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Operating Systems. Part 4 — “Arch Linux Setup” 🚀

In the previous part we installed Arch Linux via archinstall and successfully added Windows to GRUB. Now for the tasty part—polishing the system: time, Hyprland, apps, fonts, dotfiles, and other sorcery. There will be jokes, a tiny bit of toxicity, and lots of value. Let’s roll 😎

🧭 Plan of action

  1. Make Windows respect UTC so Linux and Windows agree on time (who’s the clown here, anyway).
  2. Clean up fresh Arch + Hyprland with HyDE.
  3. Fix the fish shell and PATH if something went sideways.
  4. Pull in my dotfiles (or your own) and sort out fonts.
  5. Show a set of screenshots/bindings—so you don’t click blindly.
  6. A quick list of base packages and “why you need them”.
  7. Create SSH and GPG keys for GitHub.
  8. A bit of update rituals and the final goodies.

⏱️ Time: make Windows respect UTC

By default, Linux assumes the hardware clock (RTC/CMOS) stores UTC, and local time = UTC + your timezone + DST. Windows lives in a parallel universe and assumes the RTC already holds local time. As a result, your clock “drifts” when rebooting.

I believe RTC should only store UTC. Everything else is the OS’s job. So let’s nudge Windows.

Open cmd.exe as Administrator and run:

reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation" ^
    /v RealTimeIsUniversal /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

net stop w32time
net start w32time
w32tm /resync

Yes, we just poked the Registry. “Great design” (not), but it works. After this, Windows stops jumping around with the clock. Breathe evenly; proceed.

🧩 First boot into Arch + Hyprland (and a wall of warnings)

Boot into the installed Arch → log in → land in the default Hyprland. There will be warnings at the top—that’s fine, we’ll pretty things up now.

🌈 HyDE — a fast, pretty Wayland desktop on Hyprland

HyDE is a set of scripts/configs for quick, tidy setup: packages, themes (GTK/Qt), configs (SDDM, Waybar, etc.), NVIDIA fixes, GRUB/systemd‑boot integration. I like it—you suffer less and get a solid desktop fast.

Repo: HyDE‑Project/HyDE. Supporting the folks is a noble cause.

Installing HyDE

Open a terminal (Super/Win + Q) and run:

sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/HyDE-Project/HyDE ~/HyDE
cd ~/HyDE/Scripts
./install.sh

During the script you’ll be asked a few questions. My answers / comments:

  • Chaotic AUR — don’t install (wasn’t my cup of tea).
  • AUR helper — I take yay (you can use paru).
  • Shell — fish (zsh just doesn’t click for me, sorry).
  • Fonts — you can start with gnu-free-fonts (we’ll add the missing ones later).
  • SDDM theme — I pick candy (if you chose ly during install, it might stay ly).

Changing the shell may interrupt the install

Sometimes the script crashes when switching shells: fish isn’t in /etc/shells. Fix it manually and rerun the installer.

echo /usr/bin/fish | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
chsh -s /usr/bin/fish

After changing the shell, log out and back in and run ./install.sh again (and again if needed, until everything finishes). It’s usually better not to pull Flatpak apps from the installer to avoid dragging in a truckload of GNOME bits by accident. Later—add what you like.

PATH after HyDE

Sometimes user scripts don’t end up in PATH. Add this for fish:

# add user binaries and hyde scripts (adjust the path on your setup)
set -U fish_user_paths $HOME/.local/bin $HOME/.local/lib/hyde $fish_user_paths

Replace $HOME/.local/lib/hyde with the actual path if yours is different.

🖼️ Screenshots (so you know what “good” looks like)

HyDE makes screenshots easy. A default system after running the HyDE script looks like this:

HyDE Desktop HyDE Console HyDE Keybindings HyDE Ro-fi HyDE Code - OSS

📦 Pull your configs (or mine)

Want to replace the defaults? First switch theme via Cmd + Shift + T.

I’ve got a config repo: take it wholesale or cherry‑pick. Repo: zudaR107/Configs

mkdir -p ~/Sandbox
cd ~/Sandbox
git clone https://github.com/zudaR107/Configs

Important: app configs live in ~/.config. Before copying, inspect the contents and tweak to taste—I tried to comment where needed.

🅰️ Fonts (system‑wide)

# 1) place fonts (ttf/otf/ttc, subfolders are fine)
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/fonts/custom
sudo rsync -av --delete ~/path/to/repo/Fonts/ /usr/local/share/fonts/custom/

# 2) permissions
sudo find /usr/local/share/fonts/custom -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo find /usr/local/share/fonts/custom -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

# 3) refresh cache
sudo fc-cache -f -v

⚙️ Code – OSS

  1. Open Settings → bring over settings from my repo.
  2. Install extensions from the extensions list.

It’ll be pretty and comfy—Promise™ ✨

More configs (TL;DR what they are)

  • dunst — lightweight notifications daemon (X11/Wayland). Copy dunstrc.
  • fastfetch — a turbo‑charged “neofetch”. Copy config.jsonc and logo/Avatar.jpg.
  • fish — pleasant interactive shell. Configs in ~/.config/fish.
  • gtk-3.0 — GTK3 themes/icons/fonts.
  • hypr — Hyprland configs.
  • kitty — fast GPU terminal.
  • qt5ct / qt6ct — set themes/fonts for Qt5/Qt6 outside KDE.
  • starship — fast cross‑platform prompt (TOML config).
  • waybar — status bar for Wayland.
  • wlogout — sleek logout / sleep / reboot menu.
  • Firefox — profiles / settings / extensions — as you wish.

After copying configs reboot (sometimes twice—Wayland “loves” stability… sometimes).

And here’s my “candy bar” setup:

Desktop Desktop

Console Console

Code - OSS Code OSS

Rofi Rofi app launcher

Keybindings Keybindings

Yazi Yazi — TUI file manager

Dolphin Dolphin — GUI file manager

Htop Resource usage (htop)

Asciiquarium Aquarium with fish

(the last one is a silly flex, but cute 🐟)

⌨️ Hyprland — must‑know hotkeys

Cmd = Win/Meta; MB1/MB2 = left/right mouse buttons.

Windows

  • Cmd + Q / Alt + F4 — close window.
  • Alt + Enter — fullscreen.
  • Alt + Shift + Enter — toggle floating.
  • Cmd + J — toggle split/container orientation.
  • Cmd + Delete — exit Hyprland.

Focus / move / resize

  • Cmd + ← / → / ↑ / ↓ — focus window left/right/up/down.
  • Cmd + Shift + ← / → / ↑ / ↓ — resize (−/+ 30px).
  • Cmd + Ctrl + Shift + ← / → / ↑ / ↓ — move window.
  • Cmd + MB1 — hold and drag window.
  • Cmd + MB2 — hold and resize window.

Workspaces

  • Cmd + 1…0 — go to WS 1…10.
  • Cmd + Shift + 1…0 — send window to WS 1…10.
  • Cmd + Ctrl + →/← — next/previous workspace.
  • Cmd + S — show/hide scratchpad.

App launchers

  • Cmd + Enter — terminal (kitty).
  • Cmd + E — file manager yazi (mine: kitty + fish command).
  • Cmd + C — editor (code).
  • Cmd + W — browser (firefox).
  • Cmd + Space — app search (rofi).
  • Cmd + Tab — window switcher (rofi).

Screenshots

  • Cmd + P — select area.
  • Cmd + Ctrl + P — “freeze” screen and select.
  • Cmd + Alt + P — current monitor.
  • Print — all monitors.

Audio and brightness

  • F10 / XF86AudioMute — mute.
  • F11 / XF86AudioLowerVolume — volume down.
  • F12 / XF86AudioRaiseVolume — volume up.
  • XF86AudioMicMute — mic mute.
  • XF86MonBrightnessUp/Down — brightness.

Useful

  • Cmd + L — lock screen.
  • Ctrl + Alt + Delete — logout menu.
  • Alt + K — switch keyboard layout.

🧺 Base packages: what to install and why

The example below shows installing from official repos. Swap the package name as needed—same idea.

sudo pacman -S zip

Short notes:

  • zip / unzip — ZIP archives (zip, unzip).
  • unarchiver — unar / lsar for tons of formats (RAR / 7z / tar‑xz, etc.).
  • pwgen — password generator in the terminal.
  • onlyoffice — office suite. From AUR people often use onlyoffice-bin.
  • jlink — SEGGER J‑Link tools (flash / debug ARM).
  • cmake — project generator / build system.
  • qmicroz — “Zip/qmicroz” library for QtCreator (to work with archives) — build from source, author’s repo: artemvlas/qmicroz
  • less — pager. Git whines without it.
  • gnupg — GPG (sign/encrypt),
  • pinentry-gtk or pinentry-qt — GPG passphrase input.
  • stm32cubemx — grab from ST’s official website.
  • “three‑letter apps” — get from the site, via proxy, as usual 🙃

Useful commands:

# is a package installed?
pacman -Q zip

# search repos
pacman -Ss unarchiver

# binary versions (if in PATH)
unar -v || true
cmake --version || true

🔑 SSH and 🔏 GPG for GitHub

SSH (fish‑friendly)

In fish sometimes there’s no hostname (depends on packages). Let’s take a reliable route:

# 1) comment for the key: host + year
set -l HOSTNAME_SAFE (cat /etc/hostname 2>/dev/null; or uname -n)
set -l COMMENT "github-$HOSTNAME_SAFE-"(date +%Y)

# 2) generate key
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "$COMMENT" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_github

# 3) agent + add key to the session
eval (ssh-agent -c)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_github

# 4) ssh config for GitHub
mkdir -p ~/.ssh && chmod 700 ~/.ssh
printf 'Host github.com\n  HostName github.com\n  User git\n  IdentityFile %s\n  IdentitiesOnly yes\n  AddKeysToAgent yes\n' ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_github >> ~/.ssh/config
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config

# 5) show the public key (copy to GitHub → Settings → SSH and GPG keys)
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_github.pub

# 6) test the connection
ssh -T git@github.com

GPG

sudo pacman -S gnupg pinentry-gtk   # or pinentry-qt

# 1) quick Ed25519 key (sign‑only), validity 1 year (0 = no expiry)
gpg --quick-generate-key "Your Name <you@example.com>" ed25519 sign 1y

# 2) find KEYID
gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format=long

# 3) export the public key (paste into GitHub → New GPG key)
gpg --armor --export YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

# 4) configure git
git config --global user.name  "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
git config --global user.signingkey YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
git config --global commit.gpgsign true
git config --global tag.gpgSign    true
git config --global gpg.program gpg

🔄 Updates and the final touch

Update the system (and do it regularly, yes):

sudo pacman -Syu

Rolling‑release is not a joke

Arch and Hyprland get frequent updates. Sometimes pain arrives. Options: install an LTS kernel, update less often (risk piling up issues), or—the better path—fix problems as they appear. Also: read news / changelogs.

🏁 What we achieved

We tamed the clock (UTC for the win), rolled out HyDE, fixed the shell / PATH, migrated configs, set up fonts and hotkeys, and installed base software. We also prepared SSH/GPG for committing into a bright future 🖤

The first time may take 1–2 full days (been there). Now it takes me ~3 hours for a clean setup. Don’t fear Arch—and it will love you back! 🐧✨

Next up: a series of theory articles on OS fundamentals (and beyond). Stay tuned 😉