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My Arch Linux Setup Guide

This guide assumes the drive has already been partitioned and the EFI bootloader is already in place. I'll include these detailed steps the next time I need to do it. As I'm writing up these steps, I'm performing them on a machine that's already had it done, and I can't spend the time to start from scratch this time.

Arch Installation

• Start with a bootable thumb drive that includes the latest version
• Follow along with the Arch Linux Installation Guide
• Boot and install off the thumb drive
  • Connect to a wifi network with wifi-menu
  • Copy over previously used files and folders
    • After running genfstab, merge in previous /etc/fstab
    • /etc/locale.conf, /etc/hostname
    • /boot/EFI and /boot/loaders
  • I use systemd-boot as a bootloader

Setup default shell and user

• Install Zsh and set it as the default shell
  • pacman -S zsh zsh-completions sudo
  • chsh -s /bin/zsh
• Add my user account
  • useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/zsh don
  • passwd don
  • visudo and uncomment the line that adds the wheel group
• Log out and back in as me

Install dotfiles

• pacman -S git openssh
• mkdir -p ~/.config/i3 ~/.config/i3status ~/.config/nvim ~/projects
• cd ~/projects
• git clone [email protected]:don-smith/dotfiles.git
• cd dotfiles
• ./link

Prepare terminal

• Install Oh-my-Zsh
• pacin gnome-terminal polkit-gnome xclip
• Install Tmux
  • pacin tmux
  • mkdir -p ~/.tmux/plugins
  • gcl https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tpm ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm
  • Restart the terminal
  • tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf
  • Ctrl-b I to install the tmux plugins
• Install the Powerline status bar
  • pacin python python-pip python-pylint python-setuptools
  • pip install powerline-status
  • gcl https://github.com/powerline/fonts.git ~/repos/powerline-fonts
  • ~/repos/powerline-fonts/install.sh
• Install NeoVim
  • pacin neovim
  • curl -fLo ~/.config/nvim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim
  • sudo pip install neovim
  • nvim +PluginInstall +qall
  • nvim +UpdateRemotePlugins +qall
• Install yaourt using these instructions
• Run gnome-terminal --show-menubar
  • Dark theme
  • Source Code Pro for Powerline
  • Create 2 profiles: tmux and no-tmux
    • tmux new-session -A -s zsh to attach to existing session

Install GUI

• Install X11
  • pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-xrandr xf86-video-intel xf86-input-synaptics
  • pacman -S i3 dmenu feh

Sound

• pacin pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa pulseaudio-jack

• Join audio group with sudo gpasswd -a don audio

  • To enable in the current terminal (without having to log out and in): newgrp audio

• Add this line to /etc/security/limits.conf (need sudo)

  @audio           -       rtprio          99
  

Docker

• Install docker with pacin docker docker-compose
• Follow the instructions for setting up Docker on Arch
• Join docker group with sudo gpasswd -a don docker
  • To enable in the current terminal (without having to log out and in): newgrp docker
• Change storage driver

  • sudo mkdir /etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d

  • Add this to /etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d/override.conf

    [Service]
    ExecStart=
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/dockerd -H fd:// -s overlay2
    

  • Start the service with sudo systemctl start docker

  • Verify all is good with docker info (make sure overlay is the storage driver)

  • To spin up a Ruby on Rails environment, there is a good tutorial.

Other

• ranger is a good terminal file manager (even though I rarely use one). If you install it, install highlight as well so you can get syntax highlighted file previews. Don't forget to ranger --copy-config=all or at least ranger --copy-config=scope to enable it.

Confession

I didn't end up documenting all of the steps. It was very late and I hadn't planned on repaving my machine. I've documented all of the hairy bits. It really was pretty easy.