July 7th, 2017

I’m currently working on an Arch Linux distribution. What I love about it is the huge amount of Sys Admin stuff I learned while installing it again and again, each time faster than before, and with a better knowledge of what I was doing. I’m not going to explain how to install it, but rather present some packages I use to customize the default system.

System utilities

Let's install the basics:

yaourt redshift oh-my-zsh

• redshift allows you to change the temperature of your screen. It tires the eyes less than having a blue screen, especially during the night.
• oh-my-zsh is a zsh plugin that easily lets you configure your zsh.

Then, with pacman (sudo pacman -S [packages]):

lxrandr xfce4-screenshooter xscreensaver

• lxrandr is a small utility that lets you configure the resolution and external monitors. It is graphical, and very user-friendly.
• The screenshooter is the official xfce screenshooter. You can set any keyboard shortcut to launch it in Settings > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts.
• I like to use xscreensaver to lock my PC. It’s customizable and there are plenty themes available. I often even display a RSS flux. It starts with the xscreensaver-command --lock command. It can be configured through xscreensaver-command --demo.

XFCE is fast

I didn’t have the opportunity to test in depth a lot of graphical interfaces. Yet it’s because xfce remains my favorite for now, and I don’t feel like testing other GUIs, as this one entirely supplies my needs. It’s very fast, and highly customizable. During summer, I ended up having this ChromeOS-like desktop, on xfce. Now I went back to a more classic layout.

Autostart xfce at login

Simply add this line to your zshrc config file, if this is the shell you’re using :

startxfce4

I’m not found of login managers, as they tend to slow down boot time. Xfce is my only graphical interface, so I neither need to switch between it and something else, nor to change the language, keyboard disposition or brightness each time I log in. That’s why a simple console login is entirely sufficient for me.