I made a Video about GNU Stow a while back. The general idea behind it is that it works by using symlinks to essentially automatically manage your files. Most people use them for DOT (Config) Files.
Heres a super basic guide so you know how to use it…
- install Stow (sudo pacman -S stow)
- Make a folder in home, call its DOTS for easy remembering.
- make a folder for each application you want to stash… store… stow.
- in that folder mirror the location the file is found. for instance in my example I’m backing up the config for mpv. If its found in ~/.config/mpv/config.conf (its not) I would make a folder in DOTS like this ~/DOTS/.config/mpv/ and then MOVE all the shit from the old place to the new one.
- repeat as required for all the shit you want to back up
- Run ‘stow mpv’ (or other application name. )
- Profit.
Now you can back up your shit to a git service REALLY easy. Even I did it!
The reason I have been thinking a lot about stow is because I had my /home drive die the other week. Poof. 3TB gone! – sad times – Anyway… I had my Home drive die and while I did not have to reinstall my system I did have all my configs ripped out of my soul! so, I git cloned my own dot files. and then I ran my StowRestore script and I was done! Before I knew about stow, I had all sorts of shitty restore scripts and odd folder ideas. It was terrible.
When I find a program, and make a video about it I always wonder how much interest people will have in it. In the case of Stow, I can now say will all certainty that you SHOULD be using it because its GREAT and it saved me a LOT of work. All you have to do is remember to Stow new files as required! 🙂