I created this page to be a easily accessible resource for myself in my exploits with Arch linux. If you ever look over my shoulder at my screen and think “wow! how do I get a computer that looks like that?!”, then you should probably rethink all you life choices that brought you here, but here is how you do it.

Section 1. Installing my Arch Setup.

Installation commands: this will install arch with a xserver and the I3 desktop environment. Along with some of my standard programs.

Get Arch Here:
https://archlinux.org/download/

I reccomend useing the University of Arizona’s (ariona.edu) Mirrior link for download. You can use any of them but I have never had issue’s with theirs.

archinstall //launches the easy installer, much easier than the guide on the wiki.

If unfamiliar, consult youtube. “archinstall instructions” should get you there. Just specifically make sure you look up how to use the “archinstall” program specifically, because otherwise you will get 20 years of forum posts telling you to “just consult the wiki bruh”. But the wiki shows how to install arch the manual way. Which is painfully unnecessary now with the release of Archinstall.

The install should always be a simple minimal install. Preference towards Pulseaudio for audio drivers.

After Installation, run these commands to get everything going.

sudo pacman -S xorg xorg-xinit dmenu //installs xorg for gui implementation.
sudo pacman -S alacritty //installs alacritty, a good terminal
sudo pacman -S i3 //installs I3, a good lightweight tiling window manager.
echo “exec i3” >> ~/.xinitrc //creates a root file needed to start up xorg and I3
sudo pacman -S git gvim vlc 7zip ranger firefox gtop nvtop fastfetch nsxiv libreoffice-fresh volumeicon filezilla //installs the essentials
sudo pacman -S gimp darktable mixxx steam shotcut //installs the fun extra stuff.

startx //starts up xorg and I3. this command will be repeated every boot after login.

Section 2. A guide to my Arch setup.

Programs and their various Commands: This section lists all of the programs previously installed, explains what they each do, and gives a list of commands I regularly use with them.

I3 – Kinda simple and oldschool looking tile based windows manager. Not super pretty but extremely lightweight and fast.

I3 status bar – Program that permanently lives at the bottom of your Window to show you some basic utilities.

Dmenu – A super simple app launcher. [Mod] + [D] to open

Volumeicon – Simple audio fix for I3 so that you can control audio. May need to be manually luanched the first time and requires reboot.

IWCTL – Built in program for arch to connect to the wifi networks.

iwctl //opens the wifi settings program

help //Brings up all commands in iwctl
device list //lists ports, default should look something like “wlan0”
station [your port goes here] scan //tells port to actively look for networks, needed for next command to work
station [your port goes here] get-networks //shows available nearby networks in a list
station [your port goes here] connect [your network goes here] //tells your port to connect to the network
known-networks list //gives a list of networks you have been connected to before.

ping http://www.google.com //not a iwctl command, but just sends and receives a signal from google. Useful for testing to make sure you connected to the internet correctly.

Pacman – Built in program that manages software. Uses the Arch dev’s official vetted depository.

pacman -h //brings up package manager help menu
pacman -Q //lists ALL installed programs and dependencies.
pacman -Qe //lists only installed programs without the dependencies.
sudo pacman -S [your package goes here] //installs a program and it’s dependencies.
sudo pacman -Syu //updates all programs system wide
sudo pacman -Runs [your package goes here] //uninstalls a program without removing any dependencies needed by any other programs. Can be used to remove programs sourced from both the Arch Repo and AUR

Git – A universal install method to fall back on when pacman is missing the package you need. The Arch User Repository is a database that git can pull from.

git clone [your github link here] //grabs files from github needed to build a package locally
cd [your clone folder here] //you do this to navigate into the folder you just downloaded, this needs to be done for the next command to work.
makepkg -si //All in one command that tells the machine to build the package, and install the build as a program immediately thereafter.
Be sure to delete the install folder after you are done building and installing. You don’t need it anymore.

Alacritty – My chosen Terminal Emulator.

reboot //restarts the computer
shut-down //shuts down the computer
help //will list all of your core OS commands.

cd [your path goes here] //the main command to navigate your file system. “/” will put you at the root file of your drive and “~” will put you in your profile folder, for speedy shortcuts. Cd stands for “current directory”
ls //Shows you what files and folders are in the folder you are currently in. Ls stands for “list”
mkdir [optional: your path goes here] //creates a new folder at the destination file path. If no file path is imputed, it will create a folder in the current one.
cp [your path goes here] [your path goes here] //copies a file from the first path to the second one.
mv [your path goes here] [your path goes here] //moves a file from the first path to the second one.
rm -rf [your path goes here] //deletes a filled folder or file at the destination file path. Use with caution as this is irreversible.

[ctrl]+[c] will exit a terminal program and go back to the main terminal

fastfetch // Command that brings up some basic system info.
gtop // displays an activity monitor for ram, cpu and network in your terminal.
nvtop // displays an activity monitor for nividia gpus in your terminal

Vim – Terminal Program that let’s you edit text files and scripts.

vim [your path goes here] //allows one to edit text files within the terminal.

[insert] //pressing this key will change your cursor’s editing mode.
[esc] //pressing this key will put you back into the main “viewing” mode where you can enter commands
:help //bring up vim’s documentation for reference
:w //save the document
:q //quit vim
:wq //save the document and quit vim
:saveas [your path goes here] //Save a copy of the document with the filepath/filename of your choice.

Ranger – Awesome file browsing tool that makes terminal file management just that less terrible.

//will enter search for files mode
[arrow keys] //use these to navigate the filesystem
[enter] //pressing this key will open highlighted file
:r //will open highlighted file with a program of your choice
:zh //shows hidden files.
!cd [your path goes here] //the main command to navigate your file system. “/” will put you at the root file of your drive and “~” will put you in your profile folder, for speedy shortcuts. Cd stands for “current directory”
!ls //Shows you what files and folders are in the folder you are currently in. Ls stands for “list”
!mkdir [optional: your path goes here] //creates a new folder at the destination file path. If no file path is imputed, it will create a folder in the current one.
!cp [your path goes here] [your path goes here] //copies a file from the first path to the second one.
!mv [your path goes here] [your path goes here] //moves a file from the first path to the second one.
!rm -rf [your path goes here] //deletes a filled folder or file at the destination file path. Use with caution as this is irreversible.

7zip – King of compression and decompression of files.

7z -h //brings up the help menu for 7zip
7x X [your path goes here] //Extracts a file to the current folder. Recommend you run this in a new folder so it doesn’t make a mess.

Rsync – Great tool for copying hard drives in an efficient manner.

rsync -av –delete [your path goes here] [your path goes here] //Perfectly mirrors one path to another, allowing for backup of files easily. Will skip all files that pre-exist on the destination path and will PERMANENTLY delete files missing from the source path. Thus createing a perfect 1:1 backup of the original to the copy.
rsync -av [your path goes here] [your path goes here] //Same command, but doesn’t delete files in case you want to more safely transfer stuff. This may make your copy look different than the original however.

Firefox – Secure enough, Customizable, and has lots of support. Probs the most bloated program I install on every OS. But your web browser is so important I would never accept anything less capable.

[ctrl]+[T] //open a new tab
[ctrl]+[F4] //close a tab
[F5] //reload current tab
[ctrl]+[1-8] //Move to tab 1-8

Libreoffice – Open source, slightly bloated, but has all the features you would expect from Microsoft Office so it is highly compatible with filetypes from that software. So I forgive it.

SXIV – Simplistic lightweight image viewer that supports batch viewing.

VLC – The undisputed king of video/audio playback. Has DVD/CD support, and plays back all standard video/audio formats.

Section 3. Other Programs of Interest.

This section is gonna go over other programs I am familiar with. Though I may not typically install them to my usual arch install.

💎-means I still use it when I need it.
❌-means I will never use it again. (not that I hate it, I just won’t use it)

Desktop Environments:
💎Cinnamon – Kinda limited in customizability, like the Mac os of the linux world. But it runs stably and would be my first choice for a computer that needs to be used by the public. Kinda boring interface tho.
💎KDE plasma – Highly customizable, lots of package options. There is a lot to tinker with here. But if you don’t know what you are doing it can get messy quickly and you can brick your OS if you configure it wrong.
❌Gnome – Unique. It’s not good or bad, it’s just different than any other gui on the market. Somewhat customizable but meant to be used as is out of the box.
❌Hyperland – Good looking, clean, tiling based, and super buggy. Doesn’t play well at all with nvidia hardware. Looks like I3 but if apple made it.
❌XFCE – I mean, if you want to use a gui that looks like it never left the 90’s, this is your top choice. It works fine, but man is it boring.

Terminal Emulators:
❌Cinnamon Terminal – Clean, but really only should be used with cinnamon. The colors matching your gui color scheme is either really cool or really annoying if thats a feature you want or not.
❌Gnome Terminal – Clean, but really only should be used with Gnome. It just uses arches underlying tty color scheme.

File Manipulation Tools:
💎Dolphin – A bit bulky for a file browser but packed with useful features, so I can forgive it.
❌KDE partition manager – Comes with KDE as a standard. Works well but needs plugins to be complete.
💎Gparted – THE tool to partition your drives. Will do it all out of the box.
💎Etcher – Linux Iso boot drive maker. It works well enough.
💎FileZilla – Wireless file transfer software.

Web Browsers:
❌Chrome – Comes with all the advantages and disadvantages of using a google product.
❌Opera GX – Ew. so much bloat and un-needed add-ons.
💎W3m – Terminal based web browser. Makes web browsing “possible” in the tty and makes for a fun terminal novelty but otherwise useless.

Image Manipulation Tools:
❌Gnome Default – Looks great in Gnome, has limited features.
💎GIMP – Full fledged bitmap photo editing suite. Very bulky and old ui but fully featured.
💎Darktable – A RAW image tool. Useful for opening/editing/processing RAW images, but poorly organised interface. Not useful for more standard image types.
❌Imv – SUPER lightweight image viewer. Doesn’t even have a zoom feature. Honestly too lightweight to be useful.
💎Timg – Terminal based image viewer. In certain terminals with lots of visual elements support it works like any other image viewer, and can even play video. But in Alacritty it makes a blurry mess, and in the TTY it genuinly makes images look terrible. Great terminal novelty. lmao.

Video Manipulation Tools:
💎Shotcut – Feature rich video editor that’s perfect for anyone who needs a free, linux based non linear video editor.
❌Kdenlive – It’s fine, comes with plasma, and today it’s completely free, it just had paywalls on features in the past. So I don’t trust it to stay free.

Audio Manipulation Tools:
❌Rythymbox – Gnome’s default audio player. It’s fine but why use it when VLC is king? (I think gnome comes with VLC in a lot of distros too.)
💎Audacity – Lightweight audio editing program. Perfect for small jobs, bigger projects would be better off in a DAW.
❌Reaper – Full fledged DAW. But Music production with Linux’s most common audio drivers just sounds like hell. Honest to god I would say if you wanna do digital audio production, get a mac instead.
❌Mixxx – Only option for DJ software on Linux. It works, but has only the most baseline features. And Linux’s audio drivers make it a poor choice for actual live performance. Again, get a mac instead.
💎Helm – Best open source synthesiser I have found, though linux’s audio drivers may introduce unwanted noise into your sound. hehe, get a mac instead lmao.

Other Tools:
💎Steam – If you want to play games, I recommend installing windows instead, but if you are gonna ignore my advice, Steam comes bundled with proton which is your best chance of getting games to run on this platform.
💎Wine – Allows the running of Windows software on Linux. Results are very hit or miss based on a variety of factors. Proton works more reliably.

Section 4. EXTRA The “No Bloat” install 🙂

The “no bloat” setup: You want an Arch install with no gui or anything even remotely fancy? This is the setup I have found still can be useable in a modern context. Albiet barely. 🙂

After you finish your typical minimal archinstall, go ahead and run this install command:

sudo pacman -S gvim 7zip ranger gtop nvtop fastfetch w3m git rsync

Now run the following git commands to make the Timg package.

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/timg.git
cd timg
makepkg -si

Reboot, and congrats! you have a stupidly lightweight arch setup. You can do hardly anything with it, but it’s funny to have a TTY based OS. The programs listed below have all been installed, and the best part is they are all text based! Now you can live like you never left the 80’s. 🙂

-Gvim – It’s a Text based OS, you gotta have a text file editor, obvs.
-7zip – Your file compressor, becuase we all know those text files you make are gonna take up soooo much space.
-ranger – Text based file browser, for your convinence.
-gtop/nvtop – Basic system monitors, so you can see how hard your GPU is pumping those ascii charactors.
-fastfetch – System info display, to prove to all the other nerds that you are lame on reddit.
-w3m – Text based Web browser, becuase it’s not a modern OS without some way to read wikipedia.
-git – Alternative package installation method.
-timg – Text based image viewer. YES, it is as terrible as it sounds!
-rsync – disk copier, Cuase we need at least one TTY accsessable program that can justify this terrible OS.