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Arch Installation from scratch - Optimus Laptop

Introduction

This is a step by step guide about installing Arch on a laptop with dual-GPUs (specifically Intel UHD + NVIDIA). My personal objective is to have a nice gaming experience.

This guide wants to be a reference for myself if I need to do all this again, and maybe a helpful starting point for someone else. YMMV.

The current status is WIP.

System specifications

  • Board: Dell G3 15 3590
  • CPU: Intel i5-9300H @ 4.1GHz
  • RAM: 16GB DDR4
  • GPU0: Intel UHD Graphics 630
  • GPU1: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mobile with Max-Q (6GB)
  • NVME0: SkHynix 512GB SSD
  • SATA1: Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD

Guides

  1. Arch Linux installation with linux-zen kernel
  2. GNOME DE running over Wayland
  3. Hybrid GPU configuration
  4. Gaming with Steam, GOG and Epic Games libraries
  5. Power management for CPU and GPUs
  6. Bypass GRUB using Unified Kernel Images booted up straight from the EFI firmware (I absolutely HATE the screen going from the EFI firmware logo to text interface to plymouth's splash, turning off and on the display at every transition)
  7. Nerd fonts on TTYs
  8. Bonus: use LVFS with fwupd to enable EFI firmware updates from linux (see: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/com.dell.uefi6482caa5.firmware)
  9. Bonus: enable compressed zram instead of swap
  10. Bonus: Small QoL things
  11. Bonus: Add Ansible playbooks for everything

Packages lists

Inside this repository, under the packages folder, you can find my own list of software packages, divided by category and by installation source (pacman or aur). This repo is mainly for my own reference, but maybe some of those packages can be helpful for you.

If you want to use them, clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/Rick-1990/arch-optimus.git

Review the lists and customize them to your liking.

For example, to install the lists in the packages/base folder, run:

cd arch-optimus
sudo pacman -S $(cat packages/base/pacman.list)
yay $(cat packages/base/aur.list)

Warning

Do not blindly install these packages. Review the lists and ask yoursef if you know what they do and if you actually need them. This is my own list for my own laptop for my own purposes.

References

The always great Arch Wiki's installation guide was the base for everything. Following that alone obviously leads to a usable system in less than 30 minutes.

A major source of inspiration was QuantiniumX's work. This guide is heavily based on their great effort.

Also, this gist has helped me with some optimizations about laptops power management in general.