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I am looking to simplify the management of my configuration files across the many computers that I use, what I would like ideally is to check all the config files into SVN and then be able to check out the individual files where I want them. Unfortunately, you cant checkout individual files with SVN and making the home directory a SVN repo doesnt work across computers with different configurations. Any one have any ideas?

Edit: I like SVN because I can stick a line in my bashrc that will do a svn up, then a svn ci. What if I stuck the config files that go in $HOME into a different directory and I made a bashrc that loaded them into the correct locations on login?

Edit 2: Bonus points if it works on windows.

Edit 3: Well now I feel really silly, the sym links answer works really well. Worst part is that I considered it and for some silly reason I decided it wouldnt work. Oh well, thanks serverfault.

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  • On unixy platforms those config files are often called dotfiles. You may be interested in the site dotfiles.github.io which lists tools to manage them and links to other people's dotfiles as inspiration.
    – Martijn Heemels
    Jul 17, 2014 at 7:55

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What you could do is store your files in the repository, check out your folder into some other directory on the system and then create symbolic links to the configuration files you actually want to use to the use on that particular system.

You may also want to look at something like puppet or other similar tools for distributing configuration.

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  • I really like that idea, any way you can think to get that working on windows too? I know that NTFS 6(?) supports rudimentary symbolic links, I wonder if they would work in this situation...
    – Seamus Connor
    Oct 7, 2009 at 17:12
  • I should add that all that really needs to work on windows is my .vimrc, maybe I will just change the path that vim looks for the config file and call it good.
    – Seamus Connor
    Oct 7, 2009 at 17:14
  • +1, I use Mercurial now to accomplish just that :)
    – Tim Post
    Oct 7, 2009 at 18:03
  • NTFS supports symlinks, you need the junction tool from sysinternals to use them.
    – gbjbaanb
    Oct 8, 2009 at 18:07

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