What to do AFTER you've installed ARCH LINUX - beginner friendly post-install guide

A new-user friendly guide of basic steps to configure your minimal Arch Linux installation, from installing packages and upgrading your system to installing a desktop environment or window manager!

NOTE: #!/bin/sh will be necessary to run shell commands from your xprofile. You can add this in as the top line, it is called a "shebang" and it is used to instruct how the file should be parsed, directing to the default shell on your system.

Please bare with me as I get used to recording! If I do forget something while recording I will always make note in the description.

This video covers:
0:00 Overview
1:45 Allowing your new user account to sudo (run root commands)
4:18 Installing, removing, querying, and updating with Pacman
9:34 Installing an AUR helper tool with makepkg
11:22 Managing systemd processes with systemctl and htop
14:38 Discussing graphical environments - display managers, desktop environments, and window managers
18:59 Installing KDE and configuring a new ~/.xinitrc file for startx
23:14 How to set up an ~/.xprofile to automatically launch programs, and configuring monitors with xrandr

Add the following lines to your ~/.xinitrc file for a KDE Plasma installation allowing for use of ~/.xprofile:
#!/bin/sh

[ -f /etc/xprofile ] && . /etc/xprofile
[ -f ~/.xprofile ] && . ~/.xprofile

export DESKTOP_SESSION=plasma
exec startplasma-x11

[SCMHidayatullah]

Now this is a real guide, you tell what, why and how to do things
Not just random youtuber making video to get views
I hope you're going to keep making these, I'm new to linux

[gabrielkolletalves]

One of the best explanations on Linux topics for beginners here on yt. Keep up with the great work!

[raf.nogueira]

I used Arch for almost 4 years, but now trying to test Ubuntu and Fedora. This video almost made me revert back to Arch again. Loving your channel

[LogiCreates]

Going to be jumping into Arch as a lifetime Windows user soon. I'm looking forward to it but also nervous, your videos have been helping a lot

[burgek]

I hugely appreciate the time and effort you've put into making these videos! You are awesome!!

[Maitreya]

Your content is so good, the best explanations on LInux I've seen in the many months I've been watching Linux content. Many thanks!

[Hammock]

Thank you for the very good videos, i only installed with the arch install and only used very little, but i changed machines and will soon do it manualy now. Thanks again, will follow to learn more about what i can do with arch.

[codyorisko]

This is exactly the kind of content I needed. Thank you so much.

[folgee]

Honeslty thank you! Straight to the point and explained everything fairly well

[dansanger]

I thought you were supposed to immediately call up all your friends, family, and neighbors and tell them which distro you use.

[AlbertDoes]

This was really informative, thank you.

[perrywalker]

Awesome, video on what is next when installing Arch. A lot of very good information to continue creating your own system. Anyone brave enough to get in front of a camera and do these videos has my respect. I have some tips about configuring SUDO that can help. First, I want to point out a syntax tip for the /etc/sudoers file. Notice when looking at the sudoers file there was a % in front of wheel. The % indicates the following name is a group. Without the % the name is a user account. Second, making changes to /etc/sudoers has the risk of when the package maintainers make a change to that file it can be replaced when upgrading the package. I have not run Arch to know if there is a warning about hat or not. If there is and you don’t notice you will lose your changes. If you look at the bottom of the sudoers file you will see an include statement to include files in the /etc/sudoers.d directory. SUDO looks for files in this directory and appends them what was in the sudoers file. This directory is not touched by the package managers except to be created on initial install of the SUDO package. To add yourself or a group to the list of sudoers use your favorite editor to create a file in the /etc/sudoers.d directory with a line like that of the entry shown in the video for wheel in the sudoers file. For example (note do not include the quote marks and substitute your user name for user): “user ALL=(ALL) ALL” will give a user named user SUDO privileges requiring a password. You can also use “user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL” to sudo without requiring a password. As I recall the file names can be anything, but I generally have seen them start with a number and include the name being included. For our example the name will be something like: 010-user. One last thing you can remove SUDO status by removing the file or if you want to maybe establish it later just add ~ to the end of the name like 010-user~. When looking at files in /etc/suders.d sudo ignores files that end with ~ or include a period . in them. Sorry about the long length of this message but the more I typed the more it seems that needed to be said.

[Ukemi]

Thank you for your content, very useful and clear🙏

[BreadOnPenguins]

NOTE: #!/bin/sh will be necessary to run shell commands from your xprofile. You can add this in as the top line, it is called a "shebang" and it is used to instruct how the file should be parsed.

Please bare with me as I get used to recording! If I do forget something while recording I will always make note in the description.


Add the following lines to your ~/.xinitrc file for a KDE Plasma installation allowing for use of ~/.xprofile:
#!/bin/sh

[ -f /etc/xprofile ] && . /etc/xprofile
[ -f ~/.xprofile ] && . ~/.xprofile

export DESKTOP_SESSION=plasma
exec startplasma-x11

[micleh]

The last topic you address would be worth a separate video. I use DWM and have had trouble getting polkit, the ssh-agent and the like to work. I borrowed commands from people's dotfiles just to realized that they messed up my system. With 'exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session dwm", for example, dunst would not work (I could not even execute a simple notify-send command.

My questions boild down to: What belongs into .bashrc, .bash_profile, .profile, .xprofile, .xinitrc and what services must be started for a system to run with startx. Login manager do some work for you, already, right, but that's not what I want.

[takennmc]

display managers are useful in case you are using screen locks since when the dispaly server dies it would go to the display manager not the tty

[fsfan]

wow thank you now i know (at least for the moment lol) how to install software through the back door lol this is actully potentally shorter than apt install yourpackage although im assuming it HAS to be capital s -S is a minor inconvience but ill probably adapt. heres a tip for YOU! run this command sudo -S tldr this is very valuable its man with examples i saw you S vim and i thought S was the command so i was like man S LOL

[damnsonwheredyoufindthis]

Thank you for the tutorial
Are you going to cover ricing?

[AlbertDoes]

I'd love to get your first impressions of hyprland or a bit of a guide on DWM - heard that's a bit tricky

[macrosss]

So installing with yay makes the app files to be in .cache for yay? If i need to change the dwms config file for exemple ill be changing that file in yays cache? I cant find the "instalation" folder anywhere. Just making sure
Keep it up, really liking your style of teaching.