Desktop Environemt
Pick your poison
GNOME
Base GNOME packages for the full GNOME experience. Bundle with other packages to prevent package conflicts providing the same functionality.
TIP: Include any and all packages you want installed in a list to pacman
. That way pacman
will resolve package dependencies correctly and not install packages that would cause conflicts with other packages later on in the setup; e.g. the gnome
group installs pulseaudio
, but pulseaudio
and pipewire
(see below) are conflicting packages, meaning they can't both be installed at the same time prompting you to remove one or the other. Explicitly selected packages take precedence over packages auto-selected via dependencies.
pacman -S gnome gnome-extra
Setting up display manager
Start GDM on boot
Start the GNOME Display Manager (GDM) on boot to be presented with a graphical login screen.
systemctl enable gdm
When using NVIDIA proprietary drivers
For the longest time NVIDIA only supported their EGLStreams interface for Wayland sessions. Despite GNOME having support for both EGLStreams and the more popular GBM interface, the GNOME Display Manager disables the Wayland session via a udev
rule, if it detects the proprietary driver is in use, to prevent problems with the login screen not showing.
To force enable GNOME's Wayland session even with the proprietary NVIDIA driver installed, check the following files:
/etc/gdm/custom.conf
: Make sure the lineWaylandEnable=false
is commented out (should be by default)/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules
: Rename the file and create a symbolic link to/dev/null
ln -s /dev/null /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules
Keep in mind that Wayland depends on Kernel Mode Setting to function properly, so it is necessary to include the appropriate kernel modules in the initramfs and setting the kernel commandline parameter to enable KMS support for the proprietary NVIDIA driver!
See Graphics Cards on how to set up early KMS with the proprietary NVIDIA driver.
Set Keymap for GDM
NOTE: Executing this command while chroot
ed into an installation will produce an error that the locale could not be found. Set after rebooting the system, press CTRL + ALT + F3
when GDM shows up (or any F-key between 2 and 7) to switch tty, log in via the command line and execute the command as root
.
localectl set-x11-keymap de
See instructions at Plymouth page on how to set up Plymouth.
Misc additional packages
Additional packages you might want:
Name | Description |
---|---|
gthumb |
Image viewer with simple editing capabilities |
lollypop |
Music player for GNOME |
seahorse |
Secrets manager (login credentials, SSH keys, GPG keys) |
fwupd |
Firmware update manager; allows UEFI capsule updates in GNOME Software if supported by firmware |
pacman -S gthumb lollypop seahorse fwupd
GNOME Keyring
Gnome Keyring is a useful tool for securely storing and managing passwords, SSH keys, and other sensitive information.
As gnome-keyring
is already a member of the gnome
package group, it should already be installed.
To manage the contents of gnome-keyring
install seahorse
:
pacman -S seahorse
SSH Keys
GNOME comes with GNOME Keyring as the component to store passwords and other secrets. It can act as a wrapper around ssh-agent
and displays a GUI password entry dialog when you need to unlock an SSH key. This dialog also has a checkbox to remember the password, and will unlock the key automatically when you login to your GNOME session via your regular user password.
To utilize GNOME Keyring for storing SSH passphrases, install the gcr-4
package:
pacman -S gcr-4
Then, enable the gcr-ssh-agent.socket
user unit:
systemctl --user enable --now gcr-ssh-agent.socker
This will create a socket file under $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/gcr/ssh
and set the $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
environment variable, which ssh-agent
uses to look for unlocked SSH keys and use them for authentication.
Uniform application styles
Qt applications
To make Qt/KDE applications fit in with the GNOME desktop you can install an Adwaita Qt theme and window decorations:
yay -S adwaita-qt{5,6}-git qadwaitadecorations-qt{5,6}
Then set the following environment variables in ~/.config/evironment.d/qt.conf
:
QT_WAYLAND_DECORATION=adwaita
QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=Adwaita-Dark
GTK3 applications
There is an Adwaita theme that brings GTK3 apps in line with the current LibAdwaita theme:
pacman -S adw-gtk-theme
Then open GNOME Tweaks and set the application theme for legacy applications to adw-gtk3
(or explicitly to adw-gtk3-dark
if you notice apps that are not dark mode aware).
Flatpak apps
To apply Adwaita themes to Flatpak apps, install the following packages:
flatpak install org.gtk.Gtk3theme.adw-gtk3 org.gtk.Gtk3theme.adw-gtk3-dark
If you set the theme for legacy applications in GNOME Tweaks they will also be applied to Flatpak apps.
Firefox
Firefox can be customized to look like a GNOME native application by applying a GNOME Theme to it.
The simplest way to apply the theme is by installing Add Water, an application that allows you to install/remove the Firefox GNOME theme with a single click. It also allows to customize the GNOME theme with several options. It can auto-detect different versions of Firefox (repo package, Flatpak, Snap) as well as Firefox forks (Floorp, Cachy, LibreWolf).
flatpak install dev.qwery.AddWater
NOTE: When Firefox receives an update the theme can break in some ways. When this happens you can uninstall the theme temporarily or hold off on updating Firefox until an updated version of the theme becomes available.
Steam
There is an Adwaita theme available for Steam to make it fit in with the rest of the GNOME desktop. An app is available that can install and manage the theme for you:
flatpak install io.github.Foldex.AdwSteamGtk
Remove potentially unwanted packages
GNOME Dev Tools
pacman -Rsc gnome-{builder,devel-docs,multi-writer,terminal} accerciser d-spy devhelp glade sysprof
User Software
pacman -Rsc gnome-{notes,recipes,sound-recorder} polari
Games
pacman -Rsc gnome-{2048,chess,games,klotski,mahjongg,mines,nibbles,sudoku,taquin,tetravex} hitori iagno lightsoff quadrapassel tali
Replace repo packages with Flatpaks
If you wish to use the Flatpak versions of packages that the GNOME desktop team maintains themselves, you can uninstall the packages that are available as Flatpak in GNOME Software.
Remove
TIP: Put substrings of package names between curly brackets { }
so the shell substitutes the values, e.g. gnome-{calculator,calendar,characters,clocks}
is interpreted as if you typed gnome-calculator gnome-calendar gnome-characters gnome-clocks
. Nesting also works!
Packages part of the gnome
package group:
pacman -Rn gnome-{calculator,calendar,characters,clocks,connections,contacts,font-viewer,logs,maps,music,text-editor,weather} \
epiphany evince loupe simple-scan snapshot sushi totem
Packages part of the gnome-extra
package group:
pacman -Rn accerciser cheese d-spy dconf-editor devhelp endeavour eog evolution geary ghex gitg glade \
gnome-{2048,boxes,builder,chess,devel-docs,dictionary,games,klotski,mahjongg,mines,multi-writer,nibbles,notes,photos,recipes,sound-recorder,sudoku,taquin,terminal,tetravex,tweaks} \
hitori iagno lightsoff polari quadrapassel seahorse sysprof tali
Reinstall
Install the core GNOME apps as Flatpaks:
NOTE: Some of the repo packages of the gnome-extra
group have been discontinued by GNOME. The following Flatpak selections replaces these with actively developed alternatives.
flatpak install flathub org.gnome.{Calculator,Calendar,Calls,Snapshot,Characters,clocks,ColorViewer,Connections,Contacts,SimpleScan,Evince,Extensions,font-viewer,Loupe,Logs,Maps,Music,NautilusPreviewer,TextEditor,Showtime,Weather,Epiphany}
Selection of Flatpaks previously from the gnome-extra
package group:
flatpak install flathub org.gnome.{Evolution,Geary,GHex,gitg,Glade,Boxes,Photos,seahorse.Application,World.Iotas} ca.desrt.dconf-editor io.github.alainm23.planify page.kramo.Cartridges page.tesk.Refine com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager io.gitlab.adhami3310.Impression
For a list of additional packages, see GNOME Flatpaks.
KDE Plasma
Base KDE Plasma packages for the full Plasma experience. Bundle with other packages to prevent package conflicts providing the same functionality.
TIP: Include any and all packages you want installed in a list to pacman
. That way pacman
will resolve package dependencies correctly and not install packages that would cause conflicts with other packages later on in the setup; e.g. the plasma
group installs pulseaudio
as a dependency of plasma-pa
, but pulseaudio
and pipewire
(see below) are conflicting packages, meaning they can't both be installed at the same time prompting you to remove one or the other. Explicitly selected packages take precedence over packages auto-selected via dependencies.
pacman -S plasma plasma-wayland-session kde-applications
Setting up the display manager
The plasma
package group includes the Simple Desktop Display Manager (SDDM) for signing into KDE Plasma sessions and others.
Enable SSDM to start on boot and present a graphical login interface:
systemctl enable sddm
SDDM uses the X11 keymap to determine the input method for the keyboard. Change the default keymap with localectl
:
NOTE: Executing this command while chroot
ed into an installation will produce an error that the locale could not be found. Set after rebooting the system, press CTRL + ALT + F3
when SDDM shows up (or any F-key between 2 and 7) to switch tty, log in via the command line and execute the command as root
.
localectl set-x11-keymap de
KDE Wallet
KDE Wallet is the integrated password manager and secret store of KDE Plasma. It stores passwords to websites, WiFi networks, network shares, SSH keys and more.
Unlock Wallet automatically on login
To automatically unlock your wallet on login, the kwallet-pam
package provides the necessary PAM modules (already part of the plasma
package group).
There are several caveats to consider:
- Only
blowfish
encryption is supported - Wallet can only be unlocked if the autologin method saves the password, e.g. when using
pam_autologin
- Wallet cannot be unlocked when logging in with a fingerprint
- Wallet must be named
kdewallet
(default name) - Disabling automatic closing of Wallet may be desired to keep it from asking for the password after every use
- When choosing to secure Wallet with a password it must match the user account password
Automatic unlocking can also be achieved by setting no password. Do keep in mind, however, that this could lead to potentially undesired read/write access to your secrets. Enabling Prompt when an application accesses a wallet under Access Control is highly recommended.
When setting up with SDDM as display manager (default for Plasma) no further PAM configuration is necessary, as the config comes with SDDM.
Storing SSH key passphrases in Wallet
KDE Wallet can be used to store passphrases for SSH keys and have a KDE prompt appear asking for the password.
To also automatically unlock the SSH keys a SSH agent needs to be set up and running.
The openssh
package (since version 9.4p1-3) comes with a systemd user unit to start the SSH agent on login regardless of a graphical session running:
NOTE: This needs to be run as the user you set up earlier, without sudo
.
systemd enable --user ssh-agent
The user unit creates a Unix socket for other applications to communicate with the agent. For these applications to know this socket, the SSH_AUTH_SOCK
environment variable needs to be set. This can be achieved via user-specific systemd environment variables.
On login, systemd parses *.conf
files in ~/.config/environment.d/
and sets environment variables from these. Environment variables are set in a KEY=VALUE
fashion.
Create a new file ~/.config/environment.d/ssh_agent.conf
:
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/ssh-agent.socket
Additionally, to have a KDE dialog box appear in case the passphrase is not stored in your Wallet, point the SSH_ASKPASS
environment variable to the ksshaskpass
application (also included in the plasma
package group):
SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/bin/ksshaskpass
SSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE=prefer
Chromium-based browsers
To make Chromium-based browsers (Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, etc.) use Wallet as a password store launch it with --password-store=kwallet5
or --password-store=detect
.
To make this launch argument persistent, add it to the "flags" file for the Chromium-based browser you want to use:
Browser | Path |
---|---|
Chromium | ~/.config/chromium-flags.conf |
Google Chrome | ~/.config/chrome-flags.conf |
Google Chrome DEV | ~/.config/chrome-dev-flags.conf |
Vivaldi | ~/.config/vivaldi-stable.conf |
See also: Making flags persistent on Arch Wiki
Misc additional packages
Additional packages you might want:
Name | Description |
---|---|
freerdp |
Support for the Remote Desktop Protocol used for remote login to MS Windows machines |
kimageformats |
Support for additional image formats in Dolphin and Gwenview |
flatpak |
Support for installing applications as Flatpak packages from Flathub through Discover |
fwupd |
Firmware update manager; allows UEFI capsule updates in Discover if supported by firmware |
packagekit-qt6 |
Manage Arch packages in Discover |