Effectively manage custom dotfiles so they are easily transferrable between different machines. The notes include a script from Using Git and Github to Manage your Dotfiles by MICHAEL SMALLEY. Once the dotfiles repository is cloned into the home directory, this script will create symbolic links to the custom configuration files. It will also move any existing dotfiles that match those in the cloned directory into a dotfiles_old directory.

Organize dotfiles in new directory

In the home directory create a new directory for the dotfiles

$ mkdir ~/dotfiles

Move the dot files into this directory.

$mv ~./.bashrc ~/dotfiles

For portability add this makesymlinks.sh install script to the dotfiles directory

#!/bin/bash  
############################
# .make.sh  
# This script creates symlinks from the home directory to any desired  dotfiles in ~/dotfiles  
############################  

########## Variables  

dir=~/dotfiles                    # dotfiles directory  
olddir=~/dotfiles_old             # old dotfiles backup directory  
files="bashrc vimrc vim zshrc oh-my-zsh private scrotwm.conf   Xresources"    # list of files/folders to symlink in homedir  

##########  

# create dotfiles_old in homedir
echo -n "Creating $olddir for backup of any existing dotfiles in ~ ..."
mkdir -p $olddir
echo "done"

# change to the dotfiles directory
echo -n "Changing to the $dir directory ..."
cd $dir
echo "done"

# move any existing dotfiles in homedir to dotfiles_old directory, then create symlinks from the homedir to any files in the ~/dotfiles directory specified in $files
for file in $files; do
    echo "Moving any existing dotfiles from ~ to $olddir"
    mv ~/.$file ~/dotfiles_old/
    echo "Creating symlink to $file in home directory."
    ln -s $dir/$file ~/.$file
done

Create Git/Github Repository

Initialize a new Git repo

$ cd ~/dotfiles
$ git init
$ git add makesymlinks.sh
$ git add .bashrc
$ git commit -m "first commit of dotfiles"

Create a new repository on Github and copy the information from the new repo

$ git remote add origin git@github.com:mygithubusername/dotfiles.git
$ git push origin master

Cloning to Another Machine

Move to home directory of new machine

$git clone git://github.com/<mygithubusername>/dotfiles.git
$cd ~/dotfiles

Make script executable

chmod +x makesymlinks.sh

Run script

./makesymlinks.sh