Dotfiles

From NYU CCPP Wiki

In order to set up your account, you need to have a correct set of "dot" files. These are files that the computer looks at when you log in, and they perform configuration stuff. You should start with the standard set we recommend here, add some that we describe below, and then as needed change them to your liking.

There is a special user on our system "dataman" in whose name we do a lot of administration of the data. You should copy your base files from the dataman account as follows (Warning: don't do this if you have already put important information into any of these files!):

cp ~dataman/.bash_profile ~
cp ~dataman/.idl_startup ~
cp ~dataman/.Xdefaults ~

After doing so, log out and log in again; you need to do so to get the computer to read these files.

If you already have highly edited dotfiles, it might work to change the "cp" commands above to "cat" commands such as:

cat ~dataman/.bash_profile >> ~/.bash_profile

but if your dotfiles are super-baroque, you will just have to look at dataman's dotfiles and figure it all out.

Once you have copied the dotfiles, you should log out and log back in again for them to take effect. Changes to dotfiles can only reliably be incorporated/executed by logging out and logging back in again.