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GNOME

Base GNOME Packages

pacman -S gnome gnome-extra
\
xf86-video-amdgpu vulkan-radeon amdvlk libva-mesa-driver \
pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack pipewire-alsa \
hunspell hunspell-de hunspell-en_US hyphen hyphen-de \
cups logrotate system-config-printer \
gthumb lollypop seahorse fwupd gnome-software-packagekit-plugin

Video Acceleration

Intel

pacman -S mesa vulkan-intel intel-media-driver libva-intel-driver
yay -S intel-hybrid-codec-driver

AMDGPU

pacman -S xf86-video-amdgpu libva-mesa-driver vulkan-radeon amdvlk

Nvidia

Nouveau driver

pacman -S libva-mesa-driver mesa-vdpau
yay -S nouveau-fw

Proprietary driver

pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils # Includes Vulkan driver

Audio

pacman -S pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack pipewire-alsa

Bluetooth

pacman -S bluez bluez-utils
systemctl enable bluetooth

Spell Checking

pacman -S hunspell hunspell-de hunspell-en_US hyphen hyphen-de

Printing

pacman -S cups logrotate system-config-printer
systemctl enable cups

Firefox

pacman -S firefox firefox-i18n-de
echo "MOZ_X11_EGL=1" >> /etc/environment
echo "MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1" >> /etc/environment
echo "MOZ_WEBRENDER=1" >> /etc/environment

Alternatively, navigate to about:config and set gfx.webrender.all to true to enable WebRender compositor.

Hardware Decoding

Set the following in about:config

media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled                     => true
media.ffvpx.enabled                            => false
media.rdd-vpx.enabled                          => false
media.navigator.mediadatadecoder_vpx_enabled   => true

Setting up display manager

Start GDM on boot

systemctl enable gdm

Set keymapKeymap for GDM

NOTE: this does not work while chrooted into an installation.

localectl set-x11-keymap de

Start GDM on boot

systemctl enable gdm

Plymouth

AlternativelyOptionally, as an alternative, install gdm-plymouth (AUR) for a smooth transition from boot splash:

yay -S gdm-plymouth
systemctl enable gdm-plymouth

Generate well-known user directories

xdg-user-dirs-update

OptionalMisc Depspackages

Additional packages you might want:

  • gthumb: Image viewer with simple editing capabilities
  • lollypop: Music player for GNOME
  • seahorse: Secrets manager (login credentials, SSH key passphrases, GPG keys)
  • fwupd: Firmware update manager; allows UEFI capsule updates in GNOME Software if supported by firmware
  • gnome-software-packagekit-plugin: Manage Arch packages in GNOME Software
pacman -S gthumb lollypop seahorse fwupd gnome-software-packagekit-plugin

Remove potentially unwanted packages

GNOME Dev Tools

pacman -Rsc accerciser devhelp glade gnome-builder sysprof

User Software

pacman -Rsc gnome-recipes

Games

pacman -Rsc five-or-more four-in-a-row gnome-chess gnome-klotski gnome-mahjongg gnome-mines gnome-nibbles gnome-robots gnome-robots gnome-sudoku gnome-taquin gnome-tetravex hitori iagno lightsoff polari quadrapassel swell-foop tali

Customize GDM (wallpaper, logo, message)

  1. Create directories:
    mkdir -p /etc/dconf/profile
mkdir -p /etc/dconf/db/gdm.d/
  2. Create config files
    touch /etc/dconf/profile/gdm
touch /etc/dconf/db/gdm.d/01-login-screen
  3. Contents of /etc/dconf/profile/gdm
    user-db:user
system-db:gdm
file-db:/usr/share/gdm/greeter-dconf-defaults
  4. Contents of /etc/dconf/db/gdm.d/01-login-screen
    [org/gnome/login-screen]
banner-message-enable=true
banner-message-text='Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet'
logo='/path/to/image.file'
[org/gnome/desktop/background]
picture-uri='file:///usr/share/backgrounds/arsmedium/background.jpg'
  5. Update gconf to apply configs
    dconf update
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