setting-up-archlinux.md

Setting Up Archlinux

Arch From Scratch

When all else fails, the best installation guide is the official arch wiki.

To start, let's ensure the internet is connected and sync time

ping -c 3 google.com
timedatectl set-ntp true

Use this to make sure you know your drive names, mine show nvme0n1 and nvme1n1. I'll reference those going forward to stripe (RAID 0) those m.2 drives.

fdisk -l

Will be using GPT and partition 2 nvme drives based on their sizes. Your sizes may be different.

cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1
# create 500M
# create 16G
# create 900G
# create 15G
# write and then quit
cfdisk /dev/nvme1n1
# create 16G
# create 900G
# create 15G
# write and then quit
fdisk -l

now that the drives are partitioned lets setup raid 0 (if these cause issues: sudo mdadm -Esv or sudo mdadm --stop /dev/md* then sudo mdadm --misc --scan --detail /dev/md0)

mdadm --create --verbose --level=0 --metadata=1.2 --chunk=128 --raid-devices=2 /dev/md0 /dev/nvme0n1p2 /dev/nvme1n1p1
mdadm --create --verbose --level=0 --metadata=1.2 --chunk=128 --raid-devices=2 /dev/md1 /dev/nvme0n1p3 /dev/nvme1n1p2
mdadm --create --verbose --level=0 --metadata=1.2 --chunk=128 --raid-devices=2 /dev/md2 /dev/nvme0n1p4 /dev/nvme1n1p3

if last one fails for "cannot assemble multi-zone RAID0 with default_layout.. do this last line, and retry otherwise skip

echo 1 > /sys/module/raid0/parameters/default_layout

Now lets validate those changes

lvmdiskscan

physical volumes

pvcreate /dev/md0
pvcreate /dev/md1
pvcreate /dev/md2

volume groups

vgcreate vg_swap /dev/md0
vgcreate vg_main /dev/md1
vgcreate vg_tmp /dev/md2
vgscan

logical volumes

lvcreate -l +100%FREE vg_swap -n swap
lvcreate -L 60GiB vg_main -n rootfs
lvcreate -l +100%FREE vg_main -n homefs
lvcreate -l +100%FREE vg_tmp -n tmpfs
lvscan

setup swap, ensure fat32 boot partition & declare ext4 elsewhere

mkswap /dev/mapper/vg_swap-swap
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg_main-rootfs
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg_main-homefs
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg_tmp-tmpfs
swapon /dev/mapper/vg_swap-swap
mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

now mount points

mount /dev/mapper/vg_main-rootfs /mnt
mkdir /mnt/home
mkdir /mnt/tmp
mount /dev/mapper/vg_main-homefs /mnt/home
mount /dev/mapper/vg_tmp-tmpfs /mnt/tmp
pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware lvm2 mdadm gvim
genfstab -U -p  /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Now uncomment "[en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8]"

vim /etc/locale.gen
# it's :wq in-case you've been using emacs too long haha

Now configure local time

locale-gen
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago  /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc --utc

Now add dm_mod between the () on MODULES and add mdadm_udev lvm2 between block & filesystems of HOOKS=() here:

vim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

Now setup grub:

mkinitcpio -p linux
pacman -S grub efibootmgr
mkdir /boot/efi
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /boot/efi
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=GRUB --efi-directory=/boot/efi
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
mkdir /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT
cp /boot/efi/EFI/GRUB/grubx64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI

Now you'll add the following within vim /boot/efi/startup.nsh:

bcf boot add 1 fs0:\EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi "My GRUB bootloader"

Now properly setup networking, substitute FROSTY for your computer name.

pacman -S networkmanager
systemctl enable NetworkManager --now
echo FROSTYARCH > /etc/hostname

Now add the following within vim /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 localhost
::1       localhost
127.0.1.1 FROSTYARCH.localdomain FROSTYARCH

newer machines, no eth0. config DHCP make sure to edit the proper ip link name mine shows enp5s0 for ethernet, vim /etc/systemd/network/enp5s0 and write this:

[Match]
Name=en**

[Network]
DHCP=yes

Now setup password

passwd

Now lets wrap things up. after rebooting, boot to bios, ensure nvme raid is on and remove boot flash drive.

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot

First Boot

Now after boot, login with root with the configured password and unncomment multilib within: if u have issues with timing out due to /tmp, just remove it from /etc/fstab

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/vim /usr/bin/vi # make sure we always use vim instead of vi
vim /etc/pacman.conf

Now lets update everything:

pacman -Syyu

Sound and bluetooth - will enable pulseaudio on user later

• alsa-utils - command line alteration of audio levels on alsa's kernel level sound mixer
• pipewire - a new low-level multimedia framework compared to pulseaudio or alsa
• wireplumber - a policy manager for pipewire, allowing lua plugins
• pipewire-audio - the default audio server for pipewire
• pipewire-alsa - provides support for older ALSA API applications
• pipewire-pulse - provides support for older pulse audio API applications
• bluez - bluetooth protocol stack
• bluez-utils - provides bluetoothctl utility
• blueberry - a gui applet ontop of bluez to make bluetooth support easier

Pacman -S alsa-utils pipewire wireplumber pipewire-audio pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse bluez bluez-utils blueberry
systemctl enable pipewire.socket pipewire-pulse.socket wireplubmer.service --now
systemctl enable pipewire.service --now
systemctl enable bluetooth.service --now

Now for installing windowmanager stuff (i3)

• xorg, xorg-server, xorg-xinit - display server essentials
• xorg-xdpyinfo - shows information on hte display server
• i3-gaps - spaces between windows/containers on i3wm
• rofi - hotkey app opener overlay, alternative to dmenu & ulauncher
• dunst - notification display app
• kitty - fast terminal that uses gpu to render things, supports ligatures unlike alacritty
• sddm - simple desktop display manager to support i3
• network-manager-applet - gui layer for managing network apps & vpn
• gnome-calendar - allows viewing of gnome calendar through polybar
• noto-fonts - emoji extras & base fonts
• adobe-source-code-pro-fonts - additional fallback fonts
• otf-font-awesome - additional fallback fonts
• ttf-droid additional fallback fonts
• ttf-fira-code additional fallback fonts
• ttf-jetbrains-mono additional fallback fonts
• ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd additional fallback fonts
• polybar - better version of i3bar for X
• sysstat - iostat, isag, mpstat, pidstat, sadf, sar (cpu usage etc on cli)
• acpi - client for battery, power & thermal readings
• xrandr - monitor setup with rotation, screen location etc
• xdg-user-dirs - help ensure well-known user directories are created automatically
• xdg-utils - for helpful things such as mime detection

Pacman -S xorg xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-xdpyinfo i3-gaps rofi kitty sddm network-manager-applet noto-fonts adobe-source-code-pro-fonts otf-font-awesome ttf-droid ttf-fira-code ttf-jetbrains-mono ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd polybar sysstat acpi xrandr xdg-user-dirs xdg-utils

Then enable sddm:

# enable the service itself
sudo systemctl enable sddm.service

# ensure the directory is there before we make a config for it 
sudo mkdir -p /etc/sddm.conf.d

# create the autologin script
sudo sh -c "echo $'[Autologin]\nUser=nate\nSession=Hyprland' > /etc/sddm.conf.d/autologin.conf"

# now ensure that it doesn't display login on all monitors
sudo sh -c "echo $'xrandr --output DP-2 --off' > /usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"

Before we can start i3 we need graphics drivers, validate what we're using

lspci -v | grep -A1 -e VGA -e 3D

Now acquire graphics packages (if issues see here):

• nvidia - core driver package alternative to nouveau
• nvidia-dkms - we're not on maxwell so let's use this driver package
• nvidia-settings - configure nvidia options through cli or gui
• nvidia-utils - blacklist nouveau packages and other things
• libva - hardware video acceleration offloads cpu usage to gpu
• libva-nvidia-driver-git - translation layer for libva to nvidia

pacman -S nvidia nvidia-settings nvidia-utils # this is my driver stuff

If you have multiple monitors and need to set them up, here are some helpful commands

xrandr # get the names of display ports or hdmi's that are connected
xrandr --output DP-2 --left-of DP-0 # swap screens
xrandr --output DP-0 --mode 2560x1440 # change resolutions

The following is outdated, but sets up a window manager to get started, substitute nate for your name:

useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash nate
passwd nate

Now ensure user is sudoer, vim /etc/sudoers and uncomment this line and :wq!

%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

finally set the default editor for all users to vim save this to vim /etc/profile.d/editor.sh

export EDITOR=vim

helpful non-user-specific applications

• ntp (network-time-protocol) helps ensure we're always time synchronized
• unzip - obviously helps us w/ zip files
• numlockx - helps us default to (dis/en)able numlock on boot for i3
• gnome-keychain - helps us maintain a keychain across different apps
• libsecret - library necessary for gnome-keychain

pacman -S unzip ntp numlockx gnome-keychain libsecret

ensure time synchronization service is started and activated

systemctl enable ntpd.service --now

login to user

login

Let's enable pulseaudio for user

systemctl --user enable pulseaudio --now

Ensure we're automatically logged in, systemctl edit getty@tty1.service and add:

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/usr/bin/agetty --autologin nate --noclear %I $TERM

Now lets have it start by default in vim ~/.xinitrc as well as execute our keyring

exec i3
dbus-update-activation-environment --all
gnome-keyring-daemon --start --components=secrets

install user-specific applications

# stow - gnu utility that loads up config files easily
sudo pacman -S stow

Make basic home folders

mkdir ~/Sites #will hold our projects
mkdir ~/Pictures #will hold backgrounds etc

Now grab all of the dot files

cd ~/Sites
git clone https://github.com/nathanielinman/dot-files.git
stow --dir=~=Sites/dot-files --target=~/

if at any point you want to remove the symlinks stow -D . from within the source repo folder Feel free to manually copy any ./Sites/dot-files/usr/share/applications files in order to setup launching using rofi or hiding unused/unwanted apps. Now grab paru for AUR, used to use yay but Rust ftw :)

cd ~/Sites
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git
cd paru
makepkg -si

Now install web browser

yay -S google-chrome

CLI Configuration

We start by using our package manager pacman to get all necessary binaries. We'll omit node as it will be managed by it's own version manager pnpm.

• curl helps make web requests from the command line
• wget command helps acquire data from the web via the command line
• diff-so-fancy helps make cli git diff look good (automatic)
• exa is prettier version of ls command (we alias it instead in .zshrc)
• bat is prettier version of cat command (we alias it instead in .zshrc)
• fd is aliased in .zshrc as searchFiles and finds within directories filenames
• ripgrep looks within files for strings
• git is basic requirement for version control
• zsh will be our default shell
• python-pip will give us pip for python package management
• pyenv python version manager and virtual environment
• xsel will allow "clipboard" input and outputs via cli. see alias pbcopy & pbpaste aliases in .zshrc
• task is a very simple cli todo app named taskwarrior
• scc breaks down LOC on a repo, broken by language
• duf a better version of df (disk free utility)
• bandwhich a bandwidth utilization monitor
• cpu-x a detailed benchmarking tool for linux similar to cpu-z
• fkill a beautiful way to kill apps instead of pkill, killall etc
• gping ping multiple targets at the same time for comparison
• jq is a command-line JSON processor

yay -S curl wget diff-so-fancy exa bat fd ripgrep git zsh python-pip pyenv xsel task scc duf bandwhich cpu-x fkill gping jq

Now copy the xscreensaver service to systemd for the user and enable it, it will start on next restart

cp /usr/share/xscreensaver/xscreensaver.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user enable xscreensaver
# perhaps `vim ~/.config/systemd/user/` to add `--no-splash` to the `xscreensaver` command

Now we update our python package manager

pip3 install --upgrade pip

Now for installing vim package manager

git clone https://github.com/VundleVim/Vundle.vim.git ~/.vim/bundle/Vundle.vim

Now that Vundler is installed, we can install all the plugins.

vim +PluginInstall +qall

Now for configuring the shell.

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Lets ensure that zsh will have fish-like syntax highlighting & autocompletion

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

Install node js package manager pnpm, this also manages our node versions now instead of nvm or n. After installing leverage it to install the latest or whatever versions required.

yay -S pnpm
pnpm env use --global lts
pnpm env ls

Now we'll install Rust:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Now some rust utils:

• rusti-cal is a better calendar
• melt is a way of easily extracting zip, gz, Z, bz2, tar, etc
• tidy-viewer or "tv" is an easy way to preview csv files
• pueue is a tool that helps manage a queue of shell commands (daemon is pueued)

cargo install rusti-cal melt tidy-viewer pueue

Now for any other essentials for arch

• gpick color picker
• slack-desktop for work, quite a bit better than regular browser version
• feh is an image viewer also used for backgrounds
• file-roller is an gui archive manager, although mostly tar on cli, nice to have
• pagraphcontrol-git like amixer but pretty and allows enabling/adjusting things at runtime
• ttf-joypixels adds support for emoji's within kitty terminal and elsewhere
• vit is a TUI for taskwarrior
• ncdu NCurses Disk Usage shows what files/folders are occupying how much space
• glow is for cating out or reading markdown files in terminal
• glances is better version of top command (we alias it instead in .zshrc)
• procs is a better version of ps command (we alias it instead in .zshrc)
• tokei analyzes a folders programming language, loc, comments, etc
• zoxide allows jumpting to random folders, inspired by z and autojump
• fzf is a fuzzy finder for files usable in vim or cli
• didyoumean is a spell-checking app
• translate-shell is a translation app
• udict urban dictionary
• neofetch cli info tool
• sdcv-git cli dictionary
• xsv is a cli for splitting/joining/analyzing csv files
• obsidian is a note-taking application leveraging zettelkasten
• cronie cron service to help sync any notes and todo repo changes automatically
• dog is a DNS lookup cli info tool
• sd is a replacement for sed with sane regex instead
• onefetch is a command that gets important stats on a git repo
• okular is a pdf, epub, cbr, cbz etc minimal chrome reader
• usbutils allows lsusb and other helpful minor functions
• peek allows recording to .gif, .mp4 etc
• thunar is a slim file manager
• thunar-volman is a slim volume manager for the thunar fm gui
• thunar-archive-plugin is a slim shim for file roller integration with thunar
• ffmpegthumbnailer is a video thumbnail support for thunar
• gvfs gnome virtual file system unlocks usb, trash can etc on thunar
• gvfs-smb mounts samba networked filesystem volumes
• tumbler unlocks generation of thumbnails for thunar
• libgsf is a super fast image thumbnailer for tumbler
• lxappearance is tiny a theme chooser for XFCE4
• galculator is a simple scientific gtk calculator
• orchis-theme-git is a simple XFCE4 & GTK dark theme
• gtk-engine-murrine helps with backwards-compatibility themes for gtk2
• flameshot is a better screenshot utility than scrot
• gthumb is the best tiny app for browsing images

yay -S slack-desktop pagraphcontrol-git feh handlr ttf-joypixels ncdu nsxi zathura zathura-pdf-poppler mpv tabbed glow glances procs tokei zoxide fzf didyoumean translate-shell udict neofetch sdcv-git xsv obsidian cronie dog sd onefetch okular cifs-utils usbutils peek thunar gvfs gvfs-smb tumbler libgsf lxappearance galculator orchis-theme-git qogir-icon-theme-git flameshot

Now open up lxappearance and set the theme to orchis-dark with feather font and qogir-icon-theme for icons. You can now set any default applications you prefer:

handlr set .png feh.desktop

If you want to view pixel art with feh, it may make sense to force aliasing and auto zooming. sudo vim /usr/share/applications/feh.desktop and change Exec lint to be:

Exec=feh --start-at %u --force-aliasing --auto-zoom

Now grab the dictionary file for sdcv:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/stardict/dic/
sudo wget -c https://web.archive.org/web/20200630200122/http://download.huzheng.org/dict.org/stardict-dictd_www.dict.org_gcide-2.4.2.tar.bz2 -O /tmp/dict.tar.bz2 && sudo tar -xvjf /tmp/dict.tar.bz2 -C /usr/share/stardict/dic/

Now sync notes for obsidian into Sites:

cd ~/Sites
git clone https://github.com/nathanielinman/notes.git

Now sync tasks for taskwarrior and vit:

git clone https://github.com/nathanielinman/tasks.git ~/.task

Now enable the cronie cron service for systemd and start immediately

sudo systemctl enable cronie.service --now

cron workfiles are stored under /var/spool/cron and /etc/cron*. You can edit crontab with crontab -e. Go ahead and add those cron actions now to keep things synced:

# `cron tab -e` then add the following lines to update both automatically hourly
@hourly /home/nate/Sites/dot-files/scripts/cron-git-notes-auto-update.sh
@hourly /home/nate/Sites/dot-files/scripts/cron-git-tasks-auto-update.sh

Finally we should make sure our /etc/hosts file is prioritized for blocking hosts if we want. Within sudo vim /etc/nsswitch.conf make sure the files attribute is before the others:

hosts: files mymachines resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] myhostname dns

Then we can add urls we want to block within it (for me, yandex - which i usually allow on pihole but not my work machine):

127.0.0.1 yandex.ru
127.0.0.1 cdn.dzen.ru
127.0.0.1 yabs.yandex.ru

Now we'll grab snap so we can grab docker and other things easily

cd ~/Sites
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/snapd.git
cd snapd
makepkg -si
sudo systemctl enable --now snapd.socket
sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap

Finally we can grab some snap stuff we'll use when developing a lot

snap install colorpicker-app emote gnome-3-28-1804 gtk-common-themes snapd bare core18

Default Applications

In order to ensure that xdg-open via rofi opens things in the right applications:

xdg-mime default neovide.desktop application/javascript
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop application/json
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop application/x-shellscript
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/english
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/plain
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-c
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-c++
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-c++hdr
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-c++src
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-chdr
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-csrc
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-java
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-makefile
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-moc
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-pascal
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-tcl
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/x-text
xdg-mime default neovide.desktop text/xml

This will save things to your ~/.config/mimeapps.list file. In order to see what mime a file is:

xdg-mime query ./ref/to/file.ext

In order to see what app will open a mime:

xdg-mime query default mimetype

If something isn't within your ~/.config/mimeapps.list then xdg-open will look in /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache

Setting up Titan Security Key

First validate udev is over version 188 with sudo udevadm --version, and if so in sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/70-titan-key.rules:

KERNEL=="hidraw*", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1|096e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="5026|0858|085b", TAG+="uaccess"

then :wq and sudo udevadm control --reload-rules.

Setting up streamdeck

yay -S streamdeck-ui

then reboot

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NathanielInman/Dot-Files/master/lightbulb-off.png -o ~/Pictures/lightbulb-off.png
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NathanielInman/Dot-Files/master/lightbulb-on.png -o ~/Pictures/lightbulb-on.png
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NathanielInman/Dot-Files/master/screencapture-icon.png -o ~/Pictures/screencapture-icon.png
cd ~/Sites
git clone https://github.com/endocrimes/keylightctl.git
cd keylightctl
make build
sudo cp ./dist/linux_amd64/keylightctl /usr/bin

now we'll discover any lights on the network

keylightctl discover

now we can add the following commands to streamdeck (substitute your light ids used in discover)

bash -c "keylightctl switch --light 8A95 on & keylightctl switch --light 9F74 on"
bash -c "keylightctl switch --light 8A95 off & keylightctl switch --light 9F74 off"

make sure to use the on and off icons you downloaded earlier While we're here, let's also set the icon for the screencapture-icon.png and setup the command:

bash -c "flameshot gui"

autostart apps using systemd

https://github.com/jceb/dex

Nix

Installing:

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon

Now for nix packages:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.overskride # bluetooth gui ontop of bluez

Openvpn

Instead of going down the route of openvpn3 which is super buggy, it's best to just use the built-in nmcli client similar to docker:

# add ability to add openvpn files to network manager
yay -S extra/networkmanager-openvpn libnma

# list connections
nmcli connection

# add a new openvpn connection
nmcli connection import type openvpn file example.ovpn

# activate the new connection (--ask is only helpful if there's a private key password)
nmcli connection up connection_name --ask

# deactivate the connection
nmcli connection down connection_name

If you have issues such as needing to auth over browser, here's how to do openvpn3:

# install openvpn
yay -S openvpn3

# show sessions
openvpn3 sessions-list

# make connection
openvpn3 session-start --config ~/example.ovpn

# disconnect from session
openvpn3 session-manage --disconnect --path /net/openvpn/v3/sessions/___example__uid__real__one__in__sessions-list