Add readme to make this public

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+# Localinstall
+
+This is a simple script that symlinks files into my `~/.local/bin`
+directory. I have this directory already part of my `PATH` environment
+variable, so this allows me to effectively "install" stuff for just my
+user.
+
+You can use `localinstall.sh` to install itself as a convenient first
+step.
+
+```sh
+./localinstall.sh ./localinstall.sh
+```
+
+Then make sure that your `PATH` is updated to use these binaries. Add
+this to your shell init file thing (e.g. `.zshrc` or `.bashrc`):
+
+```sh
+PATH=${HOME}/.local/bin:$PATH
+```
+
+Then open a new shell (or source your init file again) and you should
+be able to call `localinstall.sh` from any directory.
+
+Then lets say you compiled a binary called `my_program`. You can do this
+
+```sh
+localinstall.sh ./my_program
+```
+
+And now you can call `my_program` from anywhere as well.
+
+## But Why!?
+
+Why the heck would you ever use this? Well...a couple of reasons.
+
+Personally, I don't like it when I have to install stuff into a more
+global directory. A lot of programs will default to `/usr/local/bin`,
+which seems like the ideal place to put stuff. However, it still needs
+`sudo` to install things there, and it installs stuff for all users on
+the system. I don't necessarily want other users to use my
+development-branch build of a program.
+
+When running `make install` (or similar), some programs don't have a
+sane default like `/usr/local/bin` and instead do things like
+`/usr/local/<program>` or `/opt/<program>`. I don't think I've ever
+seen anything actually plop directly into `/usr/bin` or `/bin`, but
+that would be the worst case scenario. This script lets me keep all my
+binaries in one place, specifically ones that are not installed by the
+system's repository. Related to this, I know where everything is, and
+so they are easier to cleanup or uninstall later. Some programs don't
+properly implement `make uninstall`.
+
+I don't typically have other users on my systems, just me. So
+installing globally for all users vs just my user is kinda moot.
+
+I also don't always want all of the things to be installed from a
+software package. Running `make install` may place a whole collection
+of binaries into my system when I really only wanted 1 of them. This
+lets me just symlink the one I needed.
+
+## Limitations
+
+As kinda outlined in the "why" section, using this script has some
+limitations/properties:
+
+* These are only installed for the user that ran the script.
+* The thing pointed to by each symlink can change out from under you.
+
+# Copyright
+
+I think this script is too small to reasonably apply copyright
+to. It is in the Public Domain.

localinstall.sh

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ file=$1
 
 install_dir="${HOME}/.local/bin"
 
-filepath=$(readlink -f "$file")
+filepath=$(readlink "$file")
 filename=$(basename "$file")
 
 mkdir -p $install_dir