dotfiles

My dotfiles and other stuff about my systems' configurations.

Systems I use these setups on

Desktop:

• AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3D
• 64GB DDR5-6000 (2x32GB)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER
• 4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO

Laptop: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 8 with Intel Core i5-1345U, 32GB RAM, 512GB NVMe and a 1920x1200 screen

Monitors:

• Samsung G5 Ultrawide (3440x1440, 165hz, 34")
• Samsung G51 (2560x1440, 165hz, 27")

Notes

⚠️ IMPORTANT
The Waybar theme relies on the Catppuccin GTK theme mentioned below to be installed. If you don't want to do so, you must change the padding of the workspace buttons from 2px to 2px 8px.

I use Arch Linux with a unified kernel image signed with a custom Secure Boot key created by and managed with sbctl.

Due to some weirdness with symlinks, the GTK themes need to be installed manually. Download the "Borderless + macOS buttons" Frappé pack from here: https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1715554 and follow the instructions.

To enable hibernate and resume, a swapfile must be created, enabled and resume must be added to /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, followed by rebuilding the initramfs with sudo mkinitcpio -P. I don't use ZRAM so I disabled that by ading systemd.zram=0 to /etc/kernel/cmdline.

A number of helper scripts can be found in the scripts directory.

Requirements

• GNU Stow

Usage

Run ./apply.

Manual install

Installing dotfiles to $HOME: stow --adopt --no-folding -t "${HOME}" home

Installing dotfiles to root (for example libvirt configuration files): sudo stow --adopt --no-folding -t / root

Helper scripts

This repository contains some helper scripts which will be detailed in this section:

• set_up_git sets the git config to be my preferred configuration
• set_up_mobile_broadband sets up a connection for my cellular modem
• create_swap <swapfile size> sets up swap

Applying Themes and Wallpapers

For GTK themes use GNOME Tweaks to set the theme. For Qt use qt6ct-kde (Qt6 Settings). For wallpapers use awww -o <output name> <path to file>. My own wallpapers can be found in home/Pictures/Wallpapers.

Installed Packages

This is a list of all packages I have installed, which systems I have installed them on and why I have them installed. Drivers, firmware and the likes aren't included unless deviating from a standard Arch installation.

Links are to the source repository or other applicable first-party website. The package names are the names used in the Arch Linux package list or the Arch User Repository.

For networking, during the install I opt to set up NetworkManager backed by iwd for wireless connectivity.

System Tools

These are system tools I don't often directly invoke but use for other tasks like system tweaks, filesystem compatibility and the likes.

Package	Description	Link	Systems
sbctl	Secure Boot key manager	https://github.com/foxboron/sbctl	Desktop, Laptop
cpupower	Userspace utilities for managing CPU frequency scaling	Part of Kernel	Desktop
dosfstools	Suite of tools to work with DOS filesystems such as the FAT family	https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools	Desktop
dnsmasq	Suite of network services, needed for libvirt to work properly with NetworkManager	https://dnsmasq.org/doc.html	Desktop
exfat-utils	Utilities for working with exFAT filesystems	https://github.com/relan/exfat	Desktop
gamemode	Command prefix to ensure games run better	https://github.com/feralinteractive/gamemode	Desktop, Laptop
lact	GPU configuration and monitoring tool	https://github.com/ilya-zlobintsev/LACT	Desktop
libinput-tools	Helper tool to work with libinput	https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/tools.html	Desktop
btop	A better alternative to the top command	https://github.com/aristocratos/btop	Desktop, Laptop
bind	DNS implementation, provides the dig command	https://www.isc.org/software/bind/	Desktop, Laptop
paru	AUR helper	https://github.com/morganamilo/paru	Desktop, Laptop
rsync	Fast, incremental file transfer	https://rsync.samba.org/	Desktop
traceroute	Tool for tracing route to target host	https://traceroute.sourceforge.net/	Desktop
ventoy-bin	CLI tool to manage Ventoy	https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html	Desktop
wget	Tool to retrieve remote files	https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/wget.html	Desktop, Laptop
unzip	CLI tool to extract ZIP archives	http://www.info-zip.org/Zip.html	Desktop, Laptop
android-udev	Allows user to connect Android devices	https://github.com/M0Rf30/android-udev-rules	Desktop
gnupg	Free implementation of PGP	https://www.gnupg.org/	Desktop
pacman-contrib	Scripts and tools for pacman	https://gitlab.archlinux.org/pacman/pacman-contrib	Desktop, Laptop
less	It's less, not much to say	https://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/	Desktop, Laptop
wl-clipboard	Tool to copy text from a terminal into the clipboard on Wayland	https://github.com/bugaevc/wl-clipboard	Desktop
man-db	Manual pages	https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db	Desktop, Laptop
brightnessctl	Allows controlling monitor brightness	https://github.com/Hummer12007/brightnessctl	Laptop
tlp	Tool/service to optimise battery life on laptops	https://linrunner.de/tlp/index.html	Laptop
modemmanager	Manages cellular modems	https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/ModemManager	Laptop
openresolv	Provider of resolvconf for NetworkManager	https://roy.marples.name/projects/openresolv	Laptop
displaylink	Support for DisplayLink devices	https://www.synaptics.com/products/displaylink-graphics	Laptop
cups	Printing support	https://openprinting.github.io/cups/	Desktop
hplip	HP printer drivers	https://hplipopensource.com/	Desktop
system-config-printer	GUI tool to configure printers	https://github.com/OpenPrinting/system-config-printer	Desktop
sane	Scanning support	https://gitlab.com/sane-project/backends	Desktop
naps2-bin	Scanning frontend	https://www.naps2.com/	Desktop

Environment

These are the packages that make my environment. This includes all the "meta" basics for a working environment on which you can build up on. Some configurations, like Niri may also depend on packages from other categories (my Niri configuration depends on kitty).

Package	Description	Link	Systems
swaybg	Simply wallpaper tool for wayland	https://github.com/swaywm/swaybg	Desktop, Laptop
catppuccin-cursors-frappe	Custom theme cursors	http://github.com/catppuccin/cursors	Desktop, Laptop
fuzzel	App launcher and fuzzy finder for Wayland	https://codeberg.org/dnkl/fuzzel	Desktop, Laptop
nwg-look	Software I primarily use to manage GTK theming	https://github.com/nwg-piotr/nwg-look	Desktop, Laptop
nemo	File explorer	https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo	Desktop, Laptop
niri	Niri, a Wayland window compositor	https://github.com/niri-wm/niri	Desktop, Laptop
noto-fonts	Basic Noto fonts for unicode characters	https://fonts.google.com/noto	Desktop, Laptop
noto-fonts-cjk	Chinese, Japanese and Korean fonts	https://github.com/notofonts/noto-cjk	Desktop, Laptop
noto-fonts-emoji	Emoji support	http://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Emoji	Desktop, Laptop
gnome-keyring	Secret portal	https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-keyring	Desktop, Laptop
polkit-kde-agent	Policykit agent for applications to graphically ask for root permissions	https://github.com/KDE/polkit-kde-agent-1	Desktop, Laptop
qt6ct-kde	Graphical tool to change Qt theme	https://www.opencode.net/trialuser/qt6ct	Desktop, Laptop
swaylock-effects	Lockscreen for Wayland (with extra features not present in normal swaylock)	https://github.com/jirutka/swaylock-effects	Desktop, Laptop
ttf-firacode-nerd	My preferred monospace font	https://www.nerdfonts.com/font-downloads	Desktop, Laptop
waybar	Wayland bar	https://github.com/Alexays/Waybar	Desktop, Laptop
network-manager-applet	Provides a tray applet for NetworkManager and the GUI connection editor used in my waybar config	https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/network-manager-applet	Desktop, Laptop
ly	TTY-based greeter	https://codeberg.org/fairyglade/ly	Desktop, Laptop
dunst	Notification daemon	https://github.com/dunst-project/dunst	Desktop, Laptop
xdg-desktop-portal-wlr	Required portal for screencasting	https://github.com/emersion/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr	Desktop, Laptop
xdg-desktop-portal-gtk	Required portal for most basic functionality	https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk	Desktop, Laptop
xwayland-satellite	Rootless Xwayland integration for Wayland compositors	https://github.com/Supreeeme/xwayland-satellite	Desktop, Laptop
iio-niri	Automatically rotates the screen with Niri	https://github.com/Zhaith-Izaliel/iio-niri	Laptop
wireguard-tools	Tools to interact with WireGuard	https://www.wireguard.com/	Laptop
overskride-bin	Bluetooth client	https://github.com/kaii-lb/overskride	Laptop

Development

This includes tools I use for development.

Package	Description	Link	Systems
kitty	Terminal emulator	https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty	Desktop, Laptop
neovim	Modern Vim-based text editor	https://neovim.io/	Desktop, Laptop
git	Repository management tool	https://git-scm.com/	Desktop, Laptop
base-devel	Basic development tools, meta-package	https://archlinux.org/packages/core/any/base-devel/	Desktop, Laptop
rustup	Rust toolchain installer	https://rustup.rs/	Desktop, Laptop
shellcheck	Shell script linter	https://www.shellcheck.net/	Desktop, Laptop
docker	Containerisation system	https://www.docker.com/	Desktop
jetbrains-toolbox	Launcher to install and manage JetBrains IDEs	https://www.jetbrains.com/toolbox-app/	Desktop, Laptop
virt-manager	GUI for libvirt	https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager	Desktop
qemu-full	Backend for creating virtual machines	https://www.qemu.org/	Desktop
opentofu	FOSS Terraform alternative	https://opentofu.org/	Desktop
docker-compose	Enables docker compose support	https://www.docker.com/	Desktop
pyenv	Tool for managing Python versions	https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv	Desktop, Laptop
go	Golang	https://go.dev/	Laptop
ansible	Ansible	https://ansible.com	Desktop

Messaging

This includes software I use for messaging.

Package	Description	Link	Systems
vesktop	Customisable and privacy friendly Discord client	https://vesktop.dev/	Desktop, Laptop
element-desktop	Desktop Matrix client	https://element.io/en	Desktop

Media

This includes tools I use to consume media.

Package	Description	Link	Systems
vlc	Multimedia player	https://www.videolan.org/	Desktop, Laptop
vlc-plugin-ffmpeg	FFMPEG plugins for VLC	https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/vlc-plugin-ffmpeg/	Desktop, Laptop
coreimage	Small and lightweight image viewer	https://cubocore.gitlab.io/	Desktop, Laptop
spotify	Spotify desktop application	https://spotify.com	Laptop

Creativity

This includes tools for creative work as well as note-taking.

Package	Description	Link	Systems
xournalpp	Notetaking app with support for pages and handwriting/drawing	https://xournalpp.github.io	Desktop, Laptop
obs-studio	Screen recording suite	https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio	Desktop

Other

This includes the odd ones out which didn't have a better place elsewhere.

Package	Description	Link	Systems
ausweisapp	German ID verification app	https://www.ausweisapp.bund.de/en/open-source-software	Desktop
azahar	Nintendo 3DS emulator	https://azahar-emu.org/	Desktop
chromium	Browser; Will be switched for something better in due time	https://www.chromium.org/chromium-projects/	Desktop, Laptop
filezille	File explorer and remote filesystem client	https://filezilla-project.org/	Desktop
hyfetch	Fetch with pride flags	https://github.com/hykilpikonna/hyfetch	Desktop, Laptop
prismlauncher	Minecraft Java Edition version manager and launcher	https://prismlauncher.org/	Desktop
steam	Game launcher	https://store.steampowered.com/	Desktop
stow	Symlink manager	https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/	Desktop
thunderbird	E-Mail client	https://www.thunderbird.net/	Desktop, Laptop
ente-auth-bin	TOTP Generator	https://ente.com/auth/	Desktop, Laptop
qalculate-qt	Calculator	https://qalculate.github.io	Desktop, Laptop
wvkbd-git	On-screen keyboard	https://github.com/jjsullivan5196/wvkbd	Desktop, Laptop
nextcloud-client	Desktop client for NextCloud	https://nextcloud.com/	Desktop
pdfpc	PDF presentation software	https://github.com/pdfpc	Laptop
protonup-qt-bin	GUI Proton version manager	https://github.com/DavidoTek/ProtonUp-Qt	Desktop, Laptop

Package notes

Package	Note
rustup	Run rustup toolchain install stable for initial stable install; rustup update to update
displaylink	Requires dkms, linux-headers and evdi-dkms to be installed; Start service after install
pyenv	Requires tk to be installed for Python compilation and installation to work properly
gamemode	Also install lib32-gamemode

Further Reading

This is a collection of links I found helpful while setting up my systems.

Description	Link
Description of CPU frequency scaling and tools to make use of it	https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CPU_frequency_scaling
General information about the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 8 on Arch Linux	https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Yoga_(Gen_8)
Power management for laptops on Arch Linux	https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/TLP
General documentation for niri	https://github.com/niri-wm/niri/wiki
Setting up secure boot	https://github.com/foxboron/sbctl
DisplayLink	https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/DisplayLink

Attributions

Catppuccin is licensed under the MIT license. It doesn't require me to reship their license or mention it but I do want you to be aware of this awesome theme.