This setup aims to provide a fully operative Linux desktop including:

  • Disk encryption
  • LMV
  • Custom kernel
  • SSH server on local network
  • Development tooling
    • Emacs
    • Development libraries

Notes for Linux install on the laptop Dell XPS 13 7390.

In terms of encryption, I’ll be only encrypting the /home directory and mounting it at login time.

Considerations

Let’s check that UEFI is enabled:

$ cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size
64

Network

iwctl --passphrase ${PASSWORD} station wlan0 connect ${SSID}

The iwctl also provides a nice interface for discovery of networks and devices:

> device list
> station wlan0 scan
> station wlan0 get-networks
> station wlan0 connect ${SSID}

Partition table

Partion NumberNameSizePartition TypeComment
nvme0n1p1UEFI1GiBUEFI/boot
nvme0n1p2Root25GiBext4/
nvme0n1p315GiBext4/tmp
nvme0n1p415GiBext4/var/log
nvme0n1p5SWAP4GiBswap
nvme0n1p6Home450Gibext4/home
1
2

asd
asd

Encryption

Kernel

Packages

pacman -Syu base base-devel neovim git 

pacman -Syu clang go git

GUI / Desktop Environment

In order to install GNOME and boot to it, first install the GNOME meta package:

pacman -Suy gnome gdm-settings
# Enable the `gdm` service
systemctl enable gdm.service

GNOME specific configurations

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.color night-light-temperature 5000

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-timeout 3600
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-ac-type hibernate
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-timeout 1800
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-inactive-battery-type hibernate
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power power-button-action suspend
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.lockdown disable-lock-screen true

System utils

References