archnirinoc

A bootstrap script that sets up a complete Niri + Noctalia desktop on a minimal Arch Linux installation, run from a TTY prompt.

What it installs

Category	Packages
AUR helper	paru
GPU drivers	NVIDIA (open-dkms), AMD, or Intel — detected automatically
Audio	PipeWire, WirePlumber, pavucontrol
Compositor	niri, xwayland-satellite
Shell	noctalia-shell (+ noctalia-qs)
Display manager	greetd + tuigreet
Terminal	kitty
File manager	nautilus + gvfs + gvfs-mtp
Notifications	mako
Wallpaper	swww
Screen lock	swaylock
Idle management	swayidle
Night light	wlsunset (optional)
Screenshots	grim + slurp
GTK theming	nwg-look, adwaita-icon-theme
Qt theming	qt5ct, qt6ct, kvantum
Power management	power-profiles-daemon
Flatpak	flatpak + Flathub remote
Fonts	Noto, JetBrains Mono Nerd, Font Awesome
Utilities	brightnessctl, wlr-randr, wl-clipboard, cliphist
Network	NetworkManager, network-manager-applet
Bluetooth	bluez, bluez-utils, blueman

Requirements

• A minimal Arch Linux installation (e.g. via archinstall)
• A regular user account with sudo privileges (wheel group)
• Internet connection
• NVIDIA: Turing architecture (RTX 2000 series) or newer for open kernel modules

Usage

git clone https://github.com/lmaule/archnirinoc.git
cd archnirinoc
bash install.sh

The script asks a few questions upfront, then runs the rest of the install unattended.

Interactive questions

Question	Default	Notes
Mirror country code	skip	e.g. GB, US, DE — used by reflector to rank mirrors by speed
GPU driver	auto-detected	Choose NVIDIA / AMD / Intel or skip
Screen lock timeout	5 min	Minutes of idle before swaylock activates
Display off timeout	10 min	Minutes of idle before monitors power off
Night light latitude	skip	Leave blank to skip wlsunset entirely
Night light longitude	—	Only asked if latitude is provided

GPU drivers

The script detects your GPU vendor via lspci and pre-selects the matching option:

1) NVIDIA  open-dkms (Turing / RTX 2000+ required)
2) AMD     mesa + vulkan-radeon
3) Intel   mesa + vulkan-intel + intel-media-driver
4) Skip

NVIDIA additionally configures Early KMS in mkinitcpio, injects nvidia-drm.modeset=1 into your bootloader (systemd-boot or GRUB), and writes a Wayland environment file.

What gets configured

• /etc/pacman.conf — Color and ParallelDownloads = 5 enabled
• greetd on VT1 with tuigreet, launching niri-session after login
• ~/.config/niri/config.kdl — ready-to-use skeleton with keybinds, window rules, and all daemons wired up in spawn-at-startup (including swayidle with your chosen timeouts, cliphist, and optionally wlsunset)
• ~/.config/environment.d/theming.conf — Qt Wayland backend, qt6ct platform theme, cursor size/theme
• ~/.config/environment.d/nvidia-wayland.conf — NVIDIA-specific Wayland variables (NVIDIA only)

Default keybinds

Keys	Action
Super + Return	Open kitty terminal
Super + D	Toggle Noctalia launcher
Super + E	Open file manager (nautilus)
Super + Shift + L	Lock screen (swaylock)
Super + Q	Close window
Super + H/L	Focus column left/right
Super + J/K	Focus window up/down
Super + Shift + H/L	Move column left/right
Super + 1–9	Switch workspace
Super + Shift + 1–9	Move window to workspace
Super + F	Maximize column
Super + Shift + F	Fullscreen
Super + R	Cycle preset column widths
Print	Screenshot (region)
Super + Shift + E	Quit Niri

Post-install

1. Edit ~/.config/niri/config.kdl:
   • Set your keyboard layout inside xkb { layout "..." }
   • Replace eDP-1 with your display name — find it with niri msg outputs
2. Run nwg-look to configure the GTK theme, icons, and cursor
3. Run qt6ct → Style → Kvantum, then kvantummanager to pick a Qt theme
4. Configure Noctalia: docs.noctalia.dev
5. Reboot — greetd will handle login from here

References

• Niri wiki
• Noctalia documentation
• ArchWiki — Niri
• ArchWiki — NVIDIA