Problems of having multiple machines

i’ve only had a maximum of one laptop at a time all my life. but that changed last year when received a Lenovo Thinkbook (hereinafter referred to as shtinkbook) in addition to the Lenovo Thinkpad (hereinafter referred to as shtinkpad) i already had. for some time i shelved my old shtinkpad and made shtinkbook my main laptop as it had better screen, a backlit keyboard (missing in shtinkpad), double the storage as shtinkpad, and better battery. but the idea of having separate machines for coding and funsies was always captivating.

one day i decided not to procrastinate anymore and decided to add a second hostname in my nixos config and add shtinkpad to my active laptops family. i decided to make it my games-only laptop.

before moving forward, let me give you a short primer of my gaming history. i didnt have a childhood pc or console or anything like that, so i didnt play any computer games growing up. instead, i touched grass. but during covid, which was around the same time i got my first laptop, i started exploring computer games and specially enjoyed minecraft multiplayer with my friends.

even tho it provided a worse gaming experience, shtinkpad was enough to satisfy my occiassional gaming needs. i played skyrim, mindustry (solo and with a friend), and minecraft during this short phase. but leaving my better laptop behind to game on an objectively worse laptop was not a pleasant feeling. so i decided to do a switcheroo, i.e., making shtinkpad my coding only laptop and shtinkbook my funsies laptop. tho i kept the ssh bridge for times i wanted to write code on a better screen. i also decided to switch to arch (btw) on my shtinkpad coz coding experience on nixos had some corporate-like requirements that i dont really care for. currently im in this phase, the switcheroo.

now here is where my problems start. my current dotfiles directory has been built up on years of incremental changes and has faced multiple overwrites. i am using the same dotfiles for both the machines, but that has been causing some inconsistencies because both my children (laptops) have different hardware. so i am thinking of creating either two totally separate dotfiles or a single repo but with separate folders for each machine; a monorepo of sorts.

the first approach has the issue of syncing hell. the shared configs and scripts will be hard to keep in sync over time. tho i can setup syncthing or smth like i have for many other things, it just adds a new layer of complexity on an already complex system of dotfiles. i might need to rewrite a major part of my dotfiles at some point. ughhh, just thinking about it is sending shivers down my spine.

the second approach seems more reasonable tho. but it will increase the number of irrelevant files on a machine, specially when i add my third machine: an old thinkpad (i havent been able to come up with a nickname for it yet). it will take some time but i think this is the most suitable approach for having multiple machines sensibly confgured.

another thing i want in my setup is the reduction of friction when i switch machines. suppose when i am done with my funsies and now it is time for j*b. i dont wanna have to reset my brain to be able to use the new machine. thats why i will keep the same window manager and basic programs and utilities across all my machines. anyway, ig it was more of a rant than an overview of the problems lol.