Putting ~ into a version control system

Question

Hey folks!
I'm curious as to how one could put ones home directory into version control, to quote Codemac;
codemac wrote:I keep my ~ in mercurial, so all files are checked in and versioned. [...] I highly suggest you put your $HOME into version control.  It's real fun to see what your home directory looked like 3 years ago
I once used Subversion under Mac OS X to download a random project just for kicks, but had no idea what it was all about really. I understand that a version control system assists (manually or automatically?) in labeling files/data/"units" with version numbers, and storing the data as well? I've also seen that a number of users here use Git, another version control system, to label and share their various configuration files. Where is the data stored? On a server belonging to someone else or on ones own computer?
I found a Wikipedia article on the topic, although Subversion isn't named there, so I may be wrong on that one.
Is there a CVS that is small in size and amount of features and easy to get the grasp of?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I'm having my ~ under version control now for a while (I am using git - the decision to do so was mainly motivated by my desire to learn git). However, I don't track every file in my ~. Just the configuration files (.bashrc, .bash_logout, .zshrc, .awesomerc, vim ... etc. etc.) and some docs (though I keep them in a different private repository). I'd recommend that if you plan to put your ~ under a VCS that you should think about what you plan to track and what not first. It certainly means some additional work, because you have to remember to commit changes back into your repository every time you change a tracked file. Of course you can perform a commit on every logout, but if you want to revert/restore a single file, it's better to track changes in files individually. As I see it, the main idea of keeping your ~ in a VCS system is to have a backup from where you can restore a single file to every point in time you want, or to revert uncommited changes which broke sth. in an instant. So, IMHO it doesn't make that much sense to have the repository on your laptop only, but also to have a remote repository (in case your HD dies). For me, it's also a nice way to keep my home directory in sync over multiple machines.
As for the decision on which particular VCS to use. I first tried to do that a year ago using svn, and it didn't work out that well - for some reason I don't like svn - but that doesn't mean that svn is bad - it could be right for you . Darcs is an easy to learn VCS but it lacks some features like branches and the like (which you may not need in this szenario anyway). I don't know much about Bazaar or Mercurial, because I've never used them, however from what I've read, these two are very popular choices nowadays (maybe someone with some experience with those can shed some more light ). Also, you have to chose the VCS according to what you like to track, because they differ in performance and the extra storage they need to keep track of the changes (I read a good article which compared all named VCSs regarding repository/metadata size in differrent szenarios, small files only, big files only etc. etc. - but unfortunately I can't find it atm).