dotfiles

One source tree → Windows, macOS, and Debian-based Linux. No WSL. Colemak-DH. Personal and work.

My personal, cross-platform machine setup, managed with chezmoi. The repo is the source of truth; chezmoi apply renders it into $HOME on every machine I touch, so a fresh laptop is one command away from feeling like home.

✨ Highlights

• One source tree → three OSes. Windows, macOS, and Debian-based Linux render from the same repo — no WSL, no per-machine forks — giving one unified set of apps, tools, and aliases everywhere.
• Idempotent & convention-driven. Built on chezmoi templates, .chezmoidata, and run_onchange_ scripts; chezmoi apply is safe to run twice and CI verifies there's no drift.
• A cohesive terminal stack. WezTerm, oh-my-posh, Neovim, fzf, ripgrep, zoxide, and a pyenv + uv + ruff Python toolchain.
• Home and work aware. An install_host = home | work prompt at init time switches package sets and config from the same source.
• Colemak-DH first. Keymaps tuned for the Colemak-DH layout.

Table of contents

• Highlights
• Project state
• Install
  • Debian-based Linux
  • macOS
  • Windows (semi-automated)
  • Per-tool setup
• Tooling
  • Terminals
  • Shells
  • Package managers
  • Apps & tools
  • Notes
• License
• 💡 Inspirations

Project state

The platforms I've actually verified chezmoi apply on:

OS	Tested on
Debian-based Linux	Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
macOS	macOS 15 Sequoia
Windows	Windows 10, 11 — no WSL support

Install

chezmoi init will prompt for a few values the first time (git username, git email, work/home install type, and — on Windows — the Git install path), then render and apply everything.

Debian-based Linux

cd ~
sh -c "$(curl -fsLS get.chezmoi.io)"
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin"
export GITHUB_USERNAME="StephenGemin"
chezmoi init --apply -v https://github.com/$GITHUB_USERNAME/dotfiles.git

macOS

For Apple Silicon, confirm brew config shows arm64 and NOT x86_64.

# Install Homebrew first if you don't have it:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

brew install chezmoi
export GITHUB_USERNAME="StephenGemin"
chezmoi init --apply -v https://github.com/$GITHUB_USERNAME/dotfiles.git

Windows (semi-automated)

Expand Windows install steps

• Run the prerequisite installs in Windows PowerShell 5.1 (the powershell that ships with Windows) — pwsh might not be installed by this point.

  • run as non-admin (for scoop)
  • may need to change the execution policy(ies):
    • Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser
    • Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope LocalMachine

• Install prerequisite dependencies:

  get-Command winget  # check winget installed
  # if missing:
  # 1. download winget from MS store
  # 2. If MS store is blocked (typically work env) then install from .msixbundle
  #    - https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/releases/latest
  #    - double click downloaded file to install
  #    - if this is also blocked, can install from powershell command `Add-AppxPackage -Path "PATH_TO_FILE"`
  #    - may need to install missing deps for winget based on errors.
  #      - i.e. Github microsoft/winget-cli issue 4916
  
  winget install -e --id Git.Git
  winget install Microsoft.PowerShell
  winget install twpayne.chezmoi
  $GITHUB_USERNAME = "StephenGemin"
  chezmoi init --apply https://github.com/$GITHUB_USERNAME/dotfiles.git

• May need to install MSYS2 manually

• Neovim

  • Do not start Neovim until the reqs below are installed!
  • Install build dependencies (use MSYS2)
    • pacman -S --needed base-devel mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain
    • pacman -S make gcc

• To install fonts go to ~\.local\share\fonts; find ttf files, right-click desired files, and select install

• Install WhatsApp from MS store (unavailable from winget)

  • Ref microsoft/winget-pkgs issue 156231

• Add to PATH (if not there):

  • %USERPROFILE%\.pyenv\pyenv-win\shims
  • C:\Program Files\Git\cmd
  • C:\Program Files\Neovim\bin

Per-tool setup

Manual setup steps for individual tools / apps:

• PyCharm — Import settings from ~\.config

Tooling

Legend: ✅ supported · ❓ may work (untested / unused) · 🚫 not supported

Terminals

	Deb	Win	Mac
WezTerm	✅	✅	✅
Windows Terminal	🚫	✅	🚫

Shells

	Deb	Win	Mac	Notes
Zsh	✅	🚫	✅	Slow on Windows, see Notes
Bash	✅	✅	❓	Slow on Windows
PowerShell	🚫	✅	🚫

Package managers

Language-agnostic managers, per OS:

• Debian: apt / snap / flatpak / linuxbrew / cargo
• Windows: winget / scoop
• macOS: brew

Full package lists are the source of truth in .chezmoidata/brew.yaml (macOS / Linux brew), scripts/install_debian.sh (apt / snap / cargo), and .chezmoitemplates/winget_packages_home.json (Windows).

Apps & tools

	Deb	Win	Mac	Notes
Chezmoi	✅	✅	✅
Git	✅	✅	✅	git-lfs / git-extras
Neovim	✅	✅	✅	nvim-config
Vim	✅	✅	✅
Nano	✅	🚫	✅
Notepad++	🚫	✅	🚫
Visual Studio Code	✅	✅	✅
JetBrains IDEs	✅	✅	✅
Oh-My-Posh	✅	✅	✅
Zinit	✅	🚫	✅	Zsh plugin manager
Oh-My-Zsh	✅	🚫	✅	Plugins loaded via Zinit
Ripgrep	✅	✅	✅
fzf	✅	✅	✅
zoxide	✅	✅	✅
pyenv	✅	✅	✅	Windows uses pyenv-win
uv	✅	✅	✅
Ruff	✅	✅	✅
GitHub CLI	✅	✅	✅
PlantUML / Graphviz	✅	❓	✅
Double Commander	✅	✅	✅
KeePassXC	✅	✅	✅	No chezmoi integration yet
VLC	✅	✅	✅
Firefox	✅	✅	✅
Opera	✅	✅	✅
Chromium	✅	❓	❓
Notion	✅	✅	✅
WhatsApp	✅	✅	❓	Windows: install from MS Store
F.lux	✅	✅	✅	Linux uses Redshift
Wireshark	❓	❓	✅
LibreOffice	❓	❓	✅
MSYS2	🚫	✅	🚫

Platform-specific extras not listed above (e.g. JupyterLab, scrcpy, Java/Temurin, Zoom, 7-Zip, ShareX, Tesseract OCR, DB Browser for SQLite) live in the data files linked under Package managers.

Notes

Windows

• To get zsh working on Windows:
  • Install MSYS2; pacman -S zsh
  • Modify C:\msys64\etc\nsswitch.conf (see below)
• Initial attempt to use zsh did not go well:
  • terminal was very sluggish
  • tried in MSYS2, MSYS (Git Bash) and Windows Terminal
  • issues accessing Windows tooling
  • difficult working with Windows paths
  • Decided to use PowerShell on Windows

# Begin /etc/nsswitch.conf

passwd: files db
group: files db

db_enum: cache builtin

db_shell: /usr/bin/zsh
db_home: /c/Users/USERNAME
db_env: windows
#db_home: cygwin desc
#db_shell: cygwin desc
#db_gecos: cygwin desc

# End /etc/nsswitch.conf

License

Released into the public domain under The Unlicense. Copy, adapt, and reuse freely.

💡 Inspirations

• renemarc/dotfiles
• felipecrs/dotfiles
• dreamsofcode
• dreamsofautonomy
• KevinSilvester/wezterm-config
• Phantas0s/.dotfiles