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Arch Linux with Full-Disk Encryption and after install configuration

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Table of contents

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This is set of spinets will help you to install Arch Linux with Full-Disk Encryption and then configure your system.

Note this guide is suites more for:

  • laptop with 4k display

  • tilling window manager (such as xmonad or qtile)

Disclaimer: it is not beginner tutorial, it rather set of tips which helps you to configure your Arch Linux.

Boot to Arch Linux installation

Use Arch Linux iso and boot with it

Connect to WiFi

To use WiFi on some laptop you first should unblock usage of WiFi

rfkill unblock wlan
ip link set wlan0 up

Connect to your SSID using CLI for iwd

#list interface
iwctl device list

#Scan interface
iwctl station wlan0 scan

#List of available networks
iwctl station wlan0 get-networks

#Connect to SSID
iwctl --passphrase <passphrase> station wlan0 connect "SSID"

Install Arch Linux with Full-Disk Encryption

Link

Consider this comment to speed up decryption of disk

Install some DE or WM

Minimal installation of KDE

If your experience user consider to use WM to have true Linux experience 🐧

My suggestion is:

Currently I use Qtile, mix of different dotfiles, link will be shared later.

Configure pacman config

Edit pacman configuration to speed up download and add some colors

sudo vim /etc/pacman.conf

Edit lines

Color
ILoveCandy
ParallelDownloads = 2

Install yay

yay will help to install from AUR.

Change <user> to your username.

sudo pacman -S git
cd /opt
sudo git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay-git.git
sudo chown -R <user>:<user> ./yay-git
cd yay-git
makepkg -si

Configure Grub

Hide GRUB unless the Shift key is held down

Configure Touchpad

This configuration will enable tap to scroll and horizontal scrolling.

Install Synaptics driver

sudo pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics

Create configuration for touchpad

sudo cp /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-synaptics.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-synaptics.conf

Update /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-synaptics.conf

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        Option "TapButton1" "1"
        Option "TapButton2" "3"
        Option "TapButton3" "2"
        Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "on"

Reference

Configure theme

Kvantum Theme

Install Kvantume manager

yay -S kvantum

Download Nordic theme and copy it to kvantum

mv `Nordic` folder to `~/.config/Kvantum/`

Run kvantummanager and apply Nordic theme

GTK Theme

Run lxappearance and choose Nordic theme.

If it is not present install nordic-theme package.

QT Theme

Install qt5ct

sudo pacman -S qt5ct

You might want to install a Qt theme, for example breeze

sudo pacman -S breeze

Edit /etc/environment as root by

sudo vim /etc/environment

add the line QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct and save.

Log out and in (or reboot)

Now in qt5ct you can change your theme and settings

Another theme is adwaita-qt

yay install adwaita-qt

Reference

Notifications

Check if notify-send 'Hello world!' works. If not: yay -S notification-daemon sudo vim /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service add

[D-BUS Service]
Name=org.freedesktop.Notifications
Exec=/usr/lib/notification-daemon-1.0/notification-daemon

Reference

HiDPI settings

SDDM for 4k monitor

Edit SDDM config

/etc/sddm.conf

Change this lines to the following:

[X11]
EnableHiDPI=true
ServerArguments=-nolisten tcp -dpi 192

GDK scale

Xft.dpi: 192 in ~/.Xresources file does not scale all windows. To fix it do the following.

sudo vim /etc/environment

add

GDK_SCALE=2 # scale all applications
GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.5 # unscale applicaiton which already was scaled

Reference

Configure time

To have synced time

sudo systemctl enable systemd-timesyncd.service &\
sudo systemctl start systemd-timesyncd.service
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