Computer Configuration

Oct 30, 2025

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.

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

Gnome terminal Solarized colors

Dotfiles

# Setup ssh
git clone https://github.com/terrynsun/dotfiles
cd dotfiles
./init.sh

chsh # /usr/bin/zsh

Login

/etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf

[base]
session=/usr/bin/i3

[display]
theme=IndustrialArch

[userlist]
disable=1

Configuration

Enable touchscreen gestures in Firefox

Add MOZ_USE_XINPUT2 DEFAULT=1 to /etc/security/pam_env.conf.

Bluetooth

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

Ubuntu

sudo apt install i3 git zsh tmux polybar

git clone https://github.com/terrynsun/dotfiles.git
cd dotfiles
./init.sh

chsh # /usr/bin/zsh

Log out, log into i3.

i3-mate

I started using i3 alongside mate desktop, which gets you a bit of built-in niceties and configuration, but allows using i3 as the window manager.

sudo apt install 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 ''

Other packages

# vim compiled with +clipboard, to share vim and x clipboards
sudo apt install vim-gtk3
# But I mainly use neovim, anyway.
sudo snap install nvim

sudo apt install \
   ssh curl feh ripgrep autorandr keepassxc \
   gh \
   maim \  # sshot
   xclip \ # sshot, nvim global clipboard

# Bundled with mate (?)
sudo apt install pulseaudio autorandr blueman picom

Docker

See install docs and postinstall.