Archlinux Tips & Tricks

Apps/packages I install on Arch Linux along with tips and tricks for a new Arch Linux + KDE Plasma Install.

Installing paru package manager

paru is an alternative package manager for archlinux that also supports installing packages from the aur.

sudo pacman -S git base-devel # packages needed to build and install paru
cd /tmp
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru-bin.git # downloads paru PKGBUILD from the aur using git
cd paru-bin # change into the directory we just download
makepkg -si # build and install the package

Enabling Multilib

For several of packages including steam you’ll need to enable the multilib repository before you can install them.

To enable multilib repository, uncomment the [multilib] section in
/etc/pacman.conf You can open the file by running kate /etc/pacman.conf
Find the folowing lines in the file:

#[multilib]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

And remove the # from the start of the lines so it looks like the following:

[multilib]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Then save the file and update your system by running:

sudo pacman -Syu # or paru -Syu

Updating your system

Run the following command to update your system. It is recommended that you update your system before installing new packages since often apps/packages will depend on other packages being up to date.

paru -Syu # or sudo pacman -Syu

Searching for a package

# searching for steam for example
paru steam # or pacman -Ss steam

You can also search packages on the archlinux website:
https://archlinux.org/packages/

Installing a package

paur -S steam # or sudo pacman -S steam

Install useful packages

Here’s my list of useful packages that I normally install.

  • qbittorent torrenting
  • konsole kde terminal emulator
  • dolphin kde’s file manager
  • ffmpegthumbs (optional) - video thumbnails in dolphin
  • kde-cli-tools (optional) - for editing file type options in dolphin
  • kdegraphics-thumbnailers (optional) - PDF and PS thumbnails in dolphin
  • kdenetwork-filesharing (optional) - samba aka windows usershare properties menu in dolphin
  • kio-admin (optional) - for managing files as administrator in dolphin
  • purpose (optional) - share context menu in dolphin
  • firefox web browser
  • jq command line tool for working with json files
  • kate kde text editor
  • discord official discord client
  • steam steam
  • smplayer my favourite video player on linux. vlc is also available for installing with paru or pacman
  • yt-dlp a command line tool to download videos from youtube, twitch, and other places, but also optionally used by smplayer to play/stream videos from the internet
  • linux-firmware may be needed for some wifi cards to work or certain usb devices.
  • obs-studio for screen recording/streaming
  • obs-vkcapture for obs game capture support. Usually performans better then window capture in my experience.
  • obs-pipewire-audio-capture PipeWire audio capturing for obs. Useful for capturing audio from individual applications.
  • spectacle KDE’s default screenshot/screen recording tool
  • gwenview KDE’s default image viewer
  • kimageformats (optional) - support for xcf, exr, psd, and more image formats in gwenview
  • qt6-imageformats (optional) - support for tiff, webp, and more image formats
  • shotcut a video editor
  • gst-plugins-{base,good,bad,ugly} gst-plugin-pipewire gst-libav for more video and audio codec support
  • pipwire-{alsa,pulse} other audio backends for pipewire that some apps or games may use
  • ark KDE archive tool used to unzip/zip files
  • 7zip (optional) - 7Z format support for ark
  • unarchiver (optional) - RAR format support for ark
  • unrar (optional) - RAR decompression support for ark
  • arj (optional) - ARJ format support for ark
  • lrzip (optional) - LRZ format support for ark
  • lzop (optional) - LZO format support for ark
  • telegram-desktop telegram desktop client

If you’re lazy you can install all the above pacakges in one line:

paru -S --needed qbittorent konsole dolphin ffmpegthumbs kde-cli-tools kdegraphics-thumbnailers kdenetwork-filesharing kio-admin purpose firefox jq kate discord smplayer yt-dlp linux-firmware obs-studio obs-vkcapture obs-pipewire-audio-capture spectacle gwenview kimageformats qt6-imageformats shotcut gst-plugins-{base,good,bad,ugly} gst-plugin-pipewire gst-libav pipwire-{alsa,pulse} ark 7zip unarchiver unrar arj lrzip lzop telegram-desktop

NVidia Drivers

Pick one of the following packages for nvidia drivers. If you’re not sure pick nvidia-dkms

  • nvidia-dkms nvidia drivers for any kernel
  • nvidia nvidia driver for stock arch linux kernel only

Additional packages

  • lib32-nvidia-utils for 32 bit nvidia drivers install this
  • libva-nvidia-driver required for discord on wayland with nvidia gpu. Also enables hardware video decoding/encoding in some other apps
  • nvidia-settings nvidia settings: very little settings actually possible especially on wayland but useful to see nvidia temps and load

If you don’t care or know which ones to pick; install nvidia drivers with this command

paru -S nvidia-dkms libva-nvidia-driver lib32-nvidia-utils nvidia-settings

AMD GPU Drivers

TODO: Maybe one day I’ll add instructions for AMD GPUs.
Meanwhile check the arch wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU

Microcode

For AMD CPUs install amd-ucode. For Intel CPUs install intel-ucode

Read more about microcde here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Microcode

Installing the Modrinth App

You can download the linux AppImage from https://modrinth.com/app Place it wherever you want and click on it to run it.

There’s a small chance that fuse2 isn’t installed which is needed to run AppImages

paru -S fuse2

If you want to “install” the app image you can use something like AppImageLauncher

paru -S appimagelauncher

After that just click on the modrinth .AppImage again and AppImageLauncher will ask you if you want to integrate or run once. Click integrate to install it. It’ll add an entry in you application launcher aka start menu.

If you get a blank screen when launching Modrinth on NVidia a workaround may be setting the WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER environment variable to 1. If you’re not sure how to set environment variables one way you can do it is with the following command:

echo "WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1" | sudo tee -a /etc/environment

Then reboot and try launching Modrinth again. This should also fix any other apps that use webkit2gtk on nvidia.




Some tips & tricks to improve your Arch Linux experience

Discord

Sometimes discord will ask you to update before you can use discord. To prevent this from happening you can set SKIP_HOST_UPDATE to true. Check the Arch Wiki on how to do this
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Discord

Or run this one liner. You’ll need to have jq installed:

mkdir -p ~/.config/discord; echo "$((cat -u ~/.config/discord/settings.json || echo '{}') | jq '.SKIP_HOST_UPDATE = true')" > ~/.config/discord/settings.json


Gamemode

May not improve your game performance much if at all but just in case it does you can install it.

paru -S gamemode
paru -S lib32-gamemode # only needed for 32 bit games, pretty rare these days
sudo usermod -a -G gamemode $USER # add yourself to the gamemode user group and reboot after for it to apply

To make Steam start a game with GameMode, right click the game in the Library, select Properties…, then in the Launch Options text box enter:

gamemoderun %command%

For more info go to: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GameMode



Mangohud

Mangohud is an in game overlay for fps, cpu/gpu load, temps, and other info

Install mangohud

paru -S mangohud # in game overlay for fps and system load and temps
paru -S lib32-mangohud # 32 bit support for mangohud

To make Steam start a game with mangohud, right click the game in the Library, select Properties…, then in the Launch Options text box enter:

MANGOHUD=1 %command%

If the above doesn’t work that means the game isn’t using vulkan. You can try this instead:

mangohud %command%

To combine with gamemode just chain the options in the steam launch options. for example:

MANGOHUD=1 gamemoderun %command%

For more info go to: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/MangoHud

yt-dlp

A command I use very often to download videos, music from youtube, twitch and many other websites with videos. Very simple to use. Here’s an example for download a video from youtube:

yt-dlp 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'

If you want to download to a certain location you can easily open a terminal in any directory with the kde file manager by pressing F4. Another option is to just cd to the directory:

cd ~/Downloads # this is the same thing as cd /home/username/Downloads or cd $HOME/Downloads
yt-dlp 'https://url_to_download'

FlatPak / KDE Discover

You can install apps/programs with a software centre kinda like playstore for android or windows store by using KDE’s Software centre called Discover. Discover has flatpak support if the dependency is installed

paru -S discover # installs KDE Discover
paru -S flatpak # Adds flatpak support
paru -S fwupd # (Optional) for firmware update support
paru -S udisks2 # (Optional) UEFI firmware upgrade support

Or in one line

paru -S discover flatpak fwupd udisks2

Note: I prefer to install pacakges from the offical archlinux repositories using pacman or paru but if a package is not available there FlatPak/flathub is an option