Arch Linux + i3wm详细配置篇

Arch linux + i3

Installation guide

1. Boot the live environment

The live environment can be booted from a USB flash device, an optical disc or a network with PXE.

2. Connect the Internet

wifi-menu

Use ping www.archlinux.org to verify the connection.

3. Update the system clock

Use tiledatectl to ensure the system colck is accurate

timedatectl set-ntp true

To check the service status, use timedatectl status

4. Partition the disks

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

fdisk -l

Use fdisk or parted to modify partition tables.

for example:

# parted /dev/sda
(parted) mklabel
New disk label type? gpt
(parted) exit

Use cfdisk to create partition.

It should include EFI , / (root), /home , /swap .

5. Format the partitions

Note the correct partitions

• EFI partition

mkfs.vfat /dev/sda2

• root and home partition

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4

• swap partition

mkswap -f /dev/sda5
swapon /dev/swap

6. Mount the file systems

Pay attention to the order of mounting partitions!

• mount the file system on the root partition to /mnt

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt

• create home folder in /mnt folder and mount the file system on the home partition to /mnt/home

mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/home

• create /mnt/boot/EFI folder and mount the file system on the EFI partition to /mnt/boot/EFI

mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/boot/EFI
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot/EFI

7. Select the mirrors

vim /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Paste the China mirrors in the beginning

8. Install essential packages

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

9. Generate an fstab file

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

Check the resulting /mnt/etc/fstab file, and edit it in case of errors.

cat /mnt/etc/fstab

10. Change root into the new system

arch-chroot /mnt

11. Time zone

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Shanghai /etc.localtime
hwclock --systohc

12. Localozation(Language)

• Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and others needed locals in /etc/locale.gen , and generate them with:

locale-gen

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

vim /etc/locale.conf
LANG=en_US.UTF-8

13. Initramfs

mkinitcpio -P

14. Root password

passwd root

15. Network configuration

• Create the hostname file

vim /etc/hostname

Enter your hostname in this file.

• Add matching entries to hosts

vim /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1    localhost
::1          localhost
127.0.0.1    yourhostname.localdomain    yourhostname

• Install some software to ensure you can connect the Internet after reboot system.

pacman -S iw wpa_supplicant dialog networkmanager

Detailed configuration

16. Microcode

My computer is Intel processors.

pacman -S intel-ucode

17. Boot loader

GRUB

pacman -S grub efibootmgr
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/EFI -bootloader-id=Archlinux
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

If you can see some img file generated, it means the grub boot loader file are successful creatted.

18. Reboot

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot

Use uname -a to view the Version of Arch linux.

My config recommendations

1. Add users

useradd -s -G wheel -s /bin/bash username

To allow user to gain full root privileges when he precdeds a command with sudo , add the following line to /etc/sudoers .

USER_NAME ALL=(ALL) ALL

su username to switch users.

2. NetworkManager

NetworkManager(package networkmanager ) contains a daemon, a command line interface( nmcli ) and a curses-based interface( nmtui ). After installation, you should enable the daemon.

systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
systemctl start NetworkManager.service

Use ip link to view the network interface.

Usage

• List nearby wifi networks

nmcli device wifi list

• Connect to a wifi network

nmcli device wifi connect SSID password password

• Disconnect an interface

nmcli device disconnect ifname eth0

• See a list of network devices and wheir state

nmcli device

• Turn off wifi

nmcli radio wifi off

nm-applet for a system tray applet

sudo pacman -S network-manager-applet

• Add exec --no-startup-id nm-applet to ~/.config/i3/config fot autostart nm-applet .

3. Xorg display server

• Installation

sudo pacman -S xorg xorg-server xorg-apps

• Driver installation

  1. First, identify your card:

  lspci | grep -e VGA -e 3D

  

  

  2. Install an appropriate deiver

  pacman -Ss xf86-video

  Note : For NVIDIA Optimus enabled laptop which uses an integrated video card combined with a dedicated GPU, You can not just install xf86-video-intel & nvidia , it will get a blcak screen. See NVIDIA Optimus to get more informations.

  I just install xf86-video-vesa .

  pacman -S xf86-video-vesa

  Xorg: Driver_installtion

• Use xinit to start Xorg display server.

sudo pacman -S xorg-xinit

• Create .xinitrc file(in common users)

sudo cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc

• Tap-to-click

sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/30-touchpad.conf

Add the following lines to it.

Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "touchpad"
  Driver "libinput"
  MatchIsTouchpad "on"
  Option "Tapping" "on"
EndSection

• Install Windows Manager (i3)

sudo pacman -S i3

It include i3-gaps , i3wm , i3blocks , i3lock , i3status

• Use i3

Add exec i3 to the end of ~.xinitrc .

• Start Xorg server.

startx

• Autostart X at login

I’m a fish user, so i just need add the following to the bottom of my ~/.config/fish/config.fish .

# Start X at login
if status is-login
    if test -z "$DISPLAY" -a $XDG_VTNR = 1
        exec startx -- -keeptty
    end
end

Other shell user (like bash , zsh ), Please visit here

4. i3wm

i3wm , i3-ArchWiki

My i3 config

5. Some useful software

• yaourt

Add the source to /etc/pacman.conf

[archlinuxcn]
#The Chinese Arch Linux communities packages.
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
Server = http://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/archlinuxcn/$arch
#Server   = http://repo.archlinuxcn.org/$arch
#Server   = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch

Synchronized communities

sudo pacman -Syu

Insatll yaourt

sudo pacman -S yaourt

• Software i often use

6. Fonts

Fonts-ArchWiki , Nerd-fonts , Unicode-table

adobe-source-code-pro	adobe-source-han-serif-cn-fonts	adobe-source-han-serif-tw-fonts
ttf-symbola	nerd-fonts-complete	nerd-fonts-dejavu-complete
font-awesome	noto-fonts-emoji

fc-list to show the fonts you have installed.

7. Volume

• ALSA is a set of built-in GNU/Linux modules. Therefore, manual insatllation is not necessary.

• Install pulseaudio

sudo pacman -S pulseaudio

• Install alsa-utils

sudo pacman -S alsa-utils

Use alsamixer to manage the system volume

• VoulmeIcon

If you want a System volume tray, you can try volumeicon

1. Install volumeicon

   sudo pacman -S volumeicon

2. Add volumeicon file in ~/.config/volumeicon , and add the following lines to it.

   [Alsa]
   card=default
   
   [Notification]
   show_notification=true
   notification_type=1
   
   [StatusIcon]
   stepsize=5
   onclick=xterm -e 'alsamixer'
   theme=White Gnome
   use_panel_specific_icons=true
   lmb_slider=true
   mmb_mute=true
   use_horizontal_slider=false
   show_sound_level=true
   use_transparent_bac<++>kground=true
   
   [Hotkeys]
   up_enabled=true
   down_enabled=true
   mute_enabled=true
   up=XF86AudioRaiseVolume
   down=XF86AudioLowerVolume
   mute=XF86AudioMute

3. Create pulseaudio-ctl.desktop in ~/.config/autostart , and add the following lines to it.

   [Desktop Entry]
   Encoding=UTF-8
   Type=Application
   Name=pulseaudio-ctl
   comment=Set Volume to 70%
   Exec=pulseaudio-ctl-normal
   StartupNotify=true
   Terminal=false
   Hidden=false

4. Add exec --no-startup-id volumeicon to ~/.config/i3/config .

5. I wrote two scripts to control the volume of the system with alsamixer and dunst , put them to /usr/bin/ .

   volume_up
   volume_down

8. Screen brightness

A good advice for backlight management is xorg-xbacklight , but it seems not work on my computer.

If you have the same problem, you can try the solution of Wiki, but it still can’t work on my computer. Sad! So i try another way to control the screen brightness.
The backlight can be controlled by the file /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness ‘s value. So i wrote a script to control it. I named it intel_brightness_control.sh

#!/bin/bash
set -e
file="/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness"
current=$(cat "$file")
new="$current"
if [ "$1" = "-inc" ]
then
  new=$(( current + $2 ))
  status="Up"
fi
if [ "$1" = "-dec" ]
then
  if [ current < 100 ]
  then
    new="50"
  else
    new=$(( current - $2 ))
  fi
  status="Down"
fi
echo "$new" | tee "$file"
brightness=`light -G`
notify-send "Brightness $status($brightness%)"

Remember put it in your /usr/bin/.

Then do sudo chmod 777 /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness . The last thing is adding the following lines to .config/i3/config .

# Screen brightness controls
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec "intel_brightness_control.sh -inc 100"
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec "intel_brightness_control.sh -dec 100"

9. Bluetooth

• Install bluez , bluez-utils

sudo pacman -S bluez bluez-utils

• The generic Bluetooth driver is the btusb Kernel module. Use lsmod to check whether that module is loaded.

If it’s not, do modprobe btusb to load the moudle.

• Start / Enable

systemctl enable bluetooth.service
systemctl start bluetooth.service

• Auto power-on after boot

Add the line AutoEnable=true in /etc/bluetooth/main.conf at the bottom in the [Policy] section.

• Discoverable on startup

/etc/bluetooth/main.conf

[General]
DiscoverableTimeout = 0
Discoverable=true

• Install pulseaudio-bluetooth to use audio equipment like bluetooth headphones or speakers.

Bluetooth headset

sudo pacman -S pulseaudio-bluetooth

• Install blueman

sudo pacman -S blueman

1. blueman-applet to use.
2. add exec --no-startup-id blueman-applet to ~/.config/i3/config to auto start blueman-applet .

10. Notify(Dunst)

sudo pacman -S libnotify dunst

Create org.freedesktop.Notifications.service in /usr/share/dbus-1/services/ folder. Add the following lines.

[D-BUS Service]
Name.org.freedesktop.Notifications
Exec=/usr/local/bin/dunst

An example configuration file is included at /usr/local/share/dunst/dunstrc . Copy this file to ~/.config/dunst/dunstrc and edit it accordingly.

My Dunstrc

Use notify-send "Hello, world!" to test.

11. Shutdown Reboot LockScreen

• Create a script named i3exit . Make sure you have polkit installed.

#!/bin/sh
lock() {
    i3lock
}

case "$1" in
    lock)
        blurlock
        ;;
    logout)
        i3-msg exit
        ;;
    suspend)
        blurlock && systemctl suspend
        ;;
    hibernate)
        blurlock && systemctl hibernate
        ;;
    reboot)
        systemctl reboot
        ;;
    shutdown)
        systemctl poweroff
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {lock|logout|suspend|hibernate|reboot|shutdown}"
        exit 2
esac

exit 0

Do chmod +x and put it in $PATH ( /usr/bin/ ) .

• Add the following lines to .config/i3/config

set $mode_system System (l) lock, (e) logout, (s) suspend, (h) hibernate, (r) reboot, (Shift+s) shutdown
mode "$mode_system" {
    bindsym l exec --no-startup-id i3exit lock, mode "default"
    bindsym e exec --no-startup-id i3exit logout, mode "default"
    bindsym s exec --no-startup-id i3exit suspend, mode "default"
    bindsym h exec --no-startup-id i3exit hibernate, mode "default"
    bindsym r exec --no-startup-id i3exit reboot, mode "default"
    bindsym Shift+s exec --no-startup-id i3exit shutdown, mode "default"  

    # back to normal: Enter or Escape
    bindsym Return mode "default"
    bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
bindsym $mod+Pause mode "$mode_system"

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