Funny arch configuration

Why is it funny you ask?

I don't know.

What's in here?

Configuration files for my Arch setup:

• atuin
• hyprland
• kitty
• nvim
• rofi
• waybar
• zshrc
• grub
• sddm (currently not using it, I'm using GodotGreetd)

There's also installed software/packages and troubleshooting steps.

Theme

I'm currently using the rose pine theme and palette for almost everything.

Installed stuff

Pacman packages

# terminal
sudo pacman -S less fd ripgrep unzip fzf zoxide atuin

# clipboard:
sudo pacman -S wl-clipboard

# fonts:
sudo pacman -S ttf-font-awesome ttf-firacode-nerd noto-fonts-emoji noto-fonts-cjk ttf-liberation ttf-0xproto-nerd

# base programs:
sudo pacman -S steam discord obs-studio eog vlc

# Theme customization (dark mode and mouse cursor)
sudo pacman -S nwg-look

# razer (check https://openrazer.github.io/#download )
sudo pacman -S openrazer-daemon linux-headers python-openrazer

# Media control: 
sudo pacman -S playerctl

# Screenshots:
sudo pacman -S jq grim slurp hyprpicker hyprshot

# blue light filter: 
sudo pacman -S hyprsunset

# brightness control: 
sudo pacman -S ddcutil

# Bluetooth: 
sudo pacman -S bluez bluez-utils blueman

# hardware monitoring
sudo pacman -S lm-sensors amdgpu_top

# Lock screen
sudo pacman -S hypridle hyprlock

sudo pacman -S stow
sudo pacman -S waybar
sudo pacman -S rustup

Rust packages

# Markdown viewer
cargo install inlyne

Mouse cursor

Rose Pine: https://rosepinetheme.com/themes/cursor/ Or Breeze Dark from KDE.

Zsh

I use ohmyzsh.

Usage

To keep all of these config files in a single repository, you need to create symlinks for each package/app into their respective directory.

I use stow to manage the symlinks.

1. Install stow with your package manager: sudo pacman -S stow
2. Use the install.sh script to create symlinks for each package.
   • You can also use stow PACKAGE_NAME to create a symlink for the desired package.
     • Example: stow nvim. This will create a symlink for Neovim into ~/.config/nvim.
   • Some packages add files outside of the home directory, so you need to specify the directory.
     • Example: sudo stow grub -t /

Guides / Troubleshooting

I try to document any major problems that I have come across during my arch adventures and how to solve them. Maybe you'll find something useful here :)

Run steam with wofi

Make PrefersNonDefaultGPU=false in .desktop file of Steam.

Related links:

• ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#9940
• ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#9383

Playerctl not detecting apps as media players because of wofi

I had this issue where apps where not showing up as media players sometimes. The culprit was wofi. When I launched apps with the terminal or by running the .desktop file directly with dex it worked perfectly.

wofi sometimes launches apps with different environment variables for some reason. One of these variables is the DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS, which I think is related to the media player control. wofi used a different bus address just because?

To test this, you can change the .desktop file (usually located at /usr/share/applications) of the application. Example with Firefox:

Exec=sh -c "env > /tmp/env_wofi.txt && /usr/lib/firefox/firefox %u"

Run the program (in this case Firefox), open the file (vim /tmp/env_wofi.txt) and check the env variables. Run env in another terminal and compare if DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS is different.

You could try to fix it by adding the env variables to the Exec field of the .desktop file or something else. I honestly didn't try to fix it. At this point wofi gave me so many random problems that I gave up and installed rofi-wayland.

Fix opera not playing video on X/Reddit/Twitch/etc

Issue where you can play video on some websites with opera (installed with yay). Apparently opera installed with snap does not have this issue.

Possible fixes:

• Install this yay package: yay -S opera-ffmpeg-codecs
• https://github.com/Ld-Hagen/fix-opera-linux-ffmpeg-widevine

Dark theme

Some apps like Dolphin or Nautilus will have light theme by default.

There are many ways to change this, like setting env variables.

This is what worked for me:

• Install nwg-look: sudo pacman -S nwg-look
• Open GTK Settings
• In the widgets sections, look for "Color scheme" and select Prefer dark
• (optional) Restart

Mouse theme

If you installed a Mouse/Cursor theme but it's not working you can do the following:

• Install nwg-look
• Open GTK Settings
• Go to "Mouse Cursor" and select your icon theme
• Click "Apply"
• Restart

Bluetooth dualboot

Yes, I use Windows (man I sure love anticheats).

If you have a Windows/Linux dualboot and you want to use Bluetooth devices on both you will experience issues. You will have to repair devices every time you switch OS.

You could also experience weird issues where your network card stops working in Windows (VERY annoying, thanks Microsoft :D). I highly recommend disabling "fast startup" in windows to fix this. You can look up online how to disable it, but these are the general steps:

• Go to Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do.
• Click "Change settings that are currently unavailable."
• Uncheck "Turn on fast startup (recommended)."
• Save changes.

To avoid re-pairing, you need to sync the pairing keys (This guide is not for BT 5.1 devices. Check the resources below for more information).

1. Log into Linux (unpair your devices if they were already paired) and pair your devices.
2. Restart and log into Windows (unpair your devices if they were already paired) and pair your devices.
   • If you are having trouble removing a BT device, go into Device Manager -> Show -> Hidden devices
   • Remove greyed-out bluetooth devices.
   • Try removing your device again.
3. Restart and log into Linux.
4. Mount your windows partition.
   • Create a directory for the mount: sudo mkdir /mnt/windows
   • List your drives: sudo fdisk -l
   • Find a partition with type "Microsoft basic data". It should look similar to "/dev/nvme0n1pX"
   • Install ntfs-3g: sudo pacman -Syu ntfs-3g
   • Mount the partition: sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt/windows
5. Find the MAC address of your BT Adapter and BT device.
   • Run sudo ls /var/lib/bluetooth/ to find the AdapterMAC.
   • You can use your prefered BT front-end (like Blueman) to find the DeviceMAC or run sudo ls /var/lib/bluetooth/<AdapterMAC> to list all Device MACs.
6. cd /mnt/windows/Windows/System32/config
7. sudo chntpw -e SYSTEM
8. Now you should be inside the windows registry. We need to extract the keys for each BT device.
   • cd ControlSet001\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Keys
   • Run ls and find the MAC address of your BT Adapter.
   • cd <AdapterMAC>
   • Run ls again and find the DeviceMAC
   • Run hex <DeviceMAC> and copy the key. It should look like: 55 BC 8B 59 33 50 78 E5 68 C5 B4 39 94 4F E1 U4
9. Change the pairing key in Linux
   • Open the info file of your BT device: sudo vim /var/lib/bluetooth/<AdapterMAC>/<DeviceMAC>/info
   • Change the Key value in the [LinkKey] section with the key you copied from Windows WITHOUT SPACES.
     • Example Key=55BC8B59335078E568C5B439944FE1U4
10. Restart your computer.
11. Try connecting your BT device. It should work :)

Useful resources:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bluetooth#Dual_boot_pairing
• nbanks/bluetooth-dualboot#5
• https://github.com/nbanks/bluetooth-dualboot

Disable a network interface/card

Rant: The network card that came with my motherboard (Realtek 8852CE) has been giving me tons of issues. So I bought an Intel AX210 PCIe card, but now I have 2 network interfaces and I'm constantly confusing them.

To disable a network card, we are going to blacklist the kernel driver module from loading at boot:

1. Run lspci -k to see your pci devices + kernel drivers.
2. Search for "Network controller" and find the device that you want to disable.
3. Write down the kernel module. For example: Kernel modules: rtw89_8852ce.
4. Create a file like /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-networkcard.conf and blacklist the module. Example:

# /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-realtek.conf
blacklist rtw89_8852ce

5. Save the file and run sudo mkinitcpio -P to regenerate your initramfs.
6. Reboot.

Warning

You may need to reconfigure your WiFi connections to use wlan0 if you were previously using wlan1 or something else.

If you run ip a show you should see only one WiFi interface like wlan0.

Disable bluetooth adapter

1. Run lsusb. You will see something like this:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:0852 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bluetooth Radio

2. The 0bda:0852 (probably different for you) is the idVendor:idProduct. Take note of these values.
3. Create a file /etc/udev/rules.d/99-disable-bt.rules:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0bda", ATTR{idProduct}=="0852", ATTR{authorized}="0"

4. Run sudo udevadm control --reload
5. Run sudo udevadm trigger
6. Restart

You should no longer see the bluetooth adapter in your bluetooth app (blueman or similar).

PS5 Controller touchpad acting as a Mouse

To disable this behavior follow this guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Gamepad#Disable_touchpad_acting_as_mouse

Add Windows to GRUB

1. Install os-prober: sudo pacman -Sy os-prober

2. Run sudo fdisk -l and identify the EFI partition of Windows (e.g. "EFI System"). Take note of the partition name (e.g. "/dev/nvme0n1p1").

3. We need to mount the partition, so create a directory to mount it: mkdir -p /mnt/windows

4. Mount the partition: sudo mount /dev/nvmeXnYpZ /mnt/windows. (Use the actual name of your EFI partition)

5. Edit the file /etc/default/grub and add/uncomment GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false.

6. Run sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg. You should see the Windows boot manager in the output.

Add a GRUB theme

First, get a theme. After you have a theme that you want to use:

1. Copy the theme into the themes directory: sudo cp <path/to/your/theme> /boot/grub/themes/
2. Add GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/<YourTheme>/theme.txt" in the /etc/default/grub file.

Rearrange the GRUB menu entries

This method is semi-permanent. You will need to repeat these steps every time you run grub-mkconfig.

Warning

Use at your own risk.

1. Open the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file.
2. Look for the menuentry that you want to reorder.
3. Cut and paste it where you want it to be.
   • Entries are loaded in the order that they are specified.
   • Be careful to cut the entire section and paste it outside of the declaration of other entries.

Useful commands

Brightness and bluelight control

# Blue light
hyprctl hyprsunset temperature identity #default
hyprctl hyprsunset temperature 2500

# Brightness
ddcutil getvcp 10 # Get brightness
ddcutil setvcp 10 40 # Set brightness to 40

zsh keybinds

Different keybind configs for zsh

bindkey -e # emacs (default)
bindkey -v # vi