stown 1.2.1

Manage file system object mapping via symlinks. Lightweight alternative to GNU Stow.

stown

"stown" manages file system object mapping via symlinks. It was inspired by GNU Stow, which I found very useful but too unwieldly for my personal use. GNU Stow relies on a number of Perl modules and can be a hassle to install on minimalistic systems. In contrast, stown requires only Python 3.9 or newer, without any additional dependencies.

If you are looking for a lightweight tool instead of a full-fledged symlink farm manager, stown might be for you.

Comprehensive documentation is provided in HTML and PDF format.

Installing

To install the PyPI package, you can use this shell command:

pip install stown

Example use case

If you store your dotfiles in a special repository, like many of us do, the following simple statement can help you quickly set up a new user account with your favourite settings:

stown $HOME /path/to/dotfiles

This brief teaser is obviously not much to go by. Please see the full documentation for detailed information about how stown is used and how it operates.