Original image by キノスケ

What is a dotfile?

Dotfiles are similar to what Windows users would call hidden files, and they are often used to customize UNIX systems. Since you're here, surely you know what .bashrc or .profile files do, right? Dotfiles are those files. The name dotfile comes from a UNIX convention where hidden file's name starts with a .(dot). I can hear people going "Wow, no shit, Sherlock!" over this...

This convention traces its origin back to old UNIX where (by unintentional side effect) files starting with . became invisible by some programs. People exploited this "bug" to make files hidden, and the UNIX community finally adopted this as a "feature".¹ Remember: it's not a bug; it's a feature.

How to use

The installation is handled by chezmoi.

Screenshots

Footnotes

1. See this post by Rob Pike about this whole shenanigans. Well, kinda, because Google killed Google+. ↩