NOTE!!

Many of the config files in this repository are originally from Derek Taylor's Gitlab Also known as DistroTube

These are the links to his work

Derek Taylor on gitlab

DistroTube channel on youtube

For the xmonad installation guide, It's from Brian Buccola

This is the original article

I spent so much time looking for answers and trying to make things work in xmonad, so this is a guide to help you get the same outcome I got but whitout getting frustrated!!

Even thought I've done this on Arch some of the steps will stay the same on other Linux Distributions

Enjoy the last result!!

Preview image

My Arch Linux Xmonad setup

Setup my environment

Install all my needed and favourites apps

• Terminal:
  • alacritty
  • kitty
• File explorer: ranger
  • Dependencies: w3m, uberzug
• Text editor: neovim
• IDE: visual-studio-code
• Shell: fish
• Browser:
  • firefox
  • qutebrowser
• Video Editor:
  • kdenlive
  • openshot
• Screenshot utility: scrot
• ScreenLock utility: i3lock-fancy (or just i3lock with an image, it loads faster that way and you make it look the same as i3lock-fancy just check the official repo for more details on that)
• Music player: mocp (terminal based)
• AudioVisualizer: cli-visualizer (terminal based)
• System ressources monitor:
  • htop
  • gotop
• Fonts:
  • ttf-ubuntu-font-family
  • otf-fontawesome-5-free
  • ttf-open-sauce-sans
  • ttf-mononoki
  • adobe-source-code-pro-fonts
  • nerd-fonts-mononoki
  • ttf-arabeyes-fonts
  • ttf-amiri
• Video player
  • mpv
  • vlc
• PDF reader: evince
• ClipBoard Manager: copyq
• Office Suite:
  • WPS Office
  • LibreOffice
• Tools:
  • tmux
  • arch-wiki-docs
  • x-on-resize
  • blueman
  • xdg-user-dirs
  • xdotool
  • git
  • paru
  • yay
  • python-pip
  • python2-pip
  • xclip
  • xsel
  • devour
  • shell-color-scripts
  • conky
  • doas
  • lsd
  • bat
  • jp2a
  • figlet
  • lolcat
  • neofetch
  • cowsay
  • tldr
  • tty-clock
  • pipes-rs
  • cmake
  • ninja
  • clang
  • pkgconf
  • base-devel
  • jq
  • zsh-syntax-highlighting
  • zsh-autosuggestions-git
• LaTeX
  • texlive-most
  • texlive-lang
  • biber
• Xmonad utils
  • trayer
  • volumeicon
  • pavucontrol
  • pulseaudio
  • lxappearance
  • nitrogen
  • compton
  • dmenu
  • rofi
• Apps
  • telegram-desktop
  • discord
  • lightcord
  • blender
  • inkscape
  • gimp
  • krita
  • github-desktop
  • code
  • code-insiders
  • eclipse
  • atom
  • godot
• Programming Languages
  • dart/flutter
  • rust

You might face some errors even if you're following the exact steps here. If you do check the ERRORS guide where I have solution to some common erros.

Clone this repo to your home direcotory using this command (IMPORTANT because all the commands in the steps will only work if you clone it in $HOME)

git clone https://github.com/black-purple/arch-xmonad-setup

Packages & Tools

To install the packages in the official repos use the following command:

sudo pacman -Syyu --needed dunst jq openshot copyq kitty arch-wiki-docs arch-wiki-lite pavucontrol pulseaudio lxappearance blueman tmux xsel xclip python-pip python2-pip ttf-ubuntu-font-family scrot curl wget base-devel cmake ninja pkgconf clang alacritty ranger w3m ueberzug neovim fish firefox chromium qutebrowser doas vlc mpv texlive-most texlive-lang biber xdg-user-dirs git xdotool lsd bat figlet lolcat neofetch cowsay tldr telegram-desktop discord libreoffice blender inkscape gimp krita atom godot evince rust

To install packages from the aur use the following command:

NOTE!!

If you don't have an aur helper I suggest you use one.

I personally use yay so this is the command I'm using.

yay eclipse-java-bin i3lock-fancy-git gotop jp2a wps-office shell-color-scripts visual-studio-code-bin tty-clock visual-studio-code-insiders-bin pipes-rs github-desktop otf-fontawesome-5-free ttf-open-sauce-sans ttf-mononoki adobe-source-code-pro-fonts ttf-arabeyes-fonts ttf-amiri nerd-fonts-mononoki devour shell-color-scripts zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-autosuggestions-git

If you want to install yay use this chain of commands:

cd /tmp; git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay-git.git; cd yay-git; makepkg -si

User Dirs

Change the dir names for my user dirs (Desktop, Downloads, Pictures...) to shorter lowercase names (dt, dls, pcs...) for quick access in the terminal.

nvim ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

Xmonad

You can install Xmonad, Xmonad-contrib and Xmobar from the official repos by using this commad

sudo pacman -Sy --needed xmonad xmonad-contrib xmobar

But if you want to build Xmonad with some specific flags, follow the steps here from Brian Buccula's blog.

Shell prompt

Install starship prompt using their script

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://starship.rs/install.sh)"

Add the appropriate line to your shell's config file

• bash

# ~/.bashrc

eval "$(starship init bash)"

• fish

# ~/.config/fish/config.fish

starship init fish | source

• zsh

# ~/.zshrc

eval "$(starship init zsh)"

Vim Plug

Run the following commad for Vim

curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
   https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

Run the following command for Neovim

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'

These commads are taken from the official repo of vim plug

Config Files

Clone the repo to your home directory

cd; git clone https://github.com/black-purple/arch-xmoand-setup

Copy the config files each to it's appropriate location

• xmonad

rm ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs
cp ~/dotfiles/configs/xmonad.hs ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs
cp -r ~/dotfiles/xpm/ ~/.xmonad

• xmobar

rm ~/.config/xmobar/xmobarrc
cp ~/dotfiles/configs/xmobarrc ~/.config/xmobar/xmobarrc

• rofi

rm -rf ~/.config/rofi
cp -r ~/dotfiles/configs/rofi/ ~/.config/

• neovim

rm ~/.config/nvim/init.vim
cp ~/dotfiles/configs/init.vim ~/.config/nvim/init.vim

After copying the config files run this command :PlugInstall

If you face an issue with neovim plugins check the solution in ERRORS.md

• vim

rm ~/.vimrc
cp ~/dotfiles/configs/vimrc ~/.vimrc

• alacritty

rm ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.yml
cp ~/dotfiles/configs/alacritty.yml ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.yml

• fish

rm -rf ~/.config/fish
cp -r ~/dotfiles/configs/fish/ ~/.config/

• ranger

rm -rf ~/.config/ranger
cp -r ~/dotfiles/configs/ranger/ ~/.config/

• conky

rm -rf ~/.config/conky/
cp -r ~/dotfiles/configs/conky ~/.config/

• tmux

You have to install Tmux Plugin Manager (TPM) in order for this config to work for you.

cp ~/dotfiles/configs/tmux.config ~/.tmux.config

After copying this config file go inside of tmux and use this keyboard shortcut to install the basic tmux theme.

Ctrl a + I (capital)

You can find other themes on github here.

Conky Setup

I took the theming from devianart
The creater is Khiky Merveilles
This is the post on devianart
Follow the inscructions there and copy the config files here to have the look in the screenshots

Flutter Install

Install flutter by cloning the official repo from github

git clone https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git

Then add the flutter directory to you PATH

Run this command to see if flutter is working fine (it might take some time to download some files)

flutter doctor

You will have some erros concerning Android Studio and Android SDK

Android Studio will install all the needed packages for android developpement including Android SDK.

So to install Android Studio you have three options.

• From the AUR

Here I used paru, but you can use whatever AUR helper you feel confortable with

paru -S android-studio

• Using SNAP package manager

Run this command to make sure that snap is installed. If it's not istalled it will install it for you.

sudo pacman -Sy --needed snapd

To install Android Studio using snap, use this command

snap install android-studio --classic

• Install from official website

Download the archive from the official website.

Go to ~/Downloads and extract the archive.

cd into ~/Downloads/android-studio/

Then open the file Install-Linux-tar.txt and follow the instructions there to install Android Studio

Rerun this command to insure that everything is okay

flutter doctor -v

If you face an error when trying to accept the android licenses consider checking ERRORS.md

IMPORTANT!!

When done with all the errors you might want to run this command to download some needed packages for Flutter developpement (optional)

flutter precache

If you want to enable desktop support in Flutter use this command

flutter config --enable-linux-desktop

Run flutter doctor again to see if you need any other packages to make apps for Linux / Windows / Mac.

On Linux you'll need ninja, cmake, clang, pkg-config

You can install them with this command

sudo pacman -S --needed ninja clang cmake pkgconf

Some Blender Addons

Special Thanks

• Derek Taylor
• Brian Buccola
• Khiky Merveilles
• Edoardo Vignati