# GNU Stow [GNU Stow](https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/) is a symlink farm manager which takes distinct packages of software and/or data located in separate directories on the filesystem, and makes them appear to be installed in the same place. Its the centerpiece of the dotfiles repository, the key component that makes everything work. ## Install To install Stow on a Debian-based system run the following command: ```console root:~$ sudo apt install stow ``` ## Usage You can use Stow to create a symlink of a file to a target directory like this: ```console user:~$ stow -t ~ file ``` The `-t` flag specifies the target directory (in this case the home directory) and `file` specifies the file you want to mirror via a symlink. Finally, you can stow all the files in a directory, like the ones in this repository, by simply running: ```console user:~$ stow . ``` This command will establish symbolic links for all files in the current directory within the parent directory, maintaining the original directory's structure. ## Ignore Files and Directories Using `stow` for bulk symlink creation presents a challenge: What about the files that you don't want to `stow`, like the files in the `.git` directory? By default, `stow` ignores common files and directories, like `.git`. You can view the whole list of the files and directories `stow` ignores by default [here](https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/manual/html_node/Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists.html). If you want to add your own files or directories to this list you should create a file with the name `.stow-local-ignore`, which works just like a `.gitignore` file but for `stow`.