This is a small collection of really essential Unix "dot-files" (~/.xxx), i.e., opinionated configuration files for the Unix shell environments of Ralf S. Engelschall under FreeBSD, Linux and macOS. This Unix environment is based on the following absolutely essential tools:

• the GNU Bash shell environment
• the TMux terminal multiplexer
• the Less file pager
• the Vim file editor
• the Vifm file manager
• the Git version control system
• the OpenSSH remote access facility

The intention of these "dot-files" is not to be an extensive tool feature configuration, but to be the bare minimum of an opinionated tool standard configuration.

The particular Unix "dot-files" are:

• dot.bash_login (~/.bash_login): bash(1) login run-command script
• dot.bash_logout (~/.bash_logout): bash(1) logout run-command script
• dot.bashrc (~/.bashrc): bash(1) run-command script
• dot.inputrc (~/.inputrc): bash(1) readline configuration
• dot.tmux.conf (~/.tmux.conf): tmux(1) configuration
• dot.vimrc (~/.vimrc): vim(1) configuration
• dot.vifmrc (~/.vifm/vifmrc): vifm(1) configuration
• dot.gitconfig (~/.gitconfig): git(1) configuration
• dot.sshconfig (~/.ssh/config): ssh(1) configuration

You can install the package into your system with:

$ make install [DESTDIR=<dir>] [prefix=<dir>] [bindir=<dir>] [datadir=<dir>]

You can install the "dot-files" into the home-directory <dir> of an account (either locally or remotely via SSH) with:

$ dotfiles [-q|--quiet] [-f|--force] [-p|--preserve] [-r|--remote <user>@<host>] <dir>

Additionally, ensure that the essential Unix commands bash(1), tmux(1), less(1), vim(1), vifm(1) and git(1) are available in $PATH of the using account. If not, install them into your system with your preferred Unix software packaging mechanism:

• Debian/Ubuntu [Apt]:
  $ apt-get install bash tmux less vim vifm git openssh-client

• FreeBSD [pkg]:
  $ pkg install bash tmux less vim vifm git openssh-portable

• macOS [MacPorts]:
  $ port install bash tmux less vim vifm git openssh

You can easily override the configuration with the following optional files (which are automatically included and pre-generated):

• ~/.dotfiles/bashrc (for overriding ~/.bashrc)
• ~/.dotfiles/inputrc (for overriding ~/.inputrc)
• ~/.dotfiles/tmux.conf (for overriding ~/.tmux.conf)
• ~/.dotfiles/vimrc (for overriding ~/.vimrc)
• ~/.dotfiles/vifmrc (for overriding ~/.vifm/vifmrc)
• ~/.dotfiles/gitconfig (for overriding ~/.gitconfig)
• ~/.dotfiles/sshconfig (for overriding ~/.ssh/config)

In practice, this optimally should be combined with my bash-fzf script which further enhances the GNU Bash shell environment with the excellent FZF searching functionality. For this, just copy the bash-fzf.rc script to ~/.bash-fzf.rc and ensure that the FZF utility is in your $PATH, too.

Similarly, this optimally can also be combined with my bash-envrc script which further enhances the GNU Bash shell environment with the possibility to automatically activate environment variables through the execution of (explicitly to be whitelisted) .envrc run-command scripts. For this, just copy the bash-envrc.rc script to ~/.bash-envrc.rc.

Copyright © 1995-2026 Dr. Ralf S. Engelschall.
Distributed under MIT license.