Dotfiles

Terminal development environment — zsh, tmux, search tools, Python tooling.

Table of Contents

• Install
• Font
  • Terminal setup
  • Verify
• After install
• Docker
  • Running dotfiles inside a container
  • Building a Docker image
• Update
• Repository structure
• Symlink map
• What's included
  • Shell & terminal
  • Search
  • Git
  • Python tooling
  • Other tools
  • X11 keyboard remapping
  • Editor — Neovim
  • Useful aliases & functions
• Advanced install scripts
• Machine-specific config

Install

workstation — full setup: zsh, neovim, tmux, search tools, CLI utilities (~15 min)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles/master/get.sh | bash -s -- workstation

minimal — zsh + tmux + git config (~5 min)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles/master/get.sh | bash -s -- minimal

docker — headless, CI-friendly, no shell change (~3 min)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles/master/get.sh | bash -s -- docker

nosudo — any profile without apt/sudo; all tools land in ~/.local/bin (~10–20 min)

NOSUDO=1 curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles/master/get.sh | bash -s -- workstation
# or, after cloning:
NOSUDO=1 ./install.sh workstation

Other install methods

Inspect first / use the interactive wizard:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles/master/get.sh -o get.sh
bash get.sh

Manual clone:

git clone https://github.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles
cd ~/.dotfiles
./install.sh workstation

Font

This setup uses MesloLGS NF — a Nerd Font variant patched by the powerlevel10k author. Required for prompt icons, lualine glyphs, and nvim-tree file icons to render correctly.

Install on your local workstation — the machine running your terminal, not on a remote server you SSH into. Terminals render fonts locally.

Option A — p10k configure (easiest)

Run the wizard once in zsh and it will offer to install MesloLGS NF for you:

exec zsh        # switch to zsh if not already there
p10k configure  # first screen asks about fonts

Option B — script (repo already cloned to ~/.dotfiles):

~/.dotfiles/scripts/install-fonts.sh

Option C — curl (no local repo needed):

bash <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles/master/scripts/install-fonts.sh)

All options install 4 font variants (Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) to ~/.local/share/fonts/ — no sudo needed.

Terminal setup

After installing, set your terminal font to MesloLGS NF, size 12–13pt:

GNOME Terminal (default Ubuntu terminal) Open Preferences (☰ menu) → select your profile → Text tab → uncheck Use system font → set font to MesloLGS NF

Konsole Settings → Edit Current Profile → Appearance tab → Font → change to MesloLGS NF

Terminator Right-click inside terminal → Preferences → Profiles → General tab → uncheck Use system fixed width font → set font to MesloLGS NF

Alacritty (~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml):

[font]
normal = { family = "MesloLGS NF" }
size = 12.0

kitty (~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf):

font_family      MesloLGS NF
font_size        12.0

urxvt (~/.Xresources):

URxvt.font: xft:MesloLGS NF:size=12

Then apply with: xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

VS Code integrated terminal (settings.json):

"terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "MesloLGS NF"

Verify

After setting the font in your terminal, confirm fontconfig indexed it:

fc-list | grep -i meslo

Expected output: lines containing MesloLGS NF with :style=Regular, Bold, etc.

After install

exec zsh          # activate zsh (or open a new terminal)
p10k configure    # customise the prompt

Docker

Running dotfiles inside a container

For a clean Ubuntu container with nothing pre-installed:

Option A — single command (chains apt + bootstrap in one paste):

apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -yq curl && \
  curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles/master/get.sh | bash -s -- workstation
exec zsh

Option B — zero in-container prereqs (get.sh auto-installs git and curl):

# from the host — copy get.sh into a running container:
docker cp get.sh <container>:/get.sh
docker exec <container> bash /get.sh workstation
docker exec -it <container> zsh

After install: exec zsh activates zsh for the current session. All future docker exec -it <container> bash sessions auto-switch to zsh via ~/.bashrc.

Use the docker profile instead of workstation for a lighter, headless install (~3 min, no Neovim, no Nerd Fonts required).

---

Building a Docker image

Use the included Dockerfile to bake dotfiles into an image at build time — one build, instant subsequent starts:

# default: ubuntu:24.04, docker profile
docker build -t my-devenv .
docker run --rm -it my-devenv          # drops to zsh

Override Ubuntu version or install profile:

docker build --build-arg UBUNTU=20.04 --build-arg PROFILE=workstation \
  -t my-devenv:workstation .

Or write your own minimal Dockerfile:

FROM ubuntu:24.04
RUN apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -yq curl && \
    curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YASoftwareDev/dotfiles/master/get.sh \
    | bash -s -- docker
ENV POWERLEVEL9K_DISABLE_CONFIGURATION_WIZARD=true
CMD ["zsh"]

The Dockerfile in this repo also supports an iterative mode — mount the live source tree and re-run install.sh without rebuilding the image:

docker run --rm -it -v "$PWD":/root/dotfiles my-devenv bash
# inside: cd ~/dotfiles && bash install.sh workstation

Update

cd ~/.dotfiles && ./update.sh

Repository structure

~/.dotfiles/
├── install.sh          # main entry point — profile wizard + runner
├── update.sh           # updater for all managed tools and plugins
├── test.sh             # integration tests
├── Dockerfile          # for testing the docker profile
│
├── lib/
│   └── utils.sh        # shared: logging, symlink, apt_install, GitHub helpers, checks
│
├── modules/
│   ├── base.sh         # apt packages + fzf shell integration
│   ├── zsh.sh          # oh-my-zsh, plugins, powerlevel10k, .zshrc symlink
│   ├── tmux.sh         # tmux config symlinks + plugin cloning
│   ├── tools.sh        # uv, ruff, cheat, ripgrep/ranger config symlinks
│   └── neovim.sh       # neovim binary install + nvim config symlink
│
├── scripts/
│   ├── install-cmake.sh # build cmake from source (optional, advanced)
│   └── install-git.sh   # build git from source (optional, advanced)
│
├── zsh/
│   └── .zshrc          # symlinked to ~/.zshrc
├── tmux/
│   ├── .tmux.conf      # gpakosz base framework (upstream, not edited)
│   └── .tmux.conf.local # local overrides — the actual config
├── nvim/
│   └── .config/nvim/
│       └── init.lua    # full neovim config (lazy.nvim, LSP, treesitter, …)
├── git/
│   ├── .gitconfig      # pager=delta, diff drivers for binary formats, delta config
│   └── .gitattributes  # diff driver assignments
├── ripgrep/
│   └── rc              # symlinked to ~/.config/ripgrep/rc
├── x11/
│   ├── caps-remap.sh   # remapping script (single source of truth)
│   ├── .xprofile       # symlinked to ~/.xprofile — calls caps-remap at X login
│   └── .config/autostart/caps-remap.desktop  # GNOME autostart (re-fires after gnome-settings-daemon)
└── ranger/
    └── rc.conf …       # individual files symlinked to ~/.config/ranger/

Symlink map

Dotfile source	Installed as
zsh/.zshrc	~/.zshrc
tmux/.tmux.conf	~/.tmux.conf
tmux/.tmux.conf.local	~/.tmux.conf.local
nvim/.config/nvim/	~/.config/nvim/
git/.gitconfig	~/.gitconfig
git/.gitattributes	~/.gitattributes
ripgrep/rc	~/.config/ripgrep/rc
ranger/rc.conf etc.	~/.config/ranger/rc.conf etc.
x11/.xprofile	~/.xprofile
x11/caps-remap.sh	~/.local/bin/caps-remap
x11/.config/autostart/caps-remap.desktop	~/.config/autostart/caps-remap.desktop

Note: ranger config files are symlinked individually (not the directory) so ranger's runtime state files (bookmarks, history, tagged) are written to ~/.config/ranger/ and not tracked by git.

What's included

Shell & terminal

• zsh with oh-my-zsh + powerlevel10k prompt
• tmux — terminal multiplexer (gpakosz/.tmux framework)
  • Plugins: tmux-fzf, tmux-cpu
• Oh-my-zsh plugins: git, vi-mode, history, history-substring-search, dircycle, dirhistory, last-working-dir, colored-man-pages, command-not-found
• External zsh plugins: zsh-autosuggestions, fast-syntax-highlighting, fzf-tab

Search (the core philosophy: find anything fast)

What	Command
Files	Ctrl+T, z <dir>
Content	rg <pattern>
Commands	Ctrl+R, autosuggestions
Tab completions	fzf-tab (replaces default menu)

• ripgrep (rg) — fast content search; configured via ~/.config/ripgrep/rc
• fd — fast file finder (apt installs as fdfind; a fd shim is created in ~/.local/bin)
• fzf — interactive fuzzy selection; installed via git clone at ~/.fzf; shell integration (Ctrl+T, Ctrl+R, Alt+C bindings + PATH) loaded from ~/.fzf.zsh (sourced explicitly in .zshrc, not via the oh-my-zsh fzf plugin); FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND uses ripgrep
• zoxide — smart directory jumper (z <dir>, zi for interactive picker)
• eza — modern ls replacement; aliased as la and tree

Git

• delta — pager for git diff / git log (line numbers, navigate mode, zdiff3 conflicts)
• .gitconfig: pager = delta, diff drivers for zip/gz/bz2/xz/tar/pdf/bin
• .gitattributes: maps file extensions to diff drivers

Python tooling

• uv — fast Python package manager / virtualenv tool (installed to ~/.local/bin)
• uvx — uv tool runner (installed alongside uv)
• ruff — Python linter + formatter (installed via uv tool install ruff)

Other tools

• ranger — terminal file manager (config symlinked individually)
• tig — terminal git UI
• cheat — command cheatsheets (cheat <command>)
• jq — JSON processor
• shellcheck — shell script linter
• GNU parallel — parallel job execution

X11 keyboard remapping (optional, Vim/Neovim users)

Not part of the default install. Run manually if you want it:

./scripts/install-x11.sh

Caps Lock becomes a dual-function key — active immediately and persisted at next login:

Action	Result
Tap Caps Lock alone (< 200 ms)	Escape (via xcape)
Hold Caps Lock + another key	Ctrl (via xmodmap)

The physical Ctrl key is unaffected — only the Caps Lock key gains this behaviour.

Requires xcape (built from source: alols/xcape, deps: libxtst-dev libx11-dev). The script handles the full install.

Persistence: ~/.xprofile applies the remapping at X session start. On GNOME, gnome-settings-daemon resets xkb after .xprofile runs — the autostart entry caps-remap.desktop re-applies it once the session is ready.

Wayland: xmodmap and xcape have no effect on Wayland. Use xremap or keyd for an equivalent setup.

startx / no display manager: .xprofile is not sourced by startx. Add . ~/.xprofile (or call caps-remap directly) in ~/.xinitrc.

Editor — Neovim

Full Lua config at nvim/.config/nvim/init.lua. Plugin manager: lazy.nvim (auto-bootstrapped).

Stack:

• LSP: nvim-lspconfig + mason.nvim + mason-lspconfig (pyright, clangd, bashls, lua_ls)
  • nvim 0.11+ API: vim.lsp.config() + vim.lsp.enable() — NOT the deprecated lspconfig setup()
• Completion: blink.cmp (Rust core) + friendly-snippets
• Treesitter: nvim-treesitter + textobjects + context
• Fuzzy: telescope.nvim + telescope-fzf-native
• File tree: nvim-tree.lua (<F6> to toggle); netrw still active for :e /dir
• Statusline: lualine.nvim (Nerd Font icons)
• Start screen: dashboard-nvim (hyper theme)
• Git: gitsigns.nvim + vim-fugitive
• Diagnostics: trouble.nvim (<leader>xx)
• Formatting: conform.nvim (format on save: ruff_fix+ruff_format for Python, stylua for Lua, clang-format, shfmt, prettier; disable with NOFORMAT=1)
• Motion: flash.nvim (s/S jump/treesitter, r/R remote ops)
• Writing: zen-mode.nvim + twilight.nvim
• Colorscheme: nightfly (default/ACTIVE) + 22 more installed, switchable via <leader>cs

Key mappings (leader = Space):

Key	Action
<C-p> / <leader>F	Telescope find_files
<leader>f	Telescope git_files
<leader>g	Telescope live_grep
<leader>b / <F3>	Telescope buffers
<leader>cs	Colorscheme picker (live preview)
<leader>xx	Trouble diagnostics panel
<F6>	NvimTree toggle
<F4>	Indent guides toggle
<leader>z	Zen mode
s / S	flash.nvim jump / treesitter
gd / gr / K	LSP: definition / references / hover
<C-h/j/k/l>, <M-h/j/k/l>	Window navigation (normal + insert)
<C/M-arrows>	Window navigation (arrow key variants)

Useful aliases & functions

la          # eza -abghl (long list with icons, hidden files)
tree        # eza --tree --level=3 (directory tree)
fd          # fd -I -L (include gitignored + follow symlinks)
rgm         # rg match-only, no filename/heading (good for scripting)
stats       # sort | uniq -c | sort -n (frequency count from pipe)
ranger      # cd to last visited dir on exit
serve       # python3 -m http.server (serve current dir)
mkcd <dir>  # mkdir -p + cd
fgl         # fzf git log with git show preview

Advanced install scripts

These are optional, standalone scripts for cases where the apt version is too old. They are not called by install.sh.

Script	Purpose
scripts/install-fonts.sh	Install MesloLGS NF (Nerd Font, required for prompt icons)
scripts/install-cmake.sh	Build CMake from source (default: 4.2.3)
scripts/install-git.sh	Build git from source (default: 2.53.0)
scripts/install-x11.sh	X11 keyboard remapping: Caps Lock → Ctrl/Escape (Vim users)

cmake and git accept an optional version argument: ./scripts/install-cmake.sh 4.1.0

Machine-specific config

Files not tracked by git, loaded if present:

• ~/.zshrc.local — machine-specific zsh overrides (sourced at end of .zshrc)
• ~/.p10k.zsh — powerlevel10k prompt config (generated by p10k configure)