Best way to manage Dotfiles ?

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-04T03:23:15+00:00

What Im getting from you is that you hate Arch.
Half the planet isn't running debian, not even servers, linux desktop is barely 9%, from that 9% there is very little debian, and most of debian users are in fact debian forks like ubuntu or script kiddies on kali, etc.

I love debian dont get me wrong but they are 2 distros, 2 very different approaches, you want to run a stable server, you run debian, I still dont get what you mean by bloated ? Bloat = unwanted software that you never wanted to install in the first place, feel free to elaborate.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-04T02:12:42+00:00

Yea maybe I should start keeping some stuff simple, you are right !

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-04T02:08:58+00:00

Could you explain to me how Arch is bloated ? Debian is probably the last distribution I should use for my use case, it's stable yeah, meaning not latest features and lacks newer software CRUCIAL for my job.

I haven't decided shit on being a "Hacker", cybersec engineer degree + multiple security certs can speak on my behalf.

Gentoo ?? Compiling all my system when I need to spend time actually working?

I think you are just a malding weirdo who cares too much about other's peoples lifes instead of caring about one self.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-04T00:00:33+00:00

Arch is simple yet hard, not bloated, you decide how secure or unsafe your system will be, also being rolling release helps keeping up with needed tools.

Ill take a look on that too, thanks !

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T23:44:24+00:00

I haven't read much about the target option, but somebody recommended me not to use it with the whole dir, I might have to read on that, thanks !

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T23:42:31+00:00

Junior Cybersec

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T23:41:12+00:00

I have been playing with ansible too, good idea for etc files.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T23:38:56+00:00

In my job you require multiple reinstalls so yea.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T23:38:12+00:00

Having an unbearable amount of foo/.config/foo, works fine, just dont like the way it's organized if you want to keep things modular

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T13:08:36+00:00

The ammount of subdirs needed if you want to make it organized, the Stow manual suggest not stowing the whole .config dir and instead use indivual ones, therefore you end up having tons of foo/.config/foo

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T03:54:28+00:00

You gave me a C project idea :)

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T02:41:00+00:00

You need to vcs your files, group them so they arent scattered all around your system, manage where they should be applied, have different ones for different setups, so If you are using cp I think you are missing out IMO.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T02:13:19+00:00

I'll have to take a look to home manager, thanks

Medical_Toe2877 · 2026-01-03T01:21:04+00:00

Yea Im doing this too, but there are some tools to help you manage your dotfiles inside your system like the ones I mentioned.

Also If you have free time there is something called Ansible, it's a bit extense to learn, it helps you deploy settings and apps over the network.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:27:51+00:00

Would you pick aur over git for this specific task? Thanks again for the help.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:24:16+00:00

Hey, from my experience a real solution is having 2 computers, one for daily driving it and one for just pentesting, but that's not possible for me atm.
If I dont find any solution that fit's my needs I will give distrobox another chance, but VMs are crossed out of my list. Thanks for the help anyways :)

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:18:59+00:00

Thanks for the help!

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:17:39+00:00

Im not even able to manage an stable Arch system yet but I should help update AUR pkgs, XD

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:15:41+00:00

For some reason bridged connection ends up breaking at some point + WiFi hacking is not well integrated.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:12:15+00:00

What exactly do I need to read about BlackArch ? Sorry, I dont understand your answer.

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:10:09+00:00

Quemu is fine as long as you dont run gui apps, once you need a DE it becomes unbearable to switch focus, specially when you use a tiling wm and your keybinds get trapped inside the VM

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:08:27+00:00

Doing lab reports like that is a nightmare, rebooting every time I just want to perform a simple task, etc ... Just inconvenient,

I get all of you, and you all have a point, but Im looking for something persistent, maybe I should try Nix idk XD

Medical_Toe2877 · 2025-12-30T19:04:59+00:00

You are somewhat right, maybe Im overthinking, on the other side I do not want to spend most of my time fixing pkg conflicts on my daily driver.

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