Sharing home and etc files with git

[iiijjjiii <iiijjjiii@gmail.com>]

I would like to use git to keep revision histories of my home and etc 
directories. I have several computers and I like to keep their 
environments similar. I could see git pulls updating .bash_aliases, 
.bashrc, and various bash and perl scripts I create in the home 
directory, and updating /etc config files. Git pushes would share any 
recent changes to other computers. This way no matter which computer I 
am working on, the environment will be similar and I can make changes 
and know they will be copied to the others.

I haven't figured out a good way to deal with the files that have local 
settings in them. Using .gitignore feels a little overkill. Only certain 
lines of the files need to be unique. Once they are set, I'd like 
subsequent changes to be updated. I could cherry-pick manually but I'd 
like a more automated method. I have read about etckeeper, 
git-home-history and gibak, but they seem to be designed for backing up 
and versioning files on one computer and not for sharing files.

Has anyone done something similar using git or is another tool more 
suitable.

Thanks
jimk