Terry Sun - Computer Configuration

My current laptop is a (Late 2019) Dell XPS 13, 2-in-1 (7390).

rEFInd as a boot manager
LXDM as a login manager
i3 as a window manager, with polybar in place of i3statusbar
autorandr to manage external monitors

My dotfiles are here.

Arch Installation

pacman -S base-devel
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay
makepkg -si

pacman -S i3-wm i3lock
pacman -S python python-pip
pacman -S firefox neovim gnome-terminal

# LXDM config below
pacman -S lxdm
systemctl enable lxdm

# Backlight control
pacman -S xbacklight xf86-video-intel

# Status bar
pacman -S polybar autorandr arandr playerctl

pacman -S feh evince \
    redshift pavucontrol keepassxc \
    maim ripgrep imagemagick

# Printing
yay cups cups-pdf
systemctl enable cups

Ubuntu Installation

Boot disk

Download ubuntu iso: https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop
dd if=iso of=/dev/--- bs=4M

Basic updates

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt autoremove

Standard first slate:

sudo apt install git zsh tmux polybar
git clone https://github.com/terrynsun/dotfiles.git
cd dotfiles
./init.sh

# vim compiled with +clipboard, to share vim and x clipboards
sudo apt install vim-gtk3
snap install --classic nvim

sh -c 'curl -fLo "${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}"/nvim/site/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
       https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim'

vim +PlugInstall

chsh # /usr/bin/zsh

Setup mate-i3.

sudo apt install i3 ubuntu-mate-desktop
gsettings set com.solus-project.brisk-menu hot-key ''
gsettings set org.mate.session.required-components windowmanager i3
gsettings set org.mate.session.required-components filemanager ''

gsettings set org.mate.session.required-components panel ''

Log out, log back into MATE (i3) and zsh.

Neovim on snap is more up to date than Ubuntu repo.

sudo apt install \
   ssh curl ripgrep arandr autorandr \
   keepassxc feh maim \
   pulseaudio pavucontrol playerctl evince xbacklight \
   gh

# These seem to come pre-installed.
sudo apt install blueman picom redshift

Remove/disable the builtin MATE status bar so system tray icons will register to polybar, then restart to clear MATE. Not sure if you need to remove this library.

Also, have to customize the color scheme to use a light color for icons so they will show up against the polybar background, and configure blueman to use an icon that reads color scheme.

For nm-applet without MATE, I used lxappearance to set the icon theme.

apt purge ayatana-indicator-common
gsettings set org.blueman.general symbolic-status-icons true

VS Code:

snap install --classic code
# in vs code terminal
ext install vscodevim.vim
# Set "keyboard.dispatch": "keyCode" for capslock -> esc
ext install matklad.rust-analyzer
# (make sure to also download the server)

Other

Configure git username, ssh key.

/etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf

[base]
session=/usr/bin/i3

[display]
theme=IndustrialArch

[userlist]
disable=1

Firefox

Enable touchscreen gestures in Firefox: Add MOZ_USE_XINPUT2 DEFAULT=1 to /etc/security/pam_env.conf.

Plugins:

Bluetooth

yay bluez bluez-util pulseaudio-bluetooth blueman
sudo systemctl enable bluetooth

Docker

See install docs and postinstall.

Computer Configuration