Artix Linux - Post-installation

Personal Artix Linux post-installation guide; this is part of my Linux installation guide.

Privilege elevation

sudo

As the root user, open /etc/sudoers using visudo

$ EDITOR=vim visudo

and uncomment the line %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL to allow members of the wheel group to run commands as other users.

Create unprivileged user

As the root user, create a non-privileged user user

$ useradd -U -u <uid> -m -k /dev/null user
$ passwd user

where <uid> is the user ID. Add user to the wheel group

$ usermod -aG wheel user

It will be assumed that the rest of this guide is done using an unprivileged user.

Mount options

In /etc/fstab, change relatime to noatime for the root and home filesystems.

Microcode

For AMD processors

$ sudo pacman -S amd-ucode

For Intel processors

$ sudo pacman -S intel-ucode

The boot loader must be configured to load either amd-ucode.img or intel-ucode.img as the first initrd. The section below shows how to configure rEFInd. (See the ArchWiki for other boot loaders.)

Kernel parameters

Microcode: initrd=\amd-ucode.img or initrd=\intel-ucode.img.
Specify that the root device is mounted as read-write instead of read-only (see this): rw.
Silent boot: quiet loglevel=3.

The parameters above must be placed in the corresponding boot stanza in /boot/EFI/refind/refind.conf

/boot/EFI/refind/refind.conf

...
menuentry "Artix Linux" {
    volume    "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx"
    loader    /vmlinuz-linux
    initrd    /initramfs-linux.img
    options   "cryptdevice=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx:cryptroot root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot rw quiet loglevel=3 initrd=\intel-ucode.img"
}

Linux console

Make the desired console font persistent by setting FONT in /etc/vconsole.conf

/etc/vconsole.conf

FONT=<font>

Boot loader

rEFInd

Get rEFInd themes and copy the relevant files to the ESP

$ git clone https://github.com/bobafetthotmail/refind-theme-regular.git
$ git clone https://github.com/htower/refind-theme-regular-black.git
$ sudo mkdir -p /boot/EFI/refind/theme/icons
$ sudo cp refind-theme-regular/icons/256-96/* /boot/EFI/refind/theme/icons
$ sudo cp refind-theme-regular-black/icons/256-96/bg.png /boot/EFI/refind/theme/icons/bg_black.png
$ sudo cp refind-theme-regular-black/icons/256-96/selection-big.png /boot/EFI/refind/theme/icons/selection_black-big.png
$ sudo cp refind-theme-regular-black/icons/256-96/selection-small.png /boot/EFI/refind/theme/icons/selection_black-small.png

Comment out all configuration values in /boot/EFI/refind/refind.conf and include the file myconf.conf

/boot/EFI/refind/refind.conf

...
include myconf.conf
...

Create /boot/EFI/refind/myconf.conf with the following content

/boot/EFI/refind/myconf.conf

timeout 20
use_nvram false
hideui label,singleuser,hints
use_graphics_for linux,osx,windows
showtools shell,gdisk,memtest,mok_tool,apple_recovery,windows_recovery,about,hidden_tags,firmware,reboot,exit

icons_dir theme/icons
big_icon_size 128
small_icon_size 48
banner theme/icons/bg_black.png
selection_big theme/icons/selection_black-big.png
selection_small theme/icons/selection_black-small.png

Network configuration

NetworkManager

NetworkManager's service is enabled during installation. If for some reason it is not enabled, execute

$ sudo ln -s /etc/runit/sv/NetworkManager /run/runit/service/

Firewall

firewalld

$ sudo pacman -S firewalld firewalld-runit
$ sudo ln -s /etc/runit/sv/firewalld /run/runit/service/

NTP

chrony

$ sudo pacman -S chrony chrony-runit

Apply the following configuration in /etc/chrony.conf:

/etc/chrony.conf

...
server 0.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 1.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 2.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 3.pool.ntp.org iburst
...

and enable the service

$ sudo ln -s /etc/runit/sv/chrony /run/runit/service/

Power management

TLP

$ sudo pacman -S ethtool smartmontools tlp tlp-rdw tlp-runit

Configure TLP via /etc/tlp.d/01-myconf.conf

/etc/tlp.d/01-myconf.conf

TLP_DEFAULT_MODE=AC
DISK_DEVICES="<dev1> ... <devn>"
USB_BLACKLIST_PHONE=1
USB_AUTOSUSPEND_DISABLE_ON_SHUTDOWN=1
RESTORE_DEVICE_STATE_ON_STARTUP=1

and enable the service

$ sudo ln -s /etc/runit/sv/tlp /run/runit/service/

Enable Arch repositories

Arch repositories are disabled by default in Artix. To enable them, execute

$ sudo pacman -S artix-archlinux-support

and activate the extra and community Arch repositories by adding their corresponding entries in /etc/pacman.conf after the Artix repositories:

/etc/pacman.conf

...
[system]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[world]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[galaxy]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# Arch

[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

[community]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch
...

Refresh the package databases

$ sudo pacman -Sy

At the moment of writing this guide, the following packages are on Arch repositories only:

ttf-ibm-plex
xcalib

Fonts

$ sudo pacman -S ttf-ibm-plex ttf-fira-mono ttf-font-awesome

X Window System

$ sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-xrandr

Keyboard and touchpad configuration

Tap for touchpad

Add Option "Tapping" "On" to the touchpad section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf

Section "InputClass"
	Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
	MatchIsTouchpad "on"
	MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
	Driver "libinput"
	Option "Tapping" "On"
EndSection

If the file does not exist, copy 40-libinput.conf from /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/.

Screen colour temperature

redshift

$ sudo pacman -S redshift

Monitor colour calibration

xcalib

$ sudo pacman -S xcalib

Sound

PipeWire

$ sudo pacman -S pipewire pipewire-media-session pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack pavucontrol

Desktop notifications

dunst

$ sudo pacman -S libnotify dunst

Window manager

dwm

If not already installed, install the required dependencies

$ sudo pacman -S libx11 libxft libxinerama

Install my fork of dwm

$ git clone https://github.com/icanalesm/dwm.git
$ cd dwm
$ make
$ sudo make install

To execute dwm with startx, add exec dwm at the end of ~/.xinitrc.

Terminal emulator

st

Install my fork of st:

$ git clone https://github.com/icanalesm/st.git
$ cd st
$ make
$ sudo make install

Backlight control

brightctl

$ git clone https://github.com/icanalesm/brightctl.git
$ cd brightctl

Apply the desired configuration. Compile and install

$ make
$ sudo make install

Configure sudo to allow user user the execution of brightctl as root without a password. Open /etc/sudoers.d/usercmds using visudo

$ sudo EDITOR=vim visudo -f /etc/sudoers.d/usercmds

and add the following lines:

/etc/sudoers.d/usercmds

## brightctl commands
user <hostname>=NOPASSWD:/usr/local/bin/brightctl

where <hostname> is the machine's hostname.

Web browser

Firefox

$ sudo pacman -S firefox

PDF viewer

zathura

$ sudo pacman -S zathura zathura-pdf-mupdf zathura-ps zathura-djvu

Image viewer

feh

$ sudo pacman -S feh imagemagick