This guide uses yay as the preferred AUR helper of choice.
In case you did a fresh install and are now missing packages, yet cannot connect to the internet, simply boot via live-iso and arch-chroot into your system.
$ cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p2 cryptroot # only relevant in case of encrypted partition
$ mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
$ wifi-menu
$ arch-chroot /mnt
Install the packages for NetworkManager next, but refrain from doing the full setup in chroot mode. Rather reboot and login normally once you got the packages for getting online.
Yay is an AUR helper (like yaourt). It's written in Go, new, fast, actively maintained...
$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
$ cd yay
$ makepkg -si
Edit /etc/pacman.conf. Find the section [options] and then under Misc Options simply uncomment the line that says Color.
Before you install anything, make sure your package lists are up to date:
$ yay -Sy
It may as well be advisable to run a system update, but that is your decision.
$ yay -Syu
$ yay -S dhclient extra/networkmanager extra/networkmanager-pptp extra/networkmanager-openvpn extra/nm-connection-editor extra/network-manager-applet
$ systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
$ systemctl enable NetworkManager-wait-online.service
Either reboot or systemctl start NetworkManager.service.
See the wiki for more nmcli examples.
$ nmcli device wifi list # show available wifis
$ nmcli device wifi connect <WIFI_NAME> password <WIFI_PASSWORD> # yeah I know, you can delete that from shell history though.
$ yay -S xf86-video-intel
Generally, see the arch wiki for Xorg.
$ yay -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-xrdb extra/xterm
Give it a shot, it should run with the defaults (looks crappy but should show a terminal and a cursor):
$ startx
Close all windows gradually with ctrl+d and/or ctrl+c to get back to your login shell.
Pick a terminal emulator from this arch wiki list. I'll go with urxvt for now.
$ yay -S community/rxvt-unicode community/rxvt-unicode-terminfo
Go to https://terminal.sexy and build your own foreground / background colors for your terminal.
Place the colors in your ~/.Xresources file.
For rxvt you must configure the Alt/Control keys to behave like xterm.
! Have Alt/Control-<arrow> behave like xterm
URxvt.keysym.Control-Up: \033[1;5A
URxvt.keysym.Control-Down: \033[1;5B
URxvt.keysym.Control-Left: \033[1;5D
URxvt.keysym.Control-Right: \033[1;5C
URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033[1;3B
URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033[1;3A
URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033[1;3D
URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033[1;3C
You can find my full ~/.Xresrouces file as gist here.
Folks used to go with dmenu but I much prefer rofi.
yay -S community/rofi
Really, check the wiki page. This is my config, in ~/.config/rofi/config:
rofi.color-enabled: true
rofi.color-window: #1c1c22, #3e646f, #3e646f
rofi.color-normal: #1c1c22, #d9d6ca, #85aab6, #d9d6ca, #78824B
rofi.color-active: #1c1c22, #d9d6ca, #85aab6, #d9d6ca, #78824B
rofi.color-urgent: #1c1c22, #d9d6ca, #85aab6, #d9d6ca, #78824B
rofi.separator-style: solid
rofi.sidebar-mode: false
rofi.lines: 5
rofi.font: Source Code Pro Semibold 10.5
rofi.bw: 1
rofi.columns: 2
rofi.padding: 5
rofi.fixed-num-lines: true
rofi.hide-scrollbar: true
Install a display manager. This guide will go for lightdm together with its GTK greeter.
$ yay -S lightdm extra/lightdm-gtk-greeter
$ systemctl enable lightdm.service
This guide goes for i3 as window manager of choice. You could, of course, go for anything here.
$ yay -S i3-wm
- Read the docs
- Enable
rofi:- find the line where
dmenuis called and replace that line with the following bindsym $mod+d exec rofi -show run
- find the line where
i3 brings its own Xsession, so together with our display manager from above (lightdm), we are good to reboot now and get greeted with a graphical environment.
$ reboot
There's a plethora of stuff to know about session locking. I'll go with xss-lock, because it grabs systemd and DPMS triggers. For the locking utility itself, I use light-locker. Again, you could go for anything here, like i3lock or similar.
$ yay -S community/light-locker community/xss-lock extra/xorg-xset
$ xset s on # enable xset
$ xset s 300 # blank screen black after 5 mins of inactivity
Find the line that says something about i3lock and replace it with this:
exec --no-startup-id xss-lock -- dm-tool lock
Reboot or logout and login again.
Light is a simple program to change backlight settings. The respective user must either be root or member in the video group.
$ yay -S light
$ usermod -aG video <YOUR_USER_NAME>
i3 allows for custom keybindings. Add the following lines to your ~/.config/i3/config:
# Brightness:bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec light -A 10 # increase screen brightnessbindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec light -U 10 # decrease screen brightness
Reboot or logout and login again.
Yup, we all waited for this one.
I prefer polybar over the i3-bar.
$ yay -S polybar
Make sure to check out the polybar wiki page, there's quite a lot cool stuff possible. Best thing is that you don't have to fiddle with tray icons, for once.
- Disable
i3bar. Find find thebar: {}entry in~/.config/i3/configand kick it out. - Create a polybar config to your liking.
- Create a polybar startup script and place it in you i3 config.
- Create a restart-script in case you plug in and out monitors frequently.
Note: The name at the top of the config file is used to reference the bar.
~/.config/polybar/config
------------------------
[bar/fixelbar] <----- this name!
.....
You can find my polybar config in this gist.
Example polybar start-up script. Caution: note that the bar is called fixelbar):
#/bin/bash
# start polybar on all monitors
for m in $(polybar --list-monitors | cut -d":" -f1); do
MONITOR=$m polybar --reload fixelbar &
done
Put a exec --no-startup-id call to this script in your ~/.config/i3/config.
See this issue.
When you plug monitors often, you have to restart polybar. Otherwise it will not show on the newly plugged monitors. I do it with a killall polybar 2>&1 > /dev/null and then call the above start script again. I'm sure here are nicer ways, you'll figure it out.
Nitrogen is light and simple.
$ yay -S extra/nitrogen
$ nitrogen /path/to/image/directory/
Put this line in the i3 config: exec --no-startup-id /usr/bin/nitrogen --restore
$ yay -S extra/pulseaudio extra/pulseaudio-bluetooth community/pasystray
Go to /etc/pulse/client.conf and change the line that says autospawn to yes. Then start it once.
$ yay pulseaudio --start
To have a tray icon in your status bar (polybar), add this to the i3 config file: exec --no-startup-id /usr/bin/pasystray
$ yay -S bluez bluez-utils community/blueman
$ systemctl enable bluetooth.service
$ systemctl start bluetooth.service
To have a tray icon in your status bar (polybar), add this to the i3 config file: exec --no-startup-id /usr/bin/blueman-applet
$ yay -S extra/texlive-fontsextra extra/xorg-fonts-misc extra/freetype2 extra/adwaita-icon-theme extra/bdf-unifont aur/siji-git extra/ttf-linux-libertine
Switcher for installed GTK Themes:
$ yay -S community/lxappearance-gtk3
Then go and find themes you like, either directly in the AUR (search yay gtk theme) or google around.
- oh-my-zsh convenience helper for z-shell
- zsh-autosuggestions zsh plugin
- keychain. oh-my-zsh also has a plugin for this
- xorg-xrandr and arandr as GUI.
- redshift