So, I just found out about a programme called SynthShell which kind of does the work for you and gives you a nice looking shell, the thing is that this also creates some config files and other stuff in my system, instead of just one .bashrc file to edit. What would be the best way to learn to have a nice looking bash where I can just have a backup of it that I can use throughout systems?
You'll want to look into a category of programs called dotfiles managers. There's a bunch of them. Most of them are based on some kind of version control system, usually git.
I personally use yadm
I think I maybe phrased it horribly, my question was more like, what do I need to learn in order to modify myself the .bashrc by myself instead of using a programme. Does it make sense?
Bash syntax - I recommend Unix Power Tools by O'Reilly, but it is more advanced so maybe start with a basic version. People look at me funny whenever I say this, but I started myself with something like Unix for Dummies. Why not!?
Keep in mind that this is no trivial task: bash is basically a programming language unto itself - it even has conditionals, loops, variables, etc. Yet SO worth it if you use Unix and want to know more what it is doing.
You also should have a basic familiarity with Unix foundationals as well, to know why something such as this is very dangerous:
export PATH="~/bin/:$PATH"
So, the easy way would be to just take the nice file, copy it wherever you want, and leave it at that. The hard way of actually understanding it may require a deeper dive into Unix. Unix Power Tools, with the picture of a drill on the cover, or maybe someone will recommend a better option but that's what comes to my mind.
Have fun!:-)
This sounds really similar to how I do things but I use Ansible. What are the advantages to something like yadm, that is specifically designed for dot file management, and a generic config management utility like Ansible?
I uses Uyuni to push config files out to the machines I'm working on, including .bashrc files, .vimrc and all kinds of little QOL improvements.
Probably overkill just to use Uyuni for that, though.
If you are using nixos try home manager. Otherwise Ansible is nice for plopping templates and files into your own home directory
https://github.com/sineemore/backpack
"backpack is a small wrapper around ssh.
It transfers contents of a local file ~/.backpack and itself to remote host, sources it and continues with normal ssh session.
works best as alias ssh=backpack won't create any files on remote hosts (even temporary) tries to fallback to normal ssh when remote shell is not bash self-replication allows you to use backpack again directly from remote host, in this case backpack will keep original local file as you go deaper from host to host."
As long as you’re not going to store sensitive data in there, I’ve just been using GitHub. I’ve got a Private Repository setup with my configs (.bashrc as well as WM configs and other dot files) and I just commit/push it up and heave an update script pull it down elsewhere. Then it’s also version controlled.
I think I maybe phrased it horribly, my question was more like, what do I need to learn in order to modify myself the .bashrc by myself instead of using a programme. Does it make sense?
Use chatgpt. Take the first line of your bashrc file and ask it to explain it. Than the second line etc. Won't be always perfect but for bashrc it shouldn't be a problem and you can learn a lot from it.
You can use syncthing. Set it up and forget about it, you'll have the same dotfiles anywhere. I have it on my phone so that changes are always synced to it if all other computers are offline.
