System description

• Window system:
  • Xorg
• Window manager:
  • Bspwm
• Compositor:
  • Picom
• Shell:
  • Zsh
• Editor:
  • Neovim/vim
• Terminal emulator:
  • Alacritty
• Session/screen-lock
  • Xsslock (for Xorg triggers)
  • Physlock (lockscreen)
• AUR-helper
  • Paru
• Misc:
  • Polybar
  • Rofi
  • lsd (ls with colors and icons)
  • diff-so-fancy (nicer git diffs)
  • zathura (document/pdf-viewer)
  • feh (image viewer/xroot-setter)

Init configs

Configs are managed with GNU stow, to init a config run from (project root)

stow <config-folder>

e.g.

stow i3

Lots of the configs also the depend on gitsubmodules so be sure to init all submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Shell

While zsh is mainly the shell used, other shells (e.g. bash) should work. Cross-shell exports, commands, etc. can be set in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/shell/.profile which will be sourced by each shell's respective .profile-file (e.g. .zprofile or .bash_profile).

Scripts are added to $PATH (in .profile) rather than sourced.

To make sure zsh-command is history is retained, create the history file:

mkdir $XDG_DATA_HOME/zsh/ && touch $XDG_DATA_HOME/zsh/history

Bspwm

Device specific configuration (such as monitor layout) for bspwm can be placed in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.device.bspwm.sh which will be sourced by the bspwmrc.

DWM-like swallowing is supported by using bspswallow. Window classes for programs and terminals to swallow are placed in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bspwm/swallow and $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bspwm/terminals respectively.

Fonts

Any nerd font- and powerline-patched font should work. Make sure that this command (or similar ones depending on shell-prompt etc) don't print garbage:

echo "\ue0b0 \u00b1 \ue0a0 \u27a6 \u2718 \u26a1 \u2699"

Vim/Neovim

Neovim is used as the editor (there is a config for vim but it is no longer used), and plugins are managed with vim-plug. Linting, language support, formatting, e.t.c is managed by coc.

Xorg

The xorg-server is started using by $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/shell/.profile using startx.

Default applications can be set for MIME-types using xdg-open in the file $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Xorg/.xdefaults, which will be sourced after starting Xorg.

Some necessary util-packages for xorg and some scripts to function are:

• xorg-xinit
• xorg-xrandr
• xdg-utils

Polybar

The launch script for polybar requires the POLYBAR_BAR environment variable to be set. This variable can be used to indicate what bar to use with polybar, e.g. desktop or laptop.

Workspace icons for bspwm are set via environment variables POLYBAR_WS_X_ICON where X is a number between 0 and 9 (for missing environment variables default value is no icon). The values should be the same as when configuring polybar directly. For example here's a template of setting these variables:

export POLYBAR_WS_1_ICON="1;"
export POLYBAR_WS_2_ICON="2;"
export POLYBAR_WS_3_ICON="3;"
export POLYBAR_WS_4_ICON="4;"
export POLYBAR_WS_5_ICON="5;"
export POLYBAR_WS_6_ICON="6;"
export POLYBAR_WS_7_ICON="7;ﭮ"
export POLYBAR_WS_8_ICON="8;"
export POLYBAR_WS_9_ICON="9;"
export POLYBAR_WS_0_ICON="0;"

Colors

The colorscheme is automatically generated from the current wallpaper using pywal.

Neovim

Colors are set using wal.vim and the following needs to go into vimrc/init.vim.

colorscheme wal
set notermguicolors
set background=light

notermguicolors and background=light are needed for the colors to look as intended.

Polybar

Polybar reads its colors from Xresources which are set by pywal.

; Last field is default color
primary = ${xrdb:color1:#FF0000}

Rofi

Pywal generates colorschemes for rofi and puts them in $XDG_CACHE_HOME which are then sourced by rofi.

Shell

Pywal generates colorschemes for shell and puts them in $XDG_CACHE_HOME which are then sourced by zsh.

Arch Linux installation

This procedure is heavily based on and copied from jsherman82's arch linux installation with a few tweaks. The commands below used nvme0n1 naming convention for partitions but the sda naming convention should be equivalent. The installation will only provide a basic installation (no DE, WM, etc). Some key features/components of this install:

• Partitions managed with LVM
  • Encryption using LVM on LUKS
  • Separate root and home partition
    • Root partition: 30GiB
    • Home partition: The rest
• UEFI
• GRUB
• Swap partition instead of swap file

Connect to internet using either wifi-menu or an ethernet cable

Edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist on the Arch computer and paste the faster servers

# nvim /etc/pacmand.d/mirrorlist

Update package indexes:

# pacman -Syyy

Create efi, boot, swap and lvm partitions (in that order for the rest of the command to work):

# fdisk /dev/sda

Create file systems for the boot and ESP partitions

# mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1
# mkfs.ext2 /dev/nvme0n1p2

Activate swap partition

# mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p3
# swapon /dev/nvme0n1p3

Set up encryption

# cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p4
# cryptsetup open --type luks /dev/nvme0n1p4 lvm

Set up lvm:

# pvcreate --dataalignment 1m /dev/mapper/lvm
# vgcreate volgroup0 /dev/mapper/lvm
# lvcreate -L 30GB volgroup0 -n lv_root
# lvcreate -l 100%FREE volgroup0 -n lv_home
# modprobe dm_mod
# vgscan
# vgchange -ay

Create file systems for the root and home partitions

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_root
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_home

Mount the root partition

# mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_root /mnt

Create mount directories

# mkdir /mnt/boot
# mkdir /mnt/home
# mkdir /mnt/efi

Mount the boot, home and EFI partitions

# mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_home /mnt/home
# mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/efi

Install base package, linux kernel/firmware (you can skip the linux-lts packages if you don't want the LTS-kernel) and other packages

# pacstrap -i /mnt base \
  linux \
  linux-firmware \
  linux-headers \
  linux-lts \
  linux-lts-headers \
  grub \
  efibootmgr \
  dosfstools \
  openssh\
  os-prober \
  lvm2 \
  neovim

Generate fstab file

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

Change root to arch installation

# arch-chroot /mnt

Configure initial ramdisk

Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and add encrypt lvm2 in between block and filesystems

# nvim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

Create initial ramdisk

# mkinitcpio -p linux
# mkinitcpio -p linux-lts

Set and generate locale

# nvim /etc/locale.gen (uncomment en_US.UTF-8 if you want us UTF-8 locale)
# locale-gen

Set root password

# passwd

Configure grub

add cryptdevice=:volgroup0 to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line. If using standard device naming, the option will look like this: cryptdevice=/dev/nvme0n1p4:volgroup0

# nvim /etc/default/grub

Install grub for x86_64 efi architecture

(you should be able to change the bootloader-id flag to whatever you want, it is not important). If you have problems with arch installation not showing up in the boot menu try adding the --removable flag to the command below (see this link)

# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/efi  --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --recheck

Not sure what this does to be honest (something with locales i guess)...

# cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo

Generate grub-config

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Exit live environment, unmount devices and restart system (might complain about busy devices but should not matter)

$ exit
# umount -a
# reboot

Post-installation

Clean up

Remove no longer needed packes

sudo pacman -Rs dosfstools