igmt-official/dotfiles

Repository

Clone my repository, and go to this folder .config, and find what you want config, each config already have installion guide.

git clone https://github.com/igmt-official/dotfiles.git

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Arch installation
• Qtile Installation
• Qtile Basic System Utilities
  • Wallpaper
  • Font
  • Audio
  • Brightness
  • Monitors
  • Network
  • Systray
  • Xinitrc
  • File Manager
  • Trash
  • Multimedia
    • Images
    • Video and audio
  • Color Picker
• AUR Helper
• GTK Theming
• Custom Script

Overview

This guide will walk you through the process of building a desktop environment starting with a fresh Arch based installation. I will assume that you are comfortable with Linux based operating systems and command line interfaces. Because you are reading this, I will also assume that you've looked through some "tiling window manager" videos on Youtube, because that's where the rabbit hole starts. You can pick any window managers you want, but I'm going to use Qtile as a first tiling window manager because that's what I started with. This is basically a description of how I made my desktop environment from scratch.

Arch installation

The starting point of this guide is right after a complete clean Arch based distro installation, i've been searching a lot guide for installation Arch Linux, and i read the documents about Arch Wiki here's my way to install Arch Linux, this is not fully completed installation because, this is the only that i did on my installation.

Reminder

This is only for Non-UEFI (MBR) installation, i told you before, this is my way to install Arch Linux, i just based on my specs desktop, if you are UEFI users then go to youtube there's a lot tutorial for UEFI.

Make sure you have an internet, if you have response for that website, then proceed to the next step. And if you don't have response on that ping, you don't have an internet, or you're not connected in Ethernet Lan Cable, for that search on youtube, because remember this is only my way, i didn't setup my internet in wireless.

ping archlinux.org

Update the system clock Use timedatectl to ensure the system clock is accurate:

timedatectl set-ntp true 
# To check the service status, use timedatectl status.

Partition the disks When recognized by the live system, disks are assigned to a block device such as /dev/sda, /dev/nvme0n1 or /dev/mmcblk0. To identify these devices, use lsblk or fdisk.

fdisk -l
# And my block device is "/dev/sda"

Use fdisk or parted to modify partition tables. For example:

fdisk /dev/the_disk_to_be_partitioned
# Remember to check your block device such as /dev/sda, /dev/nvme0n1 or /dev/mmcblk0
# For me is "fdisk /dev/sda"

Now, jus follow my command line, to make our partition.

# Type "o" to create MBR partition.
# Type "n" then press enter until you see the second "default with random numbers" then type "+2GB" this is will create our "Swapfile Partition".
# Type "n" again then press enter until the end, because this is our "Root Parition" so the rest of our disk size will be put in here.

# Remember the first one is "Swapfile Partition" that partition name is "/dev/sda1/ and the second one is our "Root Partition" "/dev/sda2/".
# Now type "t" to change our partition type, type "1" for our "Swapfile Partition (/dev/sda1)" and then type "L" to check all list partition type, find the type of "Linux Swap" then enter that code.
# And do it again on our "Root Partition" type "t", now type "2" this is our "Root Partition (/dev/sda2/)" and then type "L" again check all list partition type, find the type of "Linux" then enter that code.
# The last part type "w" to write and exit.

Format the partitions Once the partitions have been created, each newly created partition must be formatted with an appropriate file system.

 mkfs.ext4 /dev/root_partition # This is the our "Root Partition" for me is "mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2.
 mkswap /dev/swap_partition # And this is our "Swapfile Partition" for me is "mkswap /dev/sda1

And now we done formatting our partition, next step is to turn on our "Swapfile" and mount "mnt" in our "Root Partition".

swapon /dev/swap_partition # To turn on our "Swapfile Partition", for me is "swapon /dev/sda1".
mount /dev/root_partition /mnt # To mount our "mnt" in our "Root Partition", for me is "mount /dev/sda2 /mnt".

Install essential packages Use the pacstrap script to install the base package, Linux kernel and firmware for common hardware:

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware
# Wait for the download completed.

Fstab Generate an fstab file (use -U or -L to define by UUID or labels, respectively):

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot Change root into the new system:

arch-chroot /mnt

Time zone Set the time zone:

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime # For me is "ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Taipei /etc/localtime".
# To check available Region, type "ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region" and find your Region".
# To check available City, type "ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/Your_Region/City" and find your City".

Run hwclock to generate /etc/adjtime:

hwclock --systohc

Now installed our text editor nano or vim which one you prefer.

pacman -S nano

Localization.

nano /etc/locale.gen
# Edit "/etc/locale.gen" and uncomment "en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8" and other needed locales. 

Generate the locales by running:

locale-gen

Create the locale.conf file, and set the LANG variable accordingly:

nano /etc/locale.conf
# Now write this "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" according to your localization then save it.

Create the hostname file:

nano /etc/hostname
# Write your prefer hostname for me is "myArch"

Edit the hosts file:

nano /etc/hosts
# Now you will see two lines that already writed in there, below of that two lines write this:
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost
127.0.1.1 yourHostname # for me is "127.0.1.1 myArch"

Root password Set the root password:

passwd
# Type your prefer password.

Add user and password

useradd -m yourUserName # For me is "useradd -m myArch".
passwd yourUserName # And type your prefer password.

User groups

Non-root workstation/desktop users often need to be added to some of following groups to allow access to hardware peripherals and facilitate system administration:

usermod -aG wheel,audio,video,optical,storage,input,disk yourUserName

Now installed sudo:

pacman -S sudo

Edit Sudo with nano or vim:

EDITOR=nano visudo

Uncommenting this line:

# Find this line:

## Uncomment to allow members of group wheel to execute any command
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

# And now uncomment "# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL".
# This should be the result:

## Uncomment to allow members of group wheel to execute any command
%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Follow this step this is essentials, this is only for None-UEFI (MBR).

pacman -S grub
grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda
# "/dev/sda" is the main disk not the one we created partition.
# "--target=i386-pc" is only for Non-UEFI (MBR).

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg # Remember this is only for Non-UEFI (MBR)

Installed our essentials and optional package:

pacman -S base-devel xorg xorg-xinit git nodejs npm networkmanager alacritty firefox rofi mesa

# Essential List:
# networkmanager (For our internet)
# firefox (Or your prefer browser)
# alacritty (or your prefer terminal (cmd))
# rofi (To launch our apps)
# mesa (For Intel and Amd only)

# Optional List:
# base-devel (This is a package group that includes tools needed for building (compiling and linking)).
# xorg and xorg-xinit (For me this is a essential because for the one didn't want to use a "Display Manager" like me use this to start your "Window Manager").
# git, nodejs, npm (For me this is also essential because sometimes we install modules or packages is needed git, nodejs, or npm).

Before we reboot, enable first NetworkManager.

systemctl enable NetworkManager

Now all the setup is finish we will exit and umount and try to reboot and unplug the bootable usb, let see if our Arch Linux will boot normal.

exit
umount /mnt
reboot

And now we boot normally, try to login your "User and Pass".

Qtile installation

Now installed our Window Manager which is Qtile.

sudo pacman -S qtile

And setup our Qtile in .xinitrc so we can enter in window manager.

# Edit your .xinitrc using your text editor like "nano or vim"
nano .xinitrc

# Now go to the bottom of all codes in there, and put this line:
exec qtile start

To enter in our Qtile window manager, enter this line:

startx

Now that you're in Qtile, you should know some of the default keybindings.

Key	Action
mod + return	launch xterm
mod + k	next window
mod + j	previous window
mod + w	kill window
mod + [asdfuiop]	go to workspace [asdfuiop]
mod + ctrl + r	restart qtile
mod + ctrl + q	logout

Before doing anything else, if you don't have a US keyboard, you should change it using setxkbmap. To open xterm use mod + return. For example to change your layout to spanish:

setxkbmap es

Now open the config file:

nano ~/.config/qtile/config.py

At the beginning, after imports, you should find an array called keys, and it contains the following line:

Key([mod], "Return", lazy.spawn("xterm")),

Change that line to launch your terminal emulator:

Key([mod], "Return", lazy.spawn("alacritty")),

Then add keybindings for rofi programs that we are installed lately:

Key([mod], "m", lazy.spawn("rofi -show run")),
Key([mod, 'shift'], "m", lazy.spawn("rofi -show")),

Now restart Qtile with mod + control + r. You should be able to open your menu and terminal emulator with keybindings. If you picked rofi, you can change its theme like so:

sudo pacman -S which
rofi-theme-selector

That's it for Qtile, now you can start hacking on it and make it your own. Checkout my custom Qtile config here. But before that I would recommend configuring basic utilities like audio, battery, mounting drives, etc.

Qtile Basic System Utilities

In this section we will cover some software that almost everybody needs on their system.

Wallpaper

First things first, your screen looks empty and black, so you might want to have a wallpaper not to feel so depressed. You can open Firefox through Rofi using mod + m and download one. Then install feh or nitrogen and and set your wallpaper:

sudo pacman -S feh
feh --bg-scale path/to/wallpaper

Font

Download Nerd-Font: Go to NerdFont and hit downloads. This will give you a page where you can preview different fonts. Once you find a font you like, hit Download on the font to save it as a .zip.

Setup the File Path: Make a folder for fonts in defaulit path: ~/.local/share/(fonts) and go to that folder fonts location.x

mkdir ~/.local/share/fonts && cd ~/.local/share/fonts

Extract Files and Install: Now that we have our directory set-up we can locate our .zip file and copy it over:

cp ~/Downloads/SampleNerdFont.zip ~/.local/share/fonts

Now that we are in the directory fonts we will extract the file:

unzip SampleNerdFont.zip
# Note if you don't installed unzip yet, then installed it by "sudo pacman -S unzip"

Finalization Now that your font files are in a directory recognized by fontconfig they should be loaded automatically on boot and made available to applications in your window manager.

To reload the fonts without rebooting you can run as root:

fc-cache -fv

Now try to change your font in terminal and try to copy and paste icon from NerdFont.

Audio

There is no audio at this point, we need pulseaudio. I suggest also installing a graphical program to control audio like pavucontrol, because we don't have keybindings for that yet:

sudo pacman -S pulseaudio pavucontrol

On Arch, pulseaudio is enabled by default, but you might need to reboot in order for it to actually start. After rebooting, you can open pavucontrol through rofi, unmute the audio, and you should be just fine.

Now you can set up keybindings for pulseaudio, open Qtile's config.py and add these keys:

# Volume
Key([], "XF86AudioLowerVolume", lazy.spawn(
    "pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ -5%"
)),
Key([], "XF86AudioRaiseVolume", lazy.spawn(
    "pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ +5%"
)),
Key([], "XF86AudioMute", lazy.spawn(
    "pactl set-sink-mute @DEFAULT_SINK@ toggle"
)),

For a better CLI experience though, I recommend using pamixer:

sudo pacman -S pamixer

Now you can turn your keybindings into:

# Volume
Key([], "XF86AudioLowerVolume", lazy.spawn("pamixer --decrease 5")),
Key([], "XF86AudioRaiseVolume", lazy.spawn("pamixer --increase 5")),
Key([], "XF86AudioMute", lazy.spawn("pamixer --toggle-mute")),

Restart Qtile with mod + control + r and your keybindings should work.

Brightness

If you're on a laptop, you might also want to control the brightness of your screen, and for that I recommend brightnessctl:

sudo pacman -S brightnessctl

You can add these keybindings and restart Qtile after:

# Brightness
Key([], "XF86MonBrightnessUp", lazy.spawn("brightnessctl set +10%")),
Key([], "XF86MonBrightnessDown", lazy.spawn("brightnessctl set 10%-")),

Monitors

If you have a multi-monitor system, you surely want to use all your screens. Here's how xrandr CLI works:

Install xrander:

sudo pacman -S xrander

List all available outputs and resolutions

xrandr
# Now because this is my setup, i have different situation, i have external monitor, and my laptop display is broke, so here's my settings.
xrandr --output LVDS-1 --off --output HDMI-1 --mode 1920x1080 --primary # This will turn off my laptop display and make it primary my external monitor.

Now here's the thing, this is only my optional, because i don't use multi monitor, but if you want to activate multi monitor then procceed in this steps.

We need to specify the position for each output, otherwise it will default to 0x0, and all your outputs will be overlapped. Now if you don't want to calculate pixels and stuff you need a GUI like arandr:

sudo pacman -S arandr

Open it with rofi, arrange your screens however you want, and then you can save that layout, which will basically give you a shell script with the exact xrandr command that you need. Save that script, but don't click "apply" just yet.

For a multi-monitor system, it's recommended to create an instance of a Screen object for each monitor in your Qtile config.

You'll find an array called screens which contains only one object initialized with a bar at the bottom. Inside that bar you can see the default widgets that come with it.

Add as many screens as you have and copy-paste all widgets, later you can customize them. Now you can go back to arandr, click apply, and then restart Qtile.

Now your multi-monitor system should work.

Network

We have configured the network through nmcli, but a graphical frontend is more friendly. I use nm-applet:

sudo pacman -S network-manager-applet

Systray

By default, you have a system tray in Qtile, but there's nothing running in it. You can launch the programs we've just installed like so:

nm-applet &

Now you should see icons that you can click to configure drives and networking. Optionally, you can install tray icons for volume and battery:

In qtile we have default systray, this is only optional Installed volume and battery:

sudo pacman -S volumeicon cbatticon

Launch it:

volumeicon &
cbatticon &

Xinitrc

As I have mentioned before, all these changes are not permanent. In order to make them permanent, we need a couple things. First, install xinit:

sudo pacman -S xorg-xinit

Now you can use ~/.xinitrc to run programs before your window manager starts:

touch ~/.xinitrc

For example, if you place this in ~.xinitrc:

xrandr --output LVDS-1 --off --output HDMI-1 --mode 1920x1080 --primary &
setxkbmap es &
nm-applet &
volumeicon &
cbatticon &

Every time you login you will have all systray utilities, your keyboard layout and monitors set.

File Manager

We've done all files stuff through a terminal up to this point, but you can install graphical or terminal based file managers. For a graphical one, I suggest thunar and for a terminal based one, ranger, although this one is very vim-like, only use it if you know how to move in vim.

sudo pacman -S thunar

Trash

If you don't want to rm all the time and potentially lose files, you need a trashing system. Luckily, that's pretty easy to do, using some of these tools such as glib2, and for GUIs like thunar you need gvfs:

sudo pacman -S glib2 gvfs
# CLI usage
gio trash path/to/file
# Empty trash
gio trash --empty

With thunar you can open the trash clicking on the left panel, but on the command line you can use:

ls ~/.local/share/Trash/files

Multimedia

There are dozens of programs for multimedia stuff, check this page.

Images

For image previews, one of the best that I could find is geeqie:

sudo pacman -S geeqie

Video and audio

No doubt vlc is exactly what you need:

sudo pacman -S vlc

Color Picker

For who want to build their own palette, install color picker.

sudo pacman -S gcolor3

AUR Helper

Now that you have some software that allows you tu use your computer without losing your patience, it's time to do more interesting stuff. First, install an AUR helper, I use yay:

sudo pacman -S base-devel git # (Which is we installed lately in our installation arch linux)
cd /opt/
sudo git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay-git.git
sudo chown -R username:username yay-git/
cd yay-git
makepkg -si

With an Arch User Repository helper, you can basically install any piece of software on this planet that was meant to run on Linux.

GTK Theming

Install Gtk2 and Gtk3:

sudo pacman -S gtk2 gtk3

You can find GTK themes on this page. Once you have your theme folders downloaded, this is what you do:

cd Downloads/
sudo pacman -S unzip # For unzipping .zip file.
unzip Sample-Theme.zip
unzip Sample-Theme-Icon.zip
rm Sample-Theme*.zip # To delete all Sample-Theme zip file.

Make your themes available

sudo mv Sample-Theme /usr/share/themes
sudo mv Sample-Theme-Icon /usr/share/icons

Now edit ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini by adding these lines:

# ~/.gtkrc-2.0
gtk-theme-name = "Sample-Theme"
gtk-icon-theme-name = "Sample-Theme-Icon"

# ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini
gtk-theme-name = Sample-Theme
gtk-icon-theme-name = Sample-Theme-Icon

Make sure not to mistype the names of your themes and icons, they should match the names of the directories where they are located, the ones you can see in this output:

ls /usr/share/themes
ls /usr/share/icons

Remember that you will only see the new theme if you log in again. There are also graphical frontends for changing themes, I just prefer the traditional way of editing files though, but you can use lxappearance, which is a desktop environment independent GUI for this task, and it lets you preview themes.

Installing Lxappearance:

sudo pacman -S lxappearance

Custom Script

To use your custom script, make a directory where you put your Custom Script, example:

mkdir -p $HOME/.local/bin # This will create a bin folder in .local

Now we should export that path in our $PATH, put this line in our .bashrc:

export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH

Take note! I'm not talking about executable script, i'm talking about custom script that can access in any package, like Scrot, Dunst or Volume.

Credits

My Dotfiles Inspired By Antoniosarosi.

My Qtile Setup Inspired By Barbaross93.