Hi, What would be the best way to manage dotfiles (~/.config, etc…) in an uBlue image? I want something that automatically updates when user rebase to a new image version, instead of manually copying everytime the system updates. Thanks.

Rebasing doesn’t affect your home folder. [image] How can rebasing between desktop enviornments cause issues General I would call that something the user slightly_smiling_face Essentially, rebasing changes the operating system. It would be like switching from Windows to m…

https://www.chezmoi.io/ is what I recommend but we don’t have a super strong opinion on what people use. But as john points out be careful in places where desktops step on each other’s files.

Today I learned. Thanks for sharing this!

Hi, thanks for your response. I have seen chezmoi but that tool only pulls from a GitHub repo. I want the dot files live in the same repo as where I build the image, so when users rebase, some process will copy/rsync the file to user’s home folder. This is kind of similar to NixOs, which updates u…

I think you can make an image repo? It shouldn’t be too hard, and I use it to ship my etc files .

I have taken a look at your repo before opening this thread but sadly it doesn’t do what I need. I want the config in user’s home dir updates on rebase, and the skel folder only updates on user creation.

Yeah, I don’t know. My first thought is to make an /etc/rc script that checks a separate file – just to provide a check to see if the script has been run for the current base – then if it didn’t pass it’ll copy /etc/skel to the curren user home, overwriting their current config. Idk I can’t think o…

I have not used chezmoi as I wrote my own solution when I was still using Fedora WS. It is a git repo with a script that has logic to create ~/.config dirs and merge things in place like ~/.gitconfig ==> ~/.config/git/config, etc. I add more to it as I discover things that do not automatically fol…

For anyone looking at this thread in the future: I just put files into the skel folder and rsync on every user login. Who cares about overrides /s.

Most tools provide options to have a system level configuration. Usually those are configured in /usr or /etc That would be the most appropriate place to put configurations made at an image level while per serving user’s ability to override. Another option instead of of using rsync is to use user …

Dotfiles management and update

General

JohnAtl May 16, 2025, 1:25am 2

Rebasing doesn’t affect your home folder.