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Updates:

  • 2022-06-23 | add networking, update packages, add GDM

Overview

Once you’ve installed Arch Linux, a couple of things are … nice. But very basic. Let’s get out of basic ;) .

Set up networking

Just do the same as described in the installation post.

Then, we set up IWD as backend for NetworkManger (NOTE: experimental!).

### FILE: /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf ###
[device]
wifi.backend=iwd

Create user

If you didn’t do it yet, create your user.

useradd -m -G wheel USERNAME
passwd USERNAME

You should have sudo installed, so do this:

# if you are really lazy and insecure
echo "%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/wheel

# use this.
echo "%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/wheel

Now log in as this user and check if you can become root by typing sudo -i.

CLI packages

Some CLI “apps”:

pacman -S ack dnsmasq git ripgrep vim zsh git base-devel man-db man-pages

Install yay (AUR helper)

Remember: Do this as your “normal” user!

mkdir /tmp/yay
cd /tmp/yay

# from here stolen from yay's github page:
# https://github.com/Jguer/yay#source
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay-bin.git
cd yay-bin
makepkg -si

Install UI

And here it goes for UI and UI-related things:

pacman -S gnome gnome-extra gnome-control-center \
          cups network-manager-applet \
          firefox

Now some AUR packages:

yay -S vscodium-bin

Configurations

For network manager, I prefer dnsmasq as the tool of choice, especially when using VPN connections:

### FILE: /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf ###
[Main]
dns=dnsmasq

Enable services

# enable
systemctl enable iwd
systemctl enable NetworkManager
systemctl enable org.cups.cupsd

# start
systemctl start iwd
systemctl start NetworkManager
systemctl start org.cups.cupsd

# to boot into GNOME
systemctl enable gdm

Some troubleshooting tricks

Gnome-terminal does not start

Set the locale, using “gnome control center”, and then re-login. (Source)