【譯】使用 GNU stow 管理你的點文件

2018-12-08T03:35:00+09:00

譯註

這篇是翻譯自 Brandon Invergo 的博客的英文文章 Using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles 。 Brandon Invergo 的博客採用 CC-BY-SA 3.0 授權，因此本文也同樣採用 CC-BY-SA 3.0 ，不同於其它我寫的文章是 CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 授權。

我自己已經使用此文中介紹的方案管理我自己的 dotfiles 快 3 年了。最早想採用這樣的管理方案是爲了方便在多臺 Arch Linux 系統之間同步配置，後來逐漸主力系統也更新換代了一次，又同步到了自己的 vps 上去，目前管理多個 Arch Linux 上都多少都有這套配置。甚至裝好 Arch Linux 添加好用戶最初做的事情就是安裝 stow git 然後 clone 了我自己的 dotfiles repo 下來，然後按需取想要的配置，快捷方便有效。

廢話不多說，下面是原文和翻譯。與之前的翻譯一樣，正文部分給出原文引用以便對照參考。

使用 GNU stow 管理你的點文件

I accidentally stumbled upon something yesterday that I felt like sharing, which fell squarely into the "why the hell didn't I know about this before?" category. In this post, I'll describe how to manage the various configuration files in your GNU/Linux home directory (aka "dotfiles" like .bashrc) using GNU Stow.

我昨天偶然間發現一些我覺得值得分享的經驗，就是那種「爲毛我沒有早點知道這個？」那一類的。我將在這篇文章中介紹如何使用 GNU Stow 管理你的 GNU/Linux 系統中位於用戶家目錄裏的各種配置文件（通常又叫「點文件(dotfiles)」比如 .bashrc）。

The difficulty is that it would be helpful to manage one's configuration files with a version control system like Git, Mercurial or Bazaar, but many/most dotfiles reside at the top-level of your home directory, where it wouldn't be a good idea to initialize a VCS repository. Over time I've come across various programs which aim to manage this for you by keeping all the files in a subdirectory and then installing or linking them into their appropriate places. None of those programs ever really appealed to me. They would require a ton of dependencies (like Ruby and a ton of libraries for it) or they would require me to remember how to use them, which is difficult when really for such a task you rarely use the program.

這件事的困難之處在於，如果能用版本管理系統(VCS, Version Control System)比如 Git, Mercurial(hg), Bazaar(bzr) 管理點文件的話會非常方便，但是這些點文件大部分都位於家目錄的頂級目錄下，在這個位置不太適合初始化一個版本管理倉庫。這些年下來我試過很多程序，設計目的在於解決這個問題，幫你把這些配置文件安置在某個下級目錄中，然後安裝或者鏈接這些文件到它們應該在的位置。嘗試下來這些程序沒有一個真正能打動我。它們要麼有很多依賴（比如 Ruby 和一大坨庫），要麼需要我記住如何用它，考慮到同步配置這種不算經常使用的場合，要記住用法真的挺難。

Lately I've been using GNU Stow to manage programs I install from source to /usr/local/. Basically, in this typical usage, you install locally built packages to /usr/local/stow/${PKGNAME}-{PKGVERSION} and then from /usr/local/stow/ you run # stow ${PKGNAME}-${PKGVERSION} and the program generates symbolic links to all the programs' files into the appropriate places under /usr/local/. Then, when you uninstall a program via Stow, you don't have to worry about any stray files that you or a provide Makefile may have missed. It also makes handling alternate versions of a program quite easy (i.e. when I'm experimenting with different configurations of dwm or st).

最近我在用 GNU Stow 來管理我從源代碼在本地編譯安裝到 /usr/local/ 中的一些程序。基本上說，在這種常見用法下，是你把這些本地編譯的包配置安裝到 /usr/local/stow/${PKGNAME}-{PKGVERSION} 這樣的位置，然後在 /usr/local/stow/ 目錄中執行 # stow ${PKGNAME}-${PKGVERSION} ，然後它就會爲程序所有的文件創建符號鏈接放在 /usr/local 中合適的地方。然後當你想用 Stow 卸載這個程序的時候，就不必再考慮會留下什麼垃圾文件，或者找不到安裝時用的 Makefile 了。這種安裝方式下也可以非常容易地切換一個程序的不同版本（比如我想嘗試不同配置選項下的 dwm 或者 st 的時候）。

Some time ago I happened across a mailing list posting where someone described using Stow to manage the installation of their dotfiles. I didn't pay much attention to it but my brain must have filed it away for later. Yesterday I decided to give it a try and I have to say that it is so much more convenient than those other dedicated dotfile-management programs, even if it wasn't an immediately obvious option.

前段時間在我掃郵件列表的時候，看到某個帖子中某人在說使用 Stow 管理安裝他的點文件。當時我沒特別在意這個帖子，但是大概我大腦潛意識把它歸檔保存爲今後閱讀了。昨天我想起來試試這種用法，試過後我不得不說，這比那些專門設計用來做這任務的點文件管理器要方便太多了，雖然表面上看起來這種用法沒那麼顯而易見。

The procedure is simple. I created the ${HOME}/dotfiles directory and then inside it I made subdirectories for all the programs whose cofigurations I wanted to manage. Inside each of those directories, I moved in all the appropriate files, maintaining the directory structure of my home directory. So, if a file normally resides at the top level of your home directory, it would go into the top level of the program's subdirectory. If a file normally goes in the default ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/${PKGNAME} location (${HOME}/.config/${PKGNAME}), then it would instead go in ${HOME}/dotfiles/${PKGNAME}/.config/${PKGNAME} and so on. Finally, from the dotfiles directory, you just run $ stow $PKGNAME and Stow will symlink all the package's configuration files to the appropriate locations. It's then easy to make the dotfiles a VCS repository so you can keep track of changes you make (plus it makes it so much easier to share configurations between different computers, which was my main reason to do it).

方法很簡單。我建了個 ${HOME}/dotfiles 文件夾，然後在裏面爲我想管理的每個程序配置都創建一個子文件夾。然後我把這些程序的配置從原本的家目錄移動到這每一個對應的子文件夾中，並保持它們在家目錄中的文件夾結構。比如，如果某個文件原本應該位於家目錄的頂層文件夾裏，那它現在應該放在這個程序名子目錄的頂層文件夾。如果某個配置文件通常應該位於默認的 ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/${PKGNAME} 位置 (${HOME}/.config/${PKGNAME} )，那麼現在它應該放在 ${HOME}/dotfiles/${PKGNAME}/.config/${PKGNAME} ，如此類推。然後在那個 dotfiles 文件夾裏面，直接運行 $ stow $PKGNAME 命令， Stow 就會爲你自動創建這些配置文件的符號鏈接到合適的位置。接下來就很容易爲這個 dotfiles 目錄初始化版本管理倉庫，從而記錄你對這些配置文件做的修改（並且這也可以極度簡化在不同電腦之間共享配置，這也是我想要這麼做的主要原因）。

For example, let's say you want to manage the configuration for Bash, VIM and Uzbl. Bash has a couple files in the top-level directory; VIM typically has your .vimrc file on the top-level and a .vim directory; and Uzbl has files in ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/uzbl and ${XDG_DATA_HOME}/uzbl. So, your home directory looks like this:

舉個例子，比如說你想管理 Bash, VIM, Uzbl 這三個程序的配置文件。Bash 會在家目錄的頂層文件夾放幾個文件； VIM 通常會有在頂層文件夾的 .vimrc 文件和 .vim 目錄；然後 Uzbl 的配置位於 ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/uzbl 以及 ${XDG_DATA_HOME}/uzbl 。於是在遷移配置前，你的家目錄的文件夾結構應該看起來像這樣：

home/
    brandon/
        .config/
            uzbl/
                [...some files]
        .local/
            share/
                uzbl/
                    [...some files]
        .vim/
            [...some files]
        .bashrc
        .bash_profile
        .bash_logout
        .vimrc

You would then create a dotfiles subdirectory and move all the files there:

然後遷移配置的方式是，應該建一個 dotfiles 子目錄，然後像這樣移動所有配置文件：

home/
    /brandon/
        .config/
        .local/
            .share/
        dotfiles/
            bash/
                .bashrc
                .bash_profile
                .bash_logout
            uzbl/
                .config/
                    uzbl/
                        [...some files]
                .local/
                    share/
                        uzbl/
                            [...some files]
            vim/
                .vim/
                    [...some files]
                .vimrc

Then, perform the following commands:

然後執行以下命令：

$ cd ~/dotfiles
$ stow bash
$ stow uzbl
$ stow vim

And, voila, all your config files (well, symbolic links to them) are all in the correct place, however disorganized that might be, while the actual files are all neatly organized in your dotfiles directory, which is easily turned into a VCS repo. One handy thing is that if you use multiple computers, which may not have the same software installed on them, you can pick and choose which configurations to install when you need them. All of your dotfiles are always available in your dotfiles directory, but if you don't need the configuration for one program, you simply don't Stow it and thus it does not clutter your home directory.

然後，瞬間，所有你的配置文件（的符號鏈接）就安安穩穩地放入了它們該在的地方，無論原本這些目錄結構有多麼錯綜複雜，這樣安排之後的 dotfiles 文件夾內的目錄結構立刻整理得有條有理，並且可以很容易地轉換成版本控制倉庫。非常有用的一點是，如果你有多臺電腦，可能這些電腦並沒有安裝完全一樣的軟件集，那麼你可以手選一些你需要的軟件配置來安裝。在你的 dotfiles 文件夾中總是可以找到所有的配置文件，但是如果你不需要某個程序的某份配置，那你就不對它執行 stow 命令，它就不會擾亂你的家目錄。

Well, that's all there is to it. Hopefully someone else out there finds this useful! I know I've found it to be a huge help.

嗯，以上就是整個用法介紹。希望能有別人覺得這個用法有用！我知道對我來說這個非常有幫助。

Farseerfc的小窩 - dotfiles

【譯】使用 GNU stow 管理你的點文件

譯註

使用 GNU stow 管理你的點文件