DotFiles

Dotfiles are the configuration and preferences files that are used to setup any development box according to the developer's preferences and workflow.

In these repo, we have the following sections:

• NPM Configuration: Default Node modules to be used on all host installations
• Shells: RC scripts for all used shells
• VIM Configuration: Scripts for the administration of the VIM instalation in a particular host. Plugins, Default Configurations, etc...
• GIT Configuration: Default git configuration files
• Window Manager Configuration: Default configuration of fonts, styles, window borders and many others for the i3 tiling window manager
• Host Default Initial Configuration: Default initial configuration of packages and its instalation, to be run just after the VM is available and its shell is accessible. Scripts for both ubuntu and arch distributions.

VIM Configuration

Vim is my favorite text editor mainly as it is available on any platform, operating system and hardware. As a plugin it is also available on almost all modern graphical IDEs.

Such versatility comes with the cost that it is necessary to switch from a TTY-based code editing mode to a modal-based code editing. In a TTY-based editor we just move around with the cursor, changing and adding characters. In a modal editor, we have differente "Editing modes", and each one of those modes has "commands" that do the actual editing of the text.

The available scripts are:

• clean_vim.sh: Cleans the current vimrc configuration and all the downloaded VIM plugins and theirs configurations
• switch_vimrc.sh: Change the current vimrc to the mode specified as parameter to the script (Currently: js, python, regular), downloads all necessary plugins and update their configuration

The available configurations are:

• vimrc: The default minimalistic vimrc configuration
• vimrc_javascript: My default vimrc configuration for javascript
• vimrc_python: My default python configuration
• vimrc_windows: My default windows configuration
• vsvim: configuration for VsVim Plugin for visual studio

GIT Configuration

The gitconfig file that contains my default email and name to be used on git repositories

Host Default Initial Configuration

When we start a VM on a PaaS Service like AWS or GoogleCloud, or even when we create a local VM, it is normally necessary to download and install dozens of packages, each one with its own settings and dependencies, in order to gain time and automate such process, I created my default initialization scripts for VMs and hosts

• Arch: Arch has quickly become my favorite linux distro, as it thrives for technical excellence and not user-friendliness (a trade-off very appealing to me). It is very lightweight and allows fine-tuning of the development environment. I use on arch several scripts that need to be run on the indicated order below:

  • arch.000.base.sh: Base files for arch instalattion on AWS
  • arch.001.chromium.sh: Chromium installation on AWS or Local VM
  • arch.002.vim.sh: Vim instalation scripts (python development default)
  • Window Manager Configuration: The tiling window manager is in my opinion the best option for GUI for programming professionals, as it has a unsurpassable degree of customization available for the user. It is not a kind of software to be used by beginners or non-professionals. As every advanced and highly-customizable software, its cost is the amount of work that is needed in order to completely configure it. For that there are the following folders with my default configurations:
    • i3: The configuration for the i3 window manager
  • Auxiliary Scripts: The following scripts are used on the scripts above
    • termite: The configuration for the termite terminal
    • pacman: The configuration for the pacman package manager
    • vnc: The configuration for the vnc remote desktop

• Ubuntu: Ubuntu is still the workhorse of the linux distros, and the most common to be found on linux providers. It has a lot of opiniated towards the end user, so sometimes it is a difficult to create the best development environments

  • vm_minimal_script.sh: The Minimal script to be run, useful for data science vms that are normally necessary to perform a certain computation and after that specific task, to be shutdown
  • vm_minimal_gui_script.sh: Same as above, but with GUI and VNC
  • host_full_new_script.sh: A Full development environment to be used on new hosts.
  • start scripts: Collection of simple start scripts to be placed on the home folder of each user

• Dynamic SWAP Memory Allocation: For some large computations, as a safety measure, it is advisable to allocate some disk space for swap, which adds to the currently available RAM memory. This can avoid many processess being killed by the O.S. due to the lack of available memory.

  • create_swap.sh: Creates a region of swap memory using the size passed as parameter and the file name also passed as parameter
  • drop_swap.sh: switches off the swap memory file passed by parameter and deallocates it from the operation system memory

• Wallpaper: A Nice collection for wallpapers for the GUI linux distributions