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How have you automated configuring your machines in terms of packages and dotfiles so it works cross-distro?

I’m looking for interesting tools to automate managing packaging and configuring everything automated.

And yeah I know about NixOS but I like to distro hop and experiment so I for now know these:

  • Ansible - automating many machines, using different package names as vars and package managers.
  • Bash - the most native and compatible scripting language that can be.
  • Chezmoi - for dotfiles.

For now that’s it. I’m looking forward for your suggestions!

chrash0 ,

i’ve used Chezmoi for years now pretty successfully. works on my Mac and Linux machines. it probably could be made to work on Windows. i am transitioning to NixOS, but i’ll probably keep using it anyway, since i still have Macs for work (and because they’re great laptops don’t @ me). the only real downside is that it only works for the home folder, so i have to manually control stuff for /etc, but i generally prefer user configuration for most tools anyway.

i had messed around with Ansible for this in the past, but i didn’t really like it for this use case. it’s been a while tho so it’s hard to say why.

not to pile on, but you might also look at GNU Stow. i decided against it, but it’s there.

obligatory i s’pose: github.com/covercash2/dotfiles

data1701d ,
@data1701d@startrek.website avatar

I’m not a Mac fan, but I do keep a Hackintosh VM with GPU passthrough to run the occasional XCode and the like or send a text message when I’m too lazy to pull out my iPhone. I will say that MacOS’s standardized interface is rather nice, though.

Psyhackological OP ,
@Psyhackological@lemmy.ml avatar

Wow, you went through hell with this Hacintosh. Interesting that you have an iPhone not Android when you use Linux.

Psyhackological OP ,
@Psyhackological@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah I see everyone saying chezmoi is great.

Ansible seems fine but also complicate many thing not doing something in bash.

GNU Stow seems even more complication than Ansible.

Bash seems the most simplest one.

PlexSheep ,

I haven’t. But having my home dir be a git repo helps a great deal. The rest I install when I need it

F04118F ,

chezmoi does basically that, without actually making your home dir a git repo, it just syncs it. It also supports templating and per-machine differences. Pretty cool really.

Auster ,

One thing I like to have with me is the AppImage version of programs when possible, since they usually work out of the box. Also helps ensuring I don’t depend on the availability of whatever package manager the system uses.

Psyhackological OP ,
@Psyhackological@lemmy.ml avatar

Do they also embed the configuration inside of them? But for many dependencies and binaries I don’t think that would be a good case scenario compared to package manager.

Auster ,

There are cases where AppImages aren’t viable indeed, like with programs that require ring 0 access. But limitations exist for all formats, so perhaps another good alternative is having multiple versions of a given program, like downloading the equivalent deb package through apt while also keeping the appimage version. It would bloat the storage for a potential automated configuration, but it should help with ensuring compatibility.

data1701d ,
@data1701d@startrek.website avatar

I’ve become a Flatpak fan for a similar reason.

filister ,

Distrobox?

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