Sync config files over dropbox

by Shane

dropbox-iconOne of the many reasons for my love of linux is the idea of keeping config information in simple texts files in the home directory of each user. It all very painless. And now with Dropbox I can have a set of application configurations stored via the web.

Using Dropbox, add a folder(I’ve called mine dotfiles) and add in all the useful config files you have.

For me it’s my

.bashrc (sets up environment stuff, can be iffy with multiple machines however)

.bash_aliases (sets up all my command line aliases)

.vimrc (my vim configuration)

.vim/ (my vim plugins and documentation)

.muttrc (my mutt config)

.screenrc (my screen config)

.irssi (my irssi config)

Move all the files you wish to sync with Dropbox into your dotfiles(or equivalent) folder then simply:

1) cd ~

2) ln -s /home/username/Dropbox/dotfiles/.bashrc

And bingo! Your bashrc files is now synced over Dropbox. Any changes you make on your current machine will be propagated over all machines use this Dropbox config and visa-versa. On top of that the prospect of maintaining profiles over multiple machines become a lot less painful. Even setting up a new machine is handy. Setup your os, download dropbox, execute ln -s a few times and you’re done, and this can be extended to any application that supports these plain-text config files. It’s really awesome!