+1 For stow ("a symlink farm manager")

Simple usecase:

  cd ~
  mkdir -p dotfiles && cd dotfiles
  mkdir -p bash && cd bash
  touch .bashrc
  cd ~
  stow bash  # Deploys ~/.bashrc symlinked from ~/dotfiles/bash/
  # More packages, version control:
  cd ~/dotfiles
  git init && git commit -am "Initial commit"
  mkdir -p ~/dotfiles/git/
  touch ~/dotfiles/git/.gitconfig
  # deploy git package
  cd ~ && stow git
  # revert bash "package deployment"
  stow -D bash

I've gone a bit overboard myself (many packages, litterate programming declaration of emacs config, Vagrant VM with Ansible deployment etc), see https://github.com/OverkillGuy/jibyconf

I've been using GNU Stow (with Git) for the past month to sync some of my dotfiles between two laptops (Mac and Linux). It took 10 minutes to get comfortable with it and it works well for me.

I use GNU Stow with a dotfiles git repo placed in $HOME. Works well.