Mac Dotfiles

Repository containing dotfiles appropriate for use on Mac laptops.

Quick Start

Before you begin, you should review all of the steps in this quick start, so that you understand what will happen when you run these scripts. Otherwise, you may lose your dotfiles!

Step 1: Pre-Bootstrap

Step 1: Run pre bootstrap script:

./pre_bootstrap.sh

This script does the following:

• Creates an SSH key
• Installs scripts to the ~/scripts directory
• Installs vim plugins and creates the ~/.vim directory structure
• Changes Mac settings and defaults
• Installs and configures python (we use pyenv to install and manage multiple versions of Python side-by-side)
• Installs Homebrew (the Mac package manager)
• Installs useful packages using Homebrew
• Sets bash as the default shell (happens after the Homebrew version of bash has been installed)

It is recommended you review the settings that will be changed on your Mac (mac_settings.sh) and the software that will be installed (brew_install.sh) before you run any scripts.

Step 2: Bootstrap

The bootstrap script will do a diff between your dotfiles and the new dotfiles, so you can see all the changes that you will lose (in red) and all of the new content (in green).

If there are many changes, do the diff manually by running the script:

./diff_dotfiles.sh

Otherwise, run the bootstrap script, review the changes, and type "y" or "yes":

./bootstrap.sh

Again, the bootstrap script will ask you for your confirmation before overwriting your files, but you will lose unsaved changes in your existing dotfiles!

How Does This Repo Work?

This repository contains dotfiles in the top level of the repository. These dotfiles are installed using the bootstrap.sh script. That's the main purpose of the repository.

But because there are a lot of supplementary things to do when customizing a new or existing Mac, we have the pre_boostrap.sh script to perform those tasks.

We recommend you open the scripts and read them to see what they do.