrc ~/.vimrc
But when I run that it says
ln: /Users/me/.vimrc: File exists
What am I doing wrong?
That error message means that you already have a file at ~/.vimrc, which ln is refusing to overwrite. Either delete the ~/.vimrc and run ln again or let ln delete it for you by passing the -f option:
ln -s -f ~/dotfiles/.vimrc ~/.vimrc
There is a better solution for managing dotfiles without using symlinks or any other tool, just a git repo initialized with --bare.
A bare repository is special in a way that they omit working directory, so you can create your repo anywhere and set the --work-tree=$HOME then you don't need to do any work to maintain it.
Approach
first thing to do is, create a bare repo
git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles
To use this bare repo, you need to specify --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ and --work-tree=$HOME, better is to create an alias
alias dotfiles='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME
At this point, all your configuration files are being tracked, and you can easily use the newly registered dotfiles command to manage the repository, ex :-
# to check the status of the tracked and untracked files
dotfiles status
# to add a file
dotfiles commit .tmux.conf -m ".tmux.conf added"
# push new files or changes to the github
dotfiles push origin main
I also use this way to sync and store my dotfiles, see my dotfiles repository and can read at Storing dotfiles with Git where I wrote about managing for multiple devices.
How to symlink all dotfiles in a directory recursively
Have a dotfiles directory that is structured as to how they should be structured at $HOME
dotfiles_home=~/dotfiles/home # for example
cp -rsf "$dotfiles_home"/. ~
-r: Recursive, create the necessary directory for each file
-s: Create symlinks instead of copying
-f: Overwrite existing files (previously created symlinks, default .bashrc, etc)
/.: Make sure cp "copy" the contents of home instead of the home directory itself.
Tips
Just like ln, if you want no headache or drama, use an absolute path for the first argument like the example above.
Note
This only works with GNU cp (preinstalled in Ubuntu), not POSIX cp. Check your man cp, you can install GNU coreutils if needed.
Thanks
To this and this.
Is there a way to save the path to a frequently used directory in UNIX, so instead of having to manually cd /path/to/directory I can just enter a shortcut cd myFavoritePath ??
Define your favorite directories in CDPATH environment variable. It's a colon-separated list of search paths available to the cd command. You should specify not a directory you want to switch but parent directory.
Here is brief info about it: http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/unix/upt/ch14_05.htm
For example you have three directories you work with frequently:
/home/user/scripts/favorite/
/var/log/
/var/lib/
add to your ~/.bash_profile (or another shell profile file you use) the next line:
export CDPATH=.:/home/user/scripts:/var
In the example below I just redefine CDPATH in shell for the current session
[user#server lib]$ CDPATH=.:/var:/home/user/scripts
[user#server lib]$ cd log
/var/log
[user#server log]$ cd lib
/var/lib
[user#server lib]$ cd favorite
/home/user/scripts/favorite
If you want use tab while execute cd you can install bash-completion http://bash-completion.alioth.debian.org/ but it's optional
Also do not forget cd - command for quick switching to previous working dir
You can always add the directory path in ~/.bashrc
vi ~/.bashrc
export FAV_DIR1=''
The variables in .bashrc load into the environment on new session. So make sure to reboot.
Then you can visit the directory by something like:
cd $FAV_DIR1
I'm trying to move .zshrc to a folder where I keep this kind of files synced with Github.
But now whenever I start a zsh session it doesn't use that config file.
Assuming I changed the file to ~/.dotfiles how can I add ~/.dotfiles/.zshrc to the PATH(?!) to make zsh start with that config?
Doing source ~./dotfiles/.zshrc only works for that session. Doesn't work anymore if I close the terminal.
You can symlink:
ln -s /path/to/original /path/to/symlink
For the zshrc you can do something like:
ln -s ~/.dotiles/.zshrc ~/.zshrc
One alternative to a symlink is to put this in ~/.zshenv:
ZDOTDIR=~/.dotfiles
If you want .zshenv in ~/.dotfiles as well, you can look into setting ZDOTDIR in one of the global configuration files (/etc/zshenv is a good choice).
Alternatively, you can do what I do and use GNU Stow. I've got my dotfiles in a repository, one subdirectory per category, like so:
dotfilerepo/zsh/.zshrc
dotfilerepo/zsh/.zlogin
dotfilerepo/git/.gitconfig
dotfilerepo/vim/.vimrc
then I can cd into repo and do stow zsh and it'll create a symlink from ~/.zshrc to repo/zsh/.zshrc, another from zsh/.zlogin to ~/.zlogin. stow vim to create symlinks from the vim subdirectory to ~, etc.
I've got a script, install-linkfarm, that does all the stow commands so when I move onto a new machine, I clone my repo, cd to it and run install-linkfarm and am good to go.
You can put this in ~/.zshrc, even as its entire contents:
if [ -r ~/.dotfiles/.zshrc ]; then
source ~/.dotfiles/.zshrc
fi
Please use the export command mentioned below to solve your problem.
export ZDOTDIR=$HOME/.dotfiles
In Linux, you can check if your zsh is loading /etc/zsh/zshrc, and edit it.
If that's the case, redirect this to your custom script by adding:
sh $HOME/.dotfiles/zshrc
Here is an interesting hack that doesn't require you to use sym-links.
In your .xsession, (or .*wmrc) have the following:
xterm -e 'zsh -c ". ~/.dotfiles/.zshrc; zsh"'.
instead of just:
xterm
Make sure to put the -e at the end after all of your other xterm options.
I tried to create a symbolic link to a non existing file
ln -s non_existing_file.txt $HOME/dir1/dir2/my_symbolic_link
Then I tried to write something in the non existing file using the symbolic link
vi $HOME/dir1/dir2/my_symbolic_link
Now after saving and exiting non_existing_file.txt is created under dir2.
Can someone explain why?
ln -s target linkpath
creates a symlink at linkpath which holds the name target. Operations on the symlink interpret the name target relative to the directory where the symlink resides, not the present working directory.
So, if you have a symlink holding, say, ../usr in /tmp/link-to-usr, then ls /tmp/link-to-usr will list the contents of /usr (which is /tmp/../usr) regardless of where the ls command is executed.
I'd like to specify a different build and deployment path for files, how can I specify this? I have a directory of files on my build box at pathA,and would like to install these on pathB.
%files subpackagetest
%defattr(0644,%{_package_owner},%{_package_owner},0755)
/source/path/on/build/box /deployment/path
Thanks for any ideas
Look at the %install section of the spec file. Something like below should do the trick.
%install
mkdir -p %{buildroot}/deployment/path
cp -R /source/path/on/build/box %{buildroot}/deployment/path
%file subpackagetest
%defattr(0644,%{_package_owner},%{_package_owner},0755)
/deployment/path
See http://www.logiqwest.com/TechnicalPapers/rpmScriptInstall.html for an example.