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 display manager
Start SDDM on boot
Start the Simple Desktop Display Manager (SDDM) on boot to be presented with a graphical login screen.
systemctl enable sddm
Set Keymap for SDDM
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
Generate well-known user directories
xdg-user-dirs-update
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
Install kwallet-pam
(already part of the plasma
package group).
There are several caveats to consider:
- Only
blowfish
encryption is supported - Wallet
cannotcan only be unlockedwithifauto-loginthe autologin method saves the password, e.g. when usingpam_autologin
- Wallet cannot be unlocked when logging in with a fingerprint
- Wallet must be named
kdewallet
(default name) When choosing to secure Wallet with a password it must match the user password- 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 password
YouAutomatic unlocking can also be achieved by setting no password. Do keep in mind, however, that this could also use no password for your Wallet. If doing so you might wantlead to enablepotentially prompts whenever an application tries to access the Wallet to prevent unwantedundesired read/write access to it.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.
Using Wallet to store SSH key passphrases
Install ksshaskpass
(already part of the plasma
package group).
Start ssh-agent
upon login
Create a new systemd user unit at ~/.config/systemd/user/ssh-agent.service
with the following contents:
[Unit]
Description=SSH key agent
[Service]
Type=simple
Environment=SSH_AUTH_SOCK=%t/ssh-agent.socket
# DISPLAY required for ssh-askpass to work
Environment=DISPLAY=:0
ExecStart=/usr/bin/ssh-agent -D -a $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
Autostart .desktop
entry
Create ~/.config/autostart/ssh-add.desktop
with following contents:
[Desktop Entry]
Exec=ssh-add -q
Name=ssh-add
Type=Application
NOTE: this .desktop
file will only unlock SSH private keys with the default names. If you named your keys differently you also have to pass their path to ssh-add -q
:
[Desktop Entry]
Exec=ssh-add -q ~/.ssh/key1 ~/.ssh/key2 ~/.ssh/key3
Name=ssh-add
Type=Application
Setting ksshaskpass
as SSHpassphrase agentprompter
NextCreate createthe systemd user environment file at ~/.config/
with following contents:plasma-workspace/env/askpass.shenvironment.d/ssh_askpass.conf
#!/bin/sh
export SSH_ASKPASS='/usr/bin/ksshaskpass'
And make the file executable:
chmod +x ~/.config/plasma-workspace/env/askpass.shSSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE=prefer
This will set ksshaskpass
as the default SSH agentkey passphrase storeprompter and makefor graphical password prompts work.environments.
Wallet for Google Chrome password store
To make Google Chrome use Wallet as a password store launch it with --password-store=kwallet5
or --password-store=detect
. To make this persistent, add the argument to ~/.config/chrome-flags.conf
.
NOTE: Different flavors of Chromium-based browsers use a different file name:
- Chromium:
chromium-flags.conf
- Google Chrome DEV:
chrome-dev-flags.conf
- Vivaldi:
vivaldi-stable.conf
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 |
ksshaskpass |
ssh-add helper that uses kwallet and kpassworddialog |
fwupd |
Firmware update manager; allows UEFI capsule updates in Discover if supported by firmware |
packagekit-qt5 |
Manage Arch packages in Discover |
appstream-qt |
Adds AppStream support for Discover |
pacman -S freerdp kimageformats ksshaskpass fwupd packagekit-qt5