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Essentials Manual

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Warning: DON’T USE! Might be outdated. Go back to Arch Index above!

Info: These are manual steps to install the essentials. I generally say best to go back and use the scripts which does most work for us.

The essentials (Manual)
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Installs yay (Yet another Yogurt, an AUR (Arch User Repository) helper):

sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel && git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay-bin.git && cd yay-bin && makepkg -si && cd.. && sudo rm -r yay-bin

PipeWire Audio
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Modern low-latency audio for media/gaming:

sudo pacman -S --needed pipewire lib32-pipewire pipewire-jack lib32-pipewire-jack pipewire-audio wireplumber qpwgraph pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse

Enable: systemctl --user enable --now pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

Essential Packages
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Core tools/utilities:

sudo pacman -S --needed git curl wget nano vim neovim bat which binutils findutils btop cifs-utils tealdeer mesa openbsd-netcat zip unzip gzip ark p7zip unarchiver unrar bzip2 psensor sed imlib2 sshfs fastfetch ufw pacman-contrib ffmpegthumbs fwupd

Enable: sudo systemctl enable ufw && sudo systemctl start ufw && sudo ufw enable

Fonts
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Full emoji/CJK/Nerd font support (no squares):

sudo pacman- S --needed $(pacman-Ssqnerd-fonts) noto-fonts-cjk noto-fonts-emoji ttf-dejavu ttf-fira-code ttf-font-awesome otf-font-awesome  ttf-inconsolata ttf-linux-libertine ttf-ubuntu-font-family ttf-fira-code ttf-inconsolata ttf-liberation ttf-linux-libertine ttf-ubuntu-font-family ttf-opensans ttf-freefont ttf-droid terminus-font ttf-roboto ttf-roboto-mono otf-aurulent-nerd otf-codenewroman-nerd otf-comicshanns-nerd otf-commit-mono-nerd otf-droid-nerd otf-firamono-nerd otf-font-awesome otf-geist-mono-nerd otf-hasklig-nerd otf-hermit-nerd otf-monaspace-nerd otf-opendyslexic-nerd otf-overpass-nerd otf-font-awesome-5 ttf-font-awesome-5 ttf-icomoon-feather ttf-material-design-iconic-font ttf-material-design-icons-extended ttf-ms-fonts

fc-cache-vf

The above are all via pacman, But there are more packages that we need from yay:

yay -S otf-font-awesome-5 ttf-font-awesome-5 ttf-icomoon-feather ttf-material-design-iconic-font ttf-material-design-icons-extended ttf-ms-fonts

Reflector
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Auto-select fastest mirrors:

sudo pacman -S --needed reflector
sudo nano /etc/xdg/reflector/reflector.conf
Info: Please note that NL is for The Netherlands. Check here for the country code of your choice (or remove the --country NL to just get fastest overall).

Add the following content:

--protocol https
--sort rate
--country NL # Your country code
--latest 200
--save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Now we just enable and start the service:

sudo systemctl enable reflector.service
sudo systemctl start reflector.service