In the following README.md I'm going to explain to my future self how to setup KDE Arch and configure it so it just works, for this setup I'm choosing KDE Plasma as the DE because it is the best balance between extreme customizability and ease of use, this might change after the release of KDE Plasma 6.
If anyone but myself uses this Repository for information I will reserve myself the right to not be held accountable for potentially bricking / breaking your systems or installs you have been warned!
The main issue with arch is that it updates on the bleeding edge, the operating system is in constant need of updates, otherwise it might break and not work anymore. Arch is often referred to as an unstable operating system, I personally do not think that this is entirely true and you just need to be able to maintain your own operating system. You should update your system at least once a week to prevent any issues from arising
Use either the yay or sudo pacman -Syu command to update your entire system and all packages except flatpaks
To update your flatpaks you'd need to put the command: sudo flatpak update into the terminal or update them from the software store you used to download them from, on KDE that store would most likely be 'Discover'
From time to time you can also clear the orphaned packages from your system by running pacman -Qtdq | pacman -Rns as the root user
To install an AUR package you write:
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/brave-nightly-bin.git
cd brave-nightly-bin
kate PKGBUILD
After reading and verifying that the packages are secure enter:
makepkg or to finish the install right away enter makepkg -sri
ls
sudo pacman -U brave-nightly-bin-xx.x.x-x-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
agree to the prompt asking to install with Y
to build packages faster open /etc/makepkg.conf
and edit the line which says #MAKEFLAGS="-j4"
enter the amount of threads you want to use for building packages instead of 4
to improve the build time.
To follow this guide you can either download the modified_edid.bin and save it to ~/Downloads/ which may only work for my monitor or follow the step by step guide on how to edit your own EDID file
Open a terminal:
find /sys/devices/pci*/ -name edid to find the EDID used by your monitor
Output should look something like this:
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.1/0000:2b:00.0/0000:2c:00.0/0000:2d:00.0/drm/card1/card1-DP-1/edid
You'll need to choose the connector of your monitor, for me it is card1-DP-1
Next I'll cd into the directory where my EDID is located and copy it:
cd /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.1/0000:2b:00.0/0000:2c:00.0/0000:2d:00.0/drm/card1/card1-DP-1
cp edid ~/Downloads/
Next you'll need to download wxEDID:
flatpak install https://dl.tingping.se/flatpak/wxedid.flatpakref
open the edid file which is now located in the ~/Downloads/ directory using wxEDID
edit it to disable YCbCr support:
SPF: Supported features -> change value of vsig_format to 0b00
CHD: CEA-861 header -> change the value of YCbCr420 and YCbCr444 to 0
VSD: Vendor Specific Data Block -> change the value of DC_Y444 to 0
Afterwards save the EDID binary and rename it to "modified_edid.bin" and save it to ~/Downloads/
Open a Terminal:
$ cd ~/Downloads/
$ sudo cp modified_edid.bin /usr/lib/firmware/edid/
$ sudo mkdir /usr/lib/firmware/edid/ if the directory does not exist
open the file /etc/default/grub with your preferred text editor the text: drm.edid_firmware=edid/modified_edid.bin
after **GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=** and **GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=** then save
$ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg` in the terminal to apply the kernel patch
After a reboot the monitor should switch to the correct RGB values upon login
You could also use the shown config, Download the firestart.zip and select the HTML file as your Firefox homepage If you want to modify my given example navigate to the Startpage generator and feed the ls-backup.json into the site
Open the grub config in your Text editor of choice:
kate /etc/default/grub
uncomment "GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false" and save the file
Create a file in the path "/usr/sbin/" this will be a shell script to update grub with
cd /usr/sbin/
touch update-grub
open the file with your text editor of choice:
kate update-grub
paste the following text and save the file
#!/bin/sh
set -e
exec grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg "$@"
afterwards execute these two commands:
sudo chown root:root /usr/sbin/update-grub &&
sudo chmod 755 /usr/sbin/update-grub
Now you should be able to run the command update-grub to update your grub config
If we now want to add Windows to our Grub bootloader for example, we would run:
sudo os-prober &&
update-grub
We are now going to Setup an equivalent to OhMyZSH to make our terminal look better
git clone https://github.com/christitustech/mybash
cd mybash
./setup.sh
We'll download the Jetbrains Mono Nerdfont to our system so that we can set it in the terminal:
cd ~/Downloads &&
curl -L -o JetBrainsMono.zip "https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/download/v3.2.1/JetBrainsMono.zip"
Now we will theme the Bootloader and make it presentable
$ git clone https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/Top-5-Bootloader-Themes
$ cd Top-5-Bootloader-Themes
sudo ./install.sh
choose the theme that you like most and apply
Now we have configured our Bootloader and Konsole
Guide by Redhat on basic navigation
More specific guide for using ls
Guide on how to use the tree command with examples
cd /home/user/Documents/ to navigate into the Documents folder located in the users home directory
cd ~ to navigate back to your home directory
| ls -flag | what they are for |
|---|---|
ls |
to list the current directories contents |
ls -<nr of rows> |
to change the number of rows shown when listing the directory |
ls <directory name> |
to list a certain directory |
ls <characters>* |
to list any files with the selected string of characters |
ls <character>? |
to list any files with the selected single character |
ls *.png |
to list any files with the selected file format, in this case the .png format |
ls --hide=*.png |
to hide all files with the given file extension |
ls -l |
is the so called: "long listing" option which gives you more details on each file |
The long listing lists a lot of information at once, in this case it is the file type, the user, the group, the file size, date the file was last edited, with month, date, exact time to the minute and year listed respectfully. There are different types of files, depending on the first character it could mean:
The very first character represents the file type:
-: A regular file.
b: A block special file.
c: A character special file.
d: A directory.
l: A symbolic link.
n: A network file.
p: A named pipe.
s: A socket.
| ls - flag | what they are for |
|---|---|
ls -l -h |
using the -h flag ls displays the filesize in human-readable sizes, converting kilobites to mb |
ls -l -a |
using the -a flag all files including hidden files will be shown |
ls -l -A |
using the -a flag almost all files will be shown, omitting . and .. entries from your list, resulting in an overall more legible window |
ls -l -R |
using the -R (recursive) flag lists all files in each subdirectory |
ls -n |
using the -n flag lists the user ID instead of the user name |
ls -X -1 |
using the -X -1 flags lists the files by extension type in alphabetical order, directories will be listed first |
ls -l -h -S |
using the flags -l (list) -h (human-readable) and the -S flag will sort the files by size. |
ls -l -t |
using the flag -t will sort files by when they were last modified |
ls -l -h -S -r |
using the -r flag will reverse any sort orders |
use ls -t | head -1 to get the newest file in the directory
use ls -t | tail -1 to get the oldest file in the directory
How to use the make directory command
mkdir [OPTION] [DIRECTORY] this is the commands syntax
mkdir /home/user/Documents/exampledir to make a new directory called 'exampledir' in the Documents folder of our Linux system
an example of a file tree and the command that creates it:
makedir -p /home/user/Documents/folder1,folder2/subfolder1,subfolder2/
Documents/
├──folder1
| ├──subfolder1
| └──subfolder2
|
└──folder2
├──subfolder1
└──subfolder2
an example of a more complicated file tree and the command that creates it:
mkdir -p Music/{Jazz/Blues,Folk,Disco,Rock/{Gothic,Punk,Progressive},Classical/Baroque/Early}
Music/
├──Classical
| └──Baroque
| └──Early
├──Disco
├──Folk
├──Jazz
| └──Blues
└──Rock
├──Gothic
├──Progressive
└──Punk
sudo makedir to make a directory in a folder that needs super user permissions
sudo chown -R user /home/user/Documents/exampledir/* is what we'll use if we want to take ownership of the folder exampledir and all sub files and folders
sudo chown -R user:user /home/user if any of the user directories are owned by root
Follow the instructions below starting with installing the necessary packages using yay
spotify-tui
When spotify-tui is installed you will need to run it by writing spt into your terminal of choice
spt will then ask you for your spotify Client IDand Client Secret which you'll have to get from the spotify developer dashboard for which there are many guides on how to setup an application and get your ID + Secret respectively
Once you've entered both the Client ID and Client secret all should be working and you'll see a User Interface pop up
now to use the UI which we've installed we'll need a daemon to stream Spotify to, for that we'll use the spotifyd-daemon
spotifyd is the package name, download it using yay or refer to the projects github to get more information
now copy the spotifyd.conf from my github repo enter your username and password into the file and make a folder for the config to be in
mkdir /home/user/.config/spotifyd
Then copy the file from downloads to the new directory
cd ~/Downloads/
cp spotify.conf /home/user/.config/spotifyd
Now type the following lines into the terminal you want to use for the UI to live in:
spotifyd
spt
If the daemon gives you any issues like playing two streams at once type the following into the terminal to restart the daemon
killall spotifyd
spotifyd
In addition to spotifyd and spotify-tui you can install cava a visualizer, copy my config into ~/.config/cava/ to apply the design shown in the screenshot above
All of these are to be installed using the yay package manager or the guide on installing AUR packages above
mesa-git FOSS GPU Drivers
radeon-profile-git Radeon Overclocking and Fan Control utility
radeon-profile-daemon-git The needed daemon to run the Previous software
After finishing the Download you'll need to run the following commands in the terminal
systemctl enable radeon-profile-daemon.service &&
systemctl start radeon-profile-daemon.service
Now Radeon-profile should be working and showing modules like fan control
OpenRGB is an open source utility to control all your RGB using one software solution
openrgb / openrgb-git
i2c-tools
Before launching we'll need to execute a few commands
$ sudo modprobe i2c-dev
$ sudo groupadd --system i2c
$ sudo usermod $USER -aG i2c
sudo touch /etc/modules-load.d/i2c.conf &&
sudo sh -c 'echo "i2c-dev" >> /etc/modules-load.d/i2c.conf'
Now OpenRGB should also show RAM Modules
kate -> Text Editor
vscodium -> Opensource VSCode binaries
thunderbird -> Mozillas Mail Client
kgamma5 -> X11 Gamma control for KDE Systems
ani-cli -> Watch and download anime from your terminal
mangal -> Read and download manga from your terminal
speedtest-cli -> cli to test your connection speeds from your terminal
Discover + packagekit-qt5 -> KDE's own software store
Obsidian -> Notetaking app with community integration
clam AV -> Antivirus software
You'll need to add the line drivers-alsa to /etc/openal/alsoft.conf
sudo mkdir /etc/openal/ if the directory does not exist
alsoft.conf if the file does not exist to create it in your ~/Downloads/ directory
add the line drivers-alsa and save the file
cd ~/Downloads/
sudo cp alsoft.conf /etc/openal/
Start / Restart Minecraft and it should have a working sound engine
Emoji in KDE Linux:
yay -S noto-fonts-emoji
reboot
uBlock Origin is a must have for any Browser and should be installed on each Browser you use
head to about:config in your address bar for all of these
Disable fullscreen popup when fullscreening a video:
full-screen-api.warning.timeout -> set to 0
Disable translate option:
browser.translations.automaticallyPopup
browser.translations.enable
browser.translations.panelShown
Add the following text via. copy and paste to your uBlock Origin filter list to get rid of pesky Youtube Shorts
! Title: Hide YouTube Shorts
! Description: Hide all traces of YouTube shorts videos on YouTube
! Version: 1.8.0
! Last modified: 2023-01-08 20:02
! Expires: 2 weeks (update frequency)
! Homepage: https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts
! License: https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts/blob/master/LICENSE.md
! Hide all videos containing the phrase "#shorts"
youtube.com##ytd-grid-video-renderer:has(#video-title:has-text(#shorts))
youtube.com##ytd-grid-video-renderer:has(#video-title:has-text(#Shorts))
youtube.com##ytd-grid-video-renderer:has(#video-title:has-text(#short))
youtube.com##ytd-grid-video-renderer:has(#video-title:has-text(#Short))
! Hide all videos with the shorts indicator on the thumbnail
youtube.com##ytd-grid-video-renderer:has([overlay-style="SHORTS"])
youtube.com##ytd-rich-item-renderer:has([overlay-style="SHORTS"])
youtube.com##ytd-video-renderer:has([overlay-style="SHORTS"])
youtube.com##ytd-item-section-renderer.ytd-section-list-renderer[page-subtype="subscriptions"]:has(ytd-video-renderer:has([overlay-style="SHORTS"]))
! Hide shorts button in sidebar
youtube.com##ytd-guide-entry-renderer:has-text(Shorts)
youtube.com##ytd-mini-guide-entry-renderer:has-text(Shorts)
! Hide shorts section on homepage
youtube.com##ytd-rich-section-renderer:has(#rich-shelf-header:has-text(Shorts))
youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer:has(.ytd-reel-shelf-renderer:has-text(Shorts))
! Hide shorts tab on channel pages
! Old style
youtube.com##tp-yt-paper-tab:has(.tp-yt-paper-tab:has-text(Shorts))
! New style (2023-10)
youtube.com##yt-tab-shape:has-text(/^Shorts$/)
! Hide shorts in video descriptions
youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-structured-description-content-renderer:has-text("Shorts remixing this video")
! Remove empty spaces in grid
youtube.com##ytd-rich-grid-row,#contents.ytd-rich-grid-row:style(display: contents !important)