rollback capability for linux config files and scripts

[Rahul Nabar]

I am a newbiee to versioning systems and was looking at the best way to
solve a problem I was facing:

Frequently, when I modify my scripts or config files on my Linux box I'm
afraid I'll break something and hence make a manual backup copy. This only
gets me a manual, rudimentary rollback capability. I was looking into using
cvs / mercury / subversion to help me get this a little more efficient and
safer.

The problem is that these files are peppered all accross my directory
structure. There might also be a chance that I have two different files at
different places in my dir structure but both with the same name. { Say,
~/gnuplot/script.sh ~/bin/script.sh)

What's the best versioning strategy for such a setup?  I browsed through the
documentation of many of the versioning systems and the Mailing Lists. Most
uses seem to be geared around "projects" each corresponding to a "repo".
Will I have to twist my problem to fit that paradigm? Or is there a better
way? I probably don't want to end up with 50 different projects; especially
since this is entirely an artificial meta-structure for me.

Or am I trying to use the wrong tool here? I really don't need any
collaboration requirement; just a historical rollback capacity. Probably
need only a tiny fraction of the power of todays versioning tools!

Any suggestions?

-Rahul
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