Pistonite VM

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Dotbin ​

dotbin is my personal tool for scripting and managing portable software. On Windows, it also sets up Unix and GNU utilities.

Make sure you already have Rust Since we need it here.

As part of the process, we will set up pyenv, and for Windows, git.

WARNING

For Windows, before we start, make sure all Python installation has been uninstalled. Make sure the PYTHONHOME and any environment variables starting with PYENV_ are cleared. Also make sure the directory you are running commands in doesn't have a .python-version file.

WARNING

Please run the Windows commands with PowerShell 5 for now. In the Windows setup, we will setup Windows PowerShell 7, which you should use for the rest of the setup and in general.

Download Portable Git ​

TIP

Skip this section on Linux, or another installation of Git is to be used.

  1. Uninstall any existing Git installations, and clean up the environment variables (PATH)
  2. Download the portable Git from https://git-scm.com/downloads/win
  3. Extract the self-extracting archive to Downloads
  4. Add the bin folder to path temporarily
    powershell
    $env:PATH+=";C:\Users\$env:USERNAME\Downloads\PortableGit\bin"
  5. Verify you can run git from the command line
    powershell
    get-command git

Clone the dotbin and pyenv repos ​

Windows ​

powershell
git clone https://github.com/Pistonite/dotbin.git $env:USERPROFILE/dotbin
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $env:USERPROFILE/dotbin/extra/portable -Force
git clone https://github.com/pyenv-win/pyenv-win.git $env:USERPROFILE\dotbin\extra\portable\pyenv

For Portable Git, move it to the dotbin folder, and configure links

powershell
Move-Item -Path "C:\Users\$env:USERNAME\Downloads\PortableGit" -Destination $env:USERPROFILE\dotbin\extra\portable\git
Add-Content -Path $env:USERPROFILE\dotbin\extra\portable\link -Value "git\cmd\git.exe"

Linux ​

bash
git clone https://github.com/Pistonite/dotbin.git ~/dotbin
mkdir -p ~/dotbin/extra/portable
git clone https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv.git ~/dotbin/extra/portable/pyenv

Setup pyenv and dotbin environment ​

  • Windows: Execute the following in powershell
    powershell
    $dotbin_pyenv=$env:USERPROFILE+"\dotbin\extra\portable\pyenv\pyenv-win\"
$dotbin_bin=$env:USERPROFILE+"\dotbin\bin"
$dotbin_extra_symlink=$env:USERPROFILE+"\dotbin\extra\symlink"
$dotbin_extra_bin=$env:USERPROFILE+"\dotbin\extra\bin"
$path=$dotbin_pyenv+"bin;"+$dotbin_pyenv+"shims;"+$dotbin_bin+";"+$dotbin_extra_symlink+";"+$dotbin_extra_bin+";"
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('PYENV',$dotbin_pyenv,"User")
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('PYENV_ROOT',$dotbin_pyenv,"User")
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('PYENV_HOME',$dotbin_pyenv,"User")
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('PATH',$path+[System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('path', "User"),"User")
  • Linux: add the following to .bashrc
    bash
    # Pyenv
export PYENV_ROOT=$HOME/dotbin/extra/portable/pyenv
export PATH=$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PYENV_ROOT/shims:$PATH
eval "$(pyenv init -)"
alias epyvenv='source ./venv/bin/activate'
# Dotbin
export PATH=$HOME/dotbin/bin:$HOME/dotbin/extra/symlink:$HOME/dotbin/extra/bin:$PATH

DANGER

Restart the shell afterward to get the new PATH

Setup PowerShell 7 (Windows Only) ​

We will install PowerShell 7 into dotbin and set it as the default profile for Windows Terminal.

The guides work with PowerShell 7.5 and above.

  1. Download the ZIP from the GitHub releases. You might need to pick a preview release.
  2. Set the version for scripts
    powershell
    $version="7.5.0-preview.5"
  3. Extract it
    powershell
    Expand-Archive -Path $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\PowerShell-$version-win-x64.zip -DestinationPath $env:USERPROFILE\dotbin\extra\portable\pwsh
  4. Add to PATH
    powershell
    $path=$env:USERPROFILE+"\dotbin\extra\portable\pwsh;"+[System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('path', "User")
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('PATH',$path,"User")
  5. Close PowerShell 5 (aka Windows PowerShell) and open Windows Terminal.
  6. Right click the title bar and choose "Settings"
  7. Click "Open JSON settings" on the lower left
  8. Change defaultProfile to {bb6f7902-320e-4f8c-bbad-9578445057d2}
  9. Under profiles.list, add a new profile at the top:
    json
    {
    "commandline": "%USERPROFILE%\\dotbin\\extra\\portable\\pwsh\\pwsh.exe -NoLogo",
    "guid": "{bb6f7902-320e-4f8c-bbad-9578445057d2}",
    "hidden": false,
    "icon": "%USERPROFILE%\\dotbin\\extra\\portable\\pwsh\\pwsh.exe",
    "name": "PowerShell 7",
    "startingDirectory": "%USERPROFILE%"
},
  10. Restart Windows Terminal, and confirm your PowerShell version:
    powershell
    $PSVersionTable

Install Python and setup dotbin ​

WARNING

On Windows, ~ expansion only works with PowerShell 7.5 and above!

bash
pyenv install 3.12
pyenv global 3.12
pip install -r ~/dotbin/requirements.txt
python ~/dotbin/script/configure-dotbin.py

INFO

This also sets up extra utils and coreutils for Windows. Use vipwsh to edit the PowerShell profile and add the following to the profile.

powershell
# Coreutils
. $PSScriptRoot\Initialize-Coreutils.ps1

WARNING

Restart the shell afterward!

On Windows, for Portable Git setup, do one last step to set up git in PATH

powershell
sudo dotbin-link

Update dotbin ​

To update dotbin in the future, run

bash
git -C ~/dotbin pull
dotbin-cfg dotbin

Windows Defender ​

On Windows, exclude dotbin from Windows Defender, so tool start-up is faster.

WARNING

Run as admin!

powershell
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath ~/dotbin