#dotfiles #packages #package #greatness

app great

Great(ness) is a tool to manage your dotfiles, and bring every new system you get up to par with the rest!

9 releases (3 stable)

1.0.2 Jul 11, 2021
0.1.5 Jul 11, 2021

#396 in Operating systems

22 downloads per month

MIT license

390KB
2.5K SLoC

Greatness!

Greatness Logo

Achieve it! How you ask? Well, it's pretty simple; just use greatness!

Install greatness

Long way:

# Only run this if you don't have rust installed.
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Install from crates.io
cargo install great

# Or build the latest!
git clone https://github.com/IsaccBarker/greatness.git
cd greatness
cargo install --path .

Short way

bash -c "$(curl -fsLS https://git.io/JcDJe)"
great pull add -m Wowee/GreatnessIsAmazing # Defaults to github. Put in a full URL if you don't use GitHub!

What is greatness?

Greatness is you being great and better than everyone else. You have to uphold that superiority complex don't you?

How do I achieve greatness?

Simple! Use this tool. This tool is designed to bring your system up to a working state that you like in a small amount of time. It is flexible, 100% modular, and fast.

You can view the documentation (wiki) here!

Why is Greatness the best?

Well, just remember the name. Greatness has to be the best. But if you are dim (but still great), here is a comparision chart.

Disclaimer

You may recognise this chart from Chezmoi, but with some rows stripped out. This is because I do not know what they mean, and thus cannot implement them. A clock simply means that it will be supported, but isn't yet. If you want them, please file a great issue/pr.

greatness chezmoi dotbot rcm homesick yadm bare git
Distribution Source/Binary Single binary Python package Multiple files Ruby gem Single script n/a
Install method Many Many git submodule Many Ruby gem Many Manual
Non-root install on bare system Difficult Difficult Difficult
Windows support
Bootstrap requirements Rust, automatic Go, automatic Python, git Perl, git Ruby, git git git
Source repos Single Single Single Multiple Single Single Single
dotfiles are... Files Files Symlinks Files Symlinks Files Files
Config file Required, Managed Optional Required Optional None None Optional
Password manager integration
Machine-to-machine file differences Scripting Templates Alternative files Alternative files Alternative files Templates Manual
Custom variables in templates
Dotfile Merging
Scriptable
Modular
Executable files
Run scripts
Run once scripts 🕒
Software Auto-Install
Machine-to-machine symlink differences
File Tagging
Shell completion 🕒
Archive import 🕒
Archive export 🕒
Implementation language Rust, Lua Go Python Perl Ruby Bash C

As you can see, greatness is best. However, a sort of close second [chezmoi], has a weird name, is not scriptable, doesn't support dotfile merging, and isn't modular. This makes it not ideal for situations where you might want to pick parts of diferent peoples rices, merge them, script program installation (or have greatness do it for you), and then put it out into the world as a repository, which other people can then use as modules.

But don't use Windows. There are four reasons for this

  1. The use case is really small (not many people develop on Windows to the point where you need a dotfile manager).
  2. Windows is not great.
  3. It's very diferent than MacOS and Unix, where most development happens.
  4. I don't have a Windows machine. Windows support may or may not be added in the future. The underlying code for supporting Windows is added to the best of my ability, but overall it should not work. Please note that not providing Windows support is mainly for your safety; I would hate for anything bad to happen to your files.

Dependencies

~23–35MB
~606K SLoC