Haris’ Config

NOTE: Before using this configuration, please take a look at Tweakable configs/Mandatory tweaks in order to set up your system correctly.

Welcome. This is my personal dotfile repository. I use Arch Linux, so these dotfiles are customized to work there. I have also used a Macbook when professionally required, so most of the configs will work there too, but expect some incompatibilities and occasional breakage.

I do not directly keep my dotfiles in this repository. Rather, I write them as literary documents with the actual configs embedded as code blocks. With the help of Emacs and it’s excellent org-mode, I can run a command and those code blocks go exactly into the config file they need to. This approach is known as literate programming.

I find it superior compared to keeping the config files directly because:

• It is much easier to document my configuration as it has become quite complex and reading/writing it this way feels more natural.
• I can group related configuration from multiple programs in a single file, and then export (tangle is the technical term) them where they need to go. See for example: shells.org.
• For each application, I can use the same org file to keep its configuration and a script that installs all of its dependencies.
• I can use the breadth of org-mode features to more easily navigate my configs.
• It is very satisfying.
• I can put all the configs into a ~/.haris folder and make that a regular git repository, instead of keeping a bare repo in my home directory, which has some drawbacks.

NOTE: The dotfiles are meant exclusively for Linux desktop. They have mostly been created with an Arch Linux setup in mind, but most things should be applicable to other distros as well (although I didn’t specifically test this).

Usage

I keep all persistent user configs in org files, and use org-babel-tangle (part of Emacs) to tangle them, i.e. send all the configs to the files they need to be in for the programs to read them.

If you are setting up these dotfiles for the first time, you can just run:

curl https://veracioux.me/dotfiles/bootstrap.sh | bash

This will tangle all the dotfiles to where they need to go to be usable. You may still need to install dependencies to ensure you have all the programs the dotfiles are meant to configure.

If you would like to do things in a more supervised manner, follow the bootstrap instructions.

Once you have set everything up, any changes you make to the org-mode dotfiles will be applied directly to your live configs when you call org-babel-tangle. There are also Emacs key bindings for this, which you can inspect yourself.

Installing dependencies

Most of my org-mode dotfiles have various Dependencies sections with code blocks tangled to /tmp/dependencies-$USER/..., grouped by package manager that is needed to install them. Those files contain a space/newline separated list of package names, and the script (WIP) that installs the dependencies will parse them as separate command-line arguments.

Here is a list of file extensions that can be used for dependency specifications tangled to /tmp/dependencies-$USER/, including how each will (soon) be processed by dependency installation scripts:

.pacman

Official Arch Linux packages, which will be installed with sudo pacman -S

.aur

AUR packages, which will be installed with paru -S

.ubuntu

APT packages that should be installed on Ubuntu 22.04, using sudo apt install. I might subdivide this for multiple Ubuntu versions.

.pip

Python 3 packages, installed using sudo pip install.

.cpan

CPAN packages, installed using sudo cpan.

.pip-user

Python 3 packages, installed using pip install for the current user only.

Any other extension or none

Custom dependency installation script. It will be executed directly.

This list might be extended in the future, but I will try my best to keep it up to date as a centralized overview of all the subdirectories I use.

NOTE: I made most of the dependency lists while using Arch Linux, so you should expect the best completeness when using pacman as the package manager and paru as an AUR helper.

NOTE: I have recently started seriously using a Ubuntu setup as well, making changes to my configs whenever I noticed that something didn’t work. Some things were caused by differing packages among distributions, and I solved them by installing the missing dependencies, but I haven’t always been meticulous in updating my dotfiles correspondingly.

System setup

To set up a new system, you can look at system-setup.org. It is incomplete, but should be better than starting from scratch.

Default applications

Here you can find a mapping of mime types to default applications that I use, and some added mime type associations. To apply the changes, run:

update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications

Default applications

[Default Applications]
application/octet-stream=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
application/pdf=org.pwmt.zathura-pdf-poppler.desktop;
application/x-dxf=librecad.desktop;
application/x-gnome-saved-search=nemo.desktop;
inode/directory=alacritty-open.desktop;
image/jpeg=vimiv.desktop;sxiv.desktop;
image/png=vimiv.desktop;sxiv.desktop;
image/svg+xml=vimiv.desktop;sxiv.desktop;
image/tiff=vimiv.desktop;sxiv.desktop;
image/vnd.dwg=inkscape.desktop;
image/vnd.dxf=org.inkscape.Inkscape.desktop;
image/webp=vimiv.desktop;sxiv.desktop;
text/doc=libreoffice-writer.desktop;
text/html=firefox.desktop;
text/plain=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
text/x-arduino=arduino-arduinoide.desktop;
text/x-bibtex=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
text/x-c=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
text/x-c++=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;org.qt-project.qtcreator.desktop;
text/x-chdr=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
text/x-c++hdr=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;org.qt-project.qtcreator.desktop;
text/x-csrc=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
text/x-c++src=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;org.qt-project.qtcreator.desktop;
text/xml=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;firefox.desktop;
text/x-org=emacs.desktop;
text/x-script.python=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
text/x-shellscript=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
text/x-tex=emacs.desktop;gvim.desktop;
video/mp4=mpv.desktop;
video/mpeg=mpv.desktop;
video/webm=mpv.desktop;
video/x-matroska=mpv.desktop;
x-directory/gnome-default-handler=nemo.desktop;
x-directory/normal=nemo.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/file=nemo.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/http=firefox.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/https=firefox.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/msteams=teams.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/tg=org.telegram.desktop.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/viber=viber.desktop;

Added associations

[Added Associations]
application/octet-stream=gvim.desktop;
application/x-bibtex=gvim.desktop;
image/vnd.dwg=inkscape.desktop;org.inkscape.Inkscape.desktop;
image/vnd.dxf=inkscape.desktop;org.inkscape.Inkscape.desktop;

Global variables

HARIS​_BACKGROUND​_TASKS​_SILENT

I have configured my main shell fish to notify me when non-visible background tasks finish. Setting this variable to a non-zero value disables this behavior.

TERM

This variable is hardly invented by me. But I use it heavily in scripts, most notably the TERM=dumb value. In general, if TERM=dumb, that is a hint to my scripts and utilities that graphical interaction is preferred over terminal interaction. The askpass command behaves this way for example.

Tweakable configs

This is a list of configs that you can tweak per deployment. They are not under version control. Some of them should be set up in order for things to work correctly, like the ID of your bluetooth headphones, etc.

Mandatory tweaks

These tweaks are mandatory for all the features to work correctly. If you don’t configure some of them, your system probably won’t break but you will experience missing features.

• OpenAI key
• Bluetooth headphones ID
• CPU temperature file

Optional tweaks

• Local and temporary shell configs

Index

This section describes briefly where to find configurations for various programs.

Miscellaneous

Ignored files

rg

# Development worktrees
wt*/