Engineering Loadout

A self-contained, offline-first toolkit for engineering work environments.

• Old Linux distros
• Limited or no internet access
• No sudo / no root
• Built from 30+ years of engineering workflow experience
• All built on AlmaLinux 8.10 (RHEL 8 clone), glibc 2.28
  • Compatible with RHEL 9.x and beyond

Drop the release tarball onto a locked-down workstation, run one command, and you have modern Linux tooling and sane configurations in your $HOME — no installer, no admin, no internet.

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Installation

Linux

Download the .tar.gz release archive from the latest release, then extract and run — nothing is built or compiled, the archive ships every binary, library, font, and config file ready to install:

tar xzf engineering-loadout-v*.tar.gz
cd engineering-loadout-v*/
./loadout install @engineering-loadout

That installs the @engineering-loadout group — a curated set of command-line tools, editors, fonts, and configuration files — into ~/.local and ~/.config. Reload your shell with exec bash when it finishes.

Re-run the same command against a newer release tarball to update. Unchanged files are skipped, so re-runs are quick.

Picking what to install

Name packages or groups the same way dnf or apt works:

./loadout install @engineering-loadout                    # the full set
./loadout install octave                                  # one package
./loadout install @gui-suite                              # a group
./loadout install @engineering-loadout --skip @fonts-all  # everything but fonts
./loadout list                                            # browse packages
./loadout list --tag editor                               # filter by tag
./loadout search vim                                      # substring search
./loadout info gvim                                       # details for one package
./loadout install octave --dry-run                        # preview only

Windows

.\loadout.ps1                  # PowerShell 7+
.\loadout-pwsh-bootstrap.ps1   # if starting from PowerShell 5.1

No elevation required.

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What's Inside

Component	Description
Bash	Layered shell config, 100+ aliases, fzf / zoxide / eza / bat integration
Neovim	LSP, 326 offline Tree-sitter parsers, curated plugin set
Vim	Vim 9.2 with NERDTree, SimpylFold, and vim-liberty bundled
Tmux	Sessions that survive reboot (resurrect + continuum), Ctrl-\ prefix
Helix	Ready to run offline
Starship	Cross-shell prompt, Linux and Windows configs
PowerShell	Aliases, Unix coreutils wrappers, Starship + zoxide integration
WezTerm	Terminal emulator config
AutoHotKey	AHK v2 flat script, feature flags via loadout_keys.toml
EditorConfig	Consistent formatting across all editors
Command-line tools	Modern CLI utilities, ready offline — see table below
Nerd Fonts	7 font families

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Design Goals

Offline-first. Plugins, parsers, fonts, and binaries are bundled. Nothing is fetched at install time. Ship it to an air-gapped workstation and it just works.

No root. Everything lands in $HOME (or --dest-dir). No package manager, no sudo, no IT ticket.

Shared-tree installs stay relocatable: bundled runtime/data assets live under ~/.local/share (or the staged prefix) and shell init exports the paths needed for discovery, including TERMINFO_DIRS for bundled st terminfo.

Multi-platform. RedHat 7 / 8 / 9, Suse, x86_64 / ARM / PowerPC, and Windows.

Layered configuration. Settings flow from lowest to highest precedence:

Global → Corp → Site → Team → Project → User

Each layer overrides the previous without touching the upstream files. Personal tweaks, team conventions, and corporate defaults all coexist without forking anything. Pull a loadout update and your overrides still work.

Opinionated but escapable. Sensible defaults out of the box. Every preference is a LOADOUT_CFG_* variable you can override in your user layer:

# bash/user/config.sh
export LOADOUT_CFG_PREFERRED_VI=vim        # use vim instead of nvim
export LOADOUT_CFG_ENABLE_STARSHIP=0       # use the built-in prompt
export LOADOUT_CFG_ATTACH_TO_TMUX=1        # auto-attach tmux on login

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Bundled Packages

Each row is a package you can install by name with ./loadout install <name>. Groups (@engineering-loadout, @gui-suite, @core-cli, …) bundle related packages so you can install many at once. Run ./loadout list to see every package and every group, or ./loadout list --groups to see just the groups.

Package	Version	Description
agent-deck	1.9.12	TUI dashboard for AI agent orchestration
bash	5.3.9	The GNU Bourne Again SHell
bat	0.26.1	cat with syntax highlighting and Git integration
biome	2.4.15	Fast JSON / JS / TS / CSS formatter, linter, and LSP
broot	1.56.2	Interactive tree navigator and fuzzy finder
btm	0.12.3	Cross-platform system monitor (CPU, memory, process tree)
btop	1.4.7	Resource monitor — top for people who care about aesthetics
bzip2	1.0.8	High-quality block-sorting file compressor
choose	1.3.7	Human-friendly cut and awk replacement
dasel	3.8.1	Select, update, and convert data across JSON / YAML / TOML / XML / CSV
delta	0.19.2	Git diff pager with syntax highlighting and line numbers
duf	0.9.1	df replacement with colored disk usage table
dust	1.2.4	Intuitive du — shows disk usage by size, at a glance
expect	5.45.4	Tcl-based tool for automating interactive CLI programs
eza	0.23.4	Modern ls with color, icons, Git status, and tree view
fd	10.4.2	Fast, ergonomic find replacement
firefox	140.11.0	Mozilla Firefox ESR — bundled with launcher + libxul, no system install required
fish	4.7.1	Fish shell — autosuggestions, syntax highlighting, no config needed
fzf	0.62.0	Blazing-fast fuzzy finder for files, history, anything
gnuplot	6.0.2	Portable command-line graphing utility
gping	1.20.1	ping with a real-time ASCII graph
gvim	9.2	GTK3 GUI vim
htop	3.2.1	Interactive process viewer — the original top upgrade
hx	25.07.1	Helix modal editor — Kakoune-inspired, batteries included
hyperfine	1.20.0	Command-line benchmarking tool with statistical output
jq	1.8.1	Lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor
jupyterlab	4.5.7	Web-based interactive notebooks (opens in browser)
just	1.50.0	Command runner — sane make replacement for project tasks
lazygit	0.61.1	TUI git client for staging, committing, and rebasing
liberty-tools	1.0.1	Fast Liberty .lib parser and browser-based viewer
mate-terminal	1.26.1	GTK3 terminal emulator
meld	3.20.4	GTK3 visual diff and merge tool
micro	2.0.15	Modern, intuitive terminal text editor — Ctrl+S just works
miller	6.18.1	CSV / TSV / JSON / NDJSON / XML data processor (mlr)
nedit-ng	2025.1	Qt5 rewrite of NEdit
nvim	0.12.2	Hyperextensible Vim-based text editor
nvim-qt	0.2.19	Qt5 GUI frontend for Neovim
octave	11.1.0	GNU Octave scientific computing
pigz	2.8	Parallel gzip — multi-core gzip / gunzip replacement
procs	0.14.11	ps replacement with colors and process tree
pv	1.6.6	Monitor progress of data through a pipe
pygwalker	0.5.0.1	Interactive Tableau-style data explorer for pandas DataFrames
rg	15.1.0	ripgrep — recursive search that respects .gitignore
rsync	3.4.1	Fast, incremental file transfer
ruff	0.15.12	Extremely fast Python linter and formatter
sd	1.0.0	Intuitive sed replacement — sd 'old' 'new' just works
shfmt	3.13.1	Shell script formatter (bash / sh / mksh / bats)
st	0.9.3	suckless st — minimal X11 terminal
starship	1.25.1	Cross-shell prompt — fast, informative, configurable
stylua	2.4.1	Opinionated Lua code formatter
tealdeer / tldr	1.8.1	Fast tldr client with offline page cache
text-serdes	0.1.1	Short-lived encrypted text transport for copy/paste workflows
time-plot	0.1.0	Plot arbitrary data vs. zero-based time, uPlot HTML output
tkdiff	6.0	Tcl/Tk visual diff and merge tool
tmux	3.6a	Terminal multiplexer
ty	0.0.35	Extremely fast Python type checker
urxvt	9.31	rxvt-unicode — X11 terminal with Unicode and Xft
uv	0.11.13	Extremely fast Python package installer and resolver
vim	9.2	Vim 9.2
visidata	3.3	TUI spreadsheet for exploring CSV / TSV / JSON / NDJSON data
xsel	1.2.0	X11 clipboard command-line access tool
xterm	410	X Window System terminal emulator
yank	1.3.0	Select terminal output and copy to clipboard
yq	4.53.2	jq for YAML, JSON, XML, CSV, TOML, and properties files
zoxide	0.9.9	Smarter cd — learns your most-used directories
zsh	5.9	Z shell — advanced tab completion, powerful scripting

If your machine doesn't already have GTK3 / Qt5 / X11 / Wayland libraries installed (common on remote compute nodes), install gui_libs alongside any GUI application:

./loadout install gvim nedit-ng gui_libs
# Or use the group, which pulls gui_libs for you:
./loadout install @gui-suite

Python

Python 3.14.4 — a portable Python build that installs to ~/.local. Use python3.14 and pip3.14 to pin this build.

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Neovim — 326 Offline Tree-sitter Parsers

The full nvim-treesitter parser registry is bundled and installs offline to ~/.local/share/nvim/tree-sitter-parsers/. All 326 languages work out of the box, no internet required.

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Nerd Fonts

Seven font families bundled and installed to ~/.local/share/fonts:

Font	Notes
Envy Code R	Clean, distinctive coding font
Fira Code	Ligature-rich monospace
Hack	Designed for source code
Inconsolata	Humanist monospace
Iosevka Term	Ultra-narrow, highly legible
JetBrains Mono	Designed for long coding sessions
Source Code Pro	Adobe's open-source workhorse

Use ./loadout install … --skip @fonts-all to skip every font, or --skip font-firacode to skip a single family.

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Bash Configuration

Six-layer override chain (global → corp → site → team → project → user), LOADOUT_CFG_* knobs, and a curated alias set:

• b / bb / bbb … — cd .. up 1, 2, 3 levels
• cdd / cddd … — cd to the N-th most recently modified directory
• g — ripgrep with sensible defaults (smart case, hidden, no-ignore)
• f — fd with sensible defaults, falls back to find
• gs / gc / gp / gd / ga — git status / commit / push / diff / add
• vi / vim — your preferred editor (nvim by default)
• cat — bat with no paging
• ll / la / lh — ls variants (sizes, all files, human-readable)

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Tmux

Prefix Ctrl-\. Shift-arrows for pane navigation, Ctrl-arrows for windows, Prefix+1–5 for layout presets, Prefix+v to capture the pane buffer into nvim. tmux-resurrect and tmux-continuum bundled — your sessions come back after a reboot.