Arch System ft. GNOME

Introduction

This is a guide on how to prepare my personal set up. Here, I install Arch manually for the fun of it then GNOME will be installed as the desktop environment of choice. Additionally, I will add sections for all extensions/apps I use, so feel free to skip that. Make sure you use ethernet instead of wifi to avoid unnecessary obstacles.

Prologue: Installation Medium Preparation (Ventoy)

1. Download arch iso image from their official website.
2. Either burn it to a flash drive using balena etcher OR use Ventoy instead for multi-OS boot from the same drive.
   -- details will be added later

Book One: Arch Installation

Chapter One: Pre-pre-requisites

1. Check your internet connection using ping

ping google.com

2. Enable network time synchronization

timedatectl set-ntp true

Chapter Two: Drive Partitioning & Mounting

1. Use lsblk to determine which disk to partition and format. In my case, since I disconnected all disks except the one I want to install Arch on, it is sda.

2. Use cfdisk to begin partitioning:

cfdisk /dev/sda

3. Delete any partitions so that all that remains is free space. Now, create partitions with the following characteristics in the following order:

   1. 2G partition - primary (for EFI).
   2. 1G partition - primary (for boot---MAKE SURE TO HIGHLIGHT IT AND PRESS b TO MAKE IT BOOTABLE).
   3. 100G partition - primary (for root---I intend on dual booting so I only gave it 100GB to have the rest of the disk as home but if you do not intend to do that, just use the rest of the available disk space as root).
   4. partition using the remaining space - primary (for home---I used a 480GB SSD so I made home around 375GB).

4. Exit cfdisk. Then format the partitions created above. Make sure to format them all as ext4 EXCEPT for EFI partition: it has to be formated as FAT32 or GRUB will throw random errors at you.

   # efi
   mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
   # boot
   mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
   # root
   mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
   # home
   mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4
   

5. Next step is to mount the partitions:

   # root
   mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
   # efi
   mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi
   mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
   # boot
   mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
   # home
   mkdir -p /mnt/home
   mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/home
   

Chapter Three: Install Arch

Now, with your filesystem mounted, simply install Arch along with some essentials. A text editor is needed in the following steps. I chose to install vim but feel free to install whatever suits you.

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware vim

Chapter Four: Make an fstab File (This file contains all partitions Arch needs to load on boot)

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

The -U argument is added to tie the system with the actual drive ID instead of sda which might change if drives change.

Chapter Five: Launch Arch and Setup NM & Grub

1. Launch Arch via the following command:

   arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
   

2. Use Arch's package manager pacman to install networkmanager and grub:

   pacman -S networkmanager grub
   

3. Configure systemd to start networkmanager on boot:

   systemctl enable NetworkManager
   

4. Install grub on your drive:

   grub-install /dev/sda
   

5. Generate grub's boot config file:

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

   NOTE: If you get a warning message saying: os-prober will not be executed to detect other bootable partitions, open the following file in vim vim /etc/default/grub and uncomment the line that says "GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROPER=false".

Chapter Six: Adding Finishing Touches

1. There must be a password for the root use. So, set it!

   passwd
   

2. To add locale in order to display/write in English language:

   #add locale
   vim /etc/locale.gen
   // uncomment "en_US.UTF-8" && "en_US ISO-8859-1"
   #generate locale
   locale-gen
   # define the used language
   vim /etc/locale.conf
   // add the following line:
   LANG=en-US.UTF-8
   

3. In order to change the hostname:

   vim /etc/hostname
   // write the name you want then save and exit
   

4. Set your country's time zone. In my case, I used Cairo's configuration. You can look for your country in the zoneinfo folder.

   ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Africa/Cairo /etc/localtime
   

5. The last step is to create a new user, add them to wheel group, set their password, and grant them sudo privilege (the ability to use sudo).

   # add user to wheel group
   useradd -mg wheel USERNAME
   # set user password
   passwd USERNAME
   # adjust group privilege in sudoers file
   vim /etc/sudoers
   // uncomment the line: %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
   // esc wq! enter
   

Book Two: Installing GNOME (Desktop Environment)

Chapter One: This is Easier Than I Thought!

1. Update your system and restart.

   sudo pacman -Syu
   sudo reboot
   

2. Install the window manager Xorg. Choose all the default options if you do not know what to choose.

   sudo pacman -S xorg xorg-server
   

3. Install GNOME. Choose all the default options if you do not know what to choose.

   sudo pacman -S gnome
   

4. Once GNOME is installed, start gdm service:

   sudo systemctl start gdm.service
   

5. Lastly, make sure to run the following command to run gdm on startup:

   sudo systemctl enable gdm.service
   

Book Three: Drip is Unbreakable

Chapter One: Essential Components to Achieve Drip

1. Install the following packages:

   sudo pacman -S neofetch kitty flatpak starship
   

Chapter Two: Extensions That Make Drip Achievable! (Extensions of Choice)

1. Go to GNOME app store and download extension manager.
2. Search for and install dash2dock Animated, blur my shell, and lock screen background
3. Enable them both and enjoy!

Chapter Three: That Terminal Looks Gorgous! (Kitty Configuration)

1. Create a configuration file for kitty

   vim ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf
   

2. Copy the contents of the kitty.conf file in this repository and paste it in your file.

Chapter Four: Flex That Setup! (neofetch + starship shell prompt)

1. Finally, enter the following lines to enable neofetch and starship:

   echo "neofetch" >> ~/.bashrc
   echo "eval "$(starship init bash)"" >> ~/.bashrc
   

2. Source .bashrc.

   source ~/.bashrc
   

3. Open kitty and see the results for yourself. :)))

Chapter Five: Asserting Dominance

Book Four: Distrobox Setup

Chapter One: Before Anything

1. Install docker and podman.

sudo pacman -S docker podman

2. Set docker and podman to run on startup in order to launch system containers at anytime.

sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl enable podman

3. Add your user to docker group to get sudo privileges.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

4. Install distrobox.

sudo pacman -S distrobox

Chapter Two: Ubuntu 20.04 Container

1. Create a container for Ubuntu 20.04 using the following command. I made sure to include a --nvidia argument because I have an Nvidia GPU.

distrobox create -n ubuntu20 -i ubuntu:20.04 --init --additional-packages "systemd" --nvidia

2. In order to open and close the container a bit faster, I created aliases for the long versions of these commands. The two commands below basically copy those aliases to .bashrc. DO NOT FORGET TO SOURCE IT AFTER ADDING THEM.

   echo 'alias ubuntu20_run="distrobox enter ubuntu20"' >> ~/.bashrc
   echo 'alias ubuntu20_stop="distrobox-stop ubuntu20"' >> ~/.bashrc
   source ~/.bashrc
   

3. To run it, simply type ubuntu20_run in terminal and exit it by typing exit. In order to stop it from running in the background, enter ubuntu20_stop.

4. Make sure to install both neofetch and starship to flex that setup:

   sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
   sudo apt install neofetch
   sudo curl -sS https://starship.rs/install.sh | sh
   

5. Profit!

Chapter Three: Ubuntu 22.04 Container

1. Create a container for Ubuntu 22.04 using the following command. I made sure to include a --nvidia argument because I have an Nvidia GPU.

distrobox create -n ubuntu22 -i ubuntu:22.04 --init --additional-packages "systemd" --nvidia

2. In order to open and close the container a bit faster, I created aliases for the long versions of these commands. The two commands below basically copy those aliases to .bashrc. DO NOT FORGET TO SOURCE IT AFTER ADDING THEM.

   echo 'alias ubuntu_run="distrobox enter ubuntu22"' >> ~/.bashrc
   echo 'alias ubuntu_stop="distrobox-stop ubuntu22"' >> ~/.bashrc
   source ~/.bashrc
   

3. To run it, simply type ubuntu22_run in terminal and exit it by typing exit. In order to stop it from running in the background, enter ubuntu22_stop.

4. Make sure to install both neofetch and starship to flex that setup:

   sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
   sudo apt install neofetch
   sudo curl -sS https://starship.rs/install.sh | sh
   

5. Profit!

Chapter Four: Debian 12 Container

1. Create a container for Debian 12 using the following command. I made sure to include a --nvidia argument because I have an Nvidia GPU.

distrobox create -n debian12 -i debian:latest --init --additional-packages "systemd" --nvidia

2. In order to open and close the container a bit faster, I created aliases for the long versions of these commands. The two commands below basically copy those aliases to .bashrc. DO NOT FORGET TO SOURCE IT AFTER ADDING THEM.

   echo 'alias debian12_run="distrobox enter debian12"' >> ~/.bashrc
   echo 'alias debian12_run="distrobox-stop debian12"' >> ~/.bashrc
   source ~/.bashrc
   

3. To run it, simply type debian12_run in terminal and exit it by typing exit. In order to stop it from running in the background, enter debian12_run.

4. Make sure to install both neofetch and starship to flex that setup:

   sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
   sudo apt install neofetch
   sudo curl -sS https://starship.rs/install.sh | sh
   

5. Profit!

Chapter Five: Fedora 39 Container

1. Create a container for Fedora 39 using the following command. I made sure to include a --nvidia argument because I have an Nvidia GPU.

distrobox create -n fedora39 -i fedora:39 --init --additional-packages "systemd" --nvidia

2. In order to open and close the container a bit faster, I created aliases for the long versions of these commands. The two commands below basically copy those aliases to .bashrc. DO NOT FORGET TO SOURCE IT AFTER ADDING THEM.

   echo 'alias fedora39_run="distrobox enter fedora39"' >> ~/.bashrc
   echo 'alias fedora39_stop="distrobox-stop fedora39"' >> ~/.bashrc
   source ~/.bashrc
   

3. To run it, simply type fedora39_run in terminal and exit it by typing exit. In order to stop it from running in the background, enter fedora39_stop.

4. Make sure to install both neofetch and starship to flex that setup:

   sudo dnf install fedora-upgrade && sudo fedora-upgrade -y
   sudo dnf install neofetch
   sudo curl -sS https://starship.rs/install.sh | sh
   

5. Profit!

That's all folks!