dotfiles

Settings for Linux/*nix programs I use. I try to use programs with native Wayland support. Wayland is the more modern and secure alternative to the X Window System, but it currently lacks some features of its predecessor.

To keep things simple and modular, I use GNU stow to create symlinks for these files.

Installation

Clone this repository into any directory on your system. My preference is ~/dotfiles.

Symlink the configs into your home directory. Warning: this will overwrite any previous dotfiles. Please backup them to avoid any nasty surprises.

$ stow -v -t ~ [config]

All configs rely on environment variables set in common, so that must be installed first.

Configs

common

This includes environmental variables that are required by other configurations and a couple of common shell aliases. More specifically:

• aliases vim commands to nvim if installed
• sets XDG directories and default applications via environment variables and MIME handlers, like:
  • editor: neovim or vim
  • browser: Firefox Developer Edition, falls back to Brave
  • reader: zathura
  • terminal: alacritty
• sets variables that move dotfiles from ~/ to ~/.config/
• disables less history
• adds ~/.local/bin recursively to $PATH
• starts gpg-agent
• automatically launches sway on TTY1

If your distro comes with bash as the default non-interactive shell, I recommend installing dash and symlinking /bin/sh to it. Dash only has strictly POSIX-compliant features, thus it is more lightweight and faster.

zsh

Zsh is a feature-rich and more user-friendly shell for interactive use and has more extensive auto-completion features than bash. This configuration:

• enables auto-completion, autosuggestion and syntax highlighting
• disables writing history to disk
• enables glob-marching dotfiles
• sets the gorgeous powerlevel10k for its prompt
• sets the terminal title to the currently running program
• automatically refreshes completion if a new program was installed. You need to set up a pacman hook.
• enables a command not found handler that searches packages in the official repository for the command. You need to update its cache with pkgfile -u (as root) first.

Dependencies:

# pacman -S zsh zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-autosuggestions zsh-theme-powerlevel10k pkgfile

sway

Sway is ani3-like window manager for Wayland. The default keybindings remain unchanged, but a subset of Luke Smith's tweaks are added, including:

• menu for launching graphical and terminal programs (using wofi)
• volume setting via media keys (using pactl, comes by default with pulse)
• visual volume adjustment (using pulsemixer)
• taking screenshot of whole screen, window or selected area (using a modified grimshot, .local/bin/grimshot). Bindings follow Gnome's default shortcuts.
• changing brightness (using light)
• toggling WLAN and Bluetooth (using the custom .local/bin/rfkill-toggle)
• toggling keyboard backlight (using the custom .local/bin/kbdbacklight)
• keybindings for shutdown, reboot and hibernate (using systemd)
• a script for querying/monitoring keyboard layout changes (.local/bin/kbdlayout), used by waybar
• automatic screen locking and lockscreen
• polkit authentication agent

A custom theme is set (see the screenshot). On Arch and Void Linux systems, the wallpaper is automatically generated from the graph of installed packages, if the arch directory is stowed.

Dependencies

# pacman -S sway swaybg swayidle swaylock wofi pulseaudio pulsemixer grim slurp wl-clipboard jq util-linux light dbus ttf-fira-code polkit-gnome

Neovim

An extensive and very powerful text editor. Currently, most settings are kept unchanged, but a large number of useful plugins are included. These are automatically downloaded with vim-plug. LSP support depends on the upcoming Lua plugin available in the 0.5 pre-release builds.

Waybar

A graphical statusbar natively compatible with Wayland. Right-to-left, it displays:

• workspaces, active binding mode and title of the focused window on Sway
• any system tray icons
• disk usage on the root partition
• speaker and microphone volume, click to open pulsemixer
• active network connection, hover for more info, click to open nmtui
• bluetooth connectivity, click to launch bluetoothctl.
• active keyboard layout (via custom .local/bin/kbdlayout)
• battery status and warns you if it's running low, hover to show time to empty/charge
• time, click to show date, hover to show calendar, right click to open calcurse

If you are not using sway, you need to edit .config/waybar/config to remove references to the sway-specific float-run script.

Font Awesome is used for the icons and a custom theme is provided.

Dependencies

# pacman -S waybar ttf-font-awesome

Alacritty

A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator. Aside from my preferred font (Fira Code)/color scheme (Solarized Dark), most settings are kept default. A script .local/bin/xterm is included that notifies you if an application tries to run xterm and launches Alacritty.

mako

Display desktop notifications. It is automatically added to be launched by sway on startup. Custom theming is added.

Dependencies

# pacman -S mako libnotify

gammastep

A utility that automatically adjusts the color temperature of the screen. A warmer color at night supposedly helps to reduce eye strain. It has native Wayland support and starts up based on geolocation.

Dependencies

# pacman -S gammastep

lf

A terminal-based file manager.

Dependencies

# pacman -S lf xdg-utils perl-file-mimeinfo

gpg

A hardened configuration for the GPG encryption/signing tool. gpg-agent is configured, allowing for SSH connections using GPG keys.

arch

Configurations specific to Arch Linux. I try to make everything generic, but some are possible only this way:

• wallpaper autogeneration with pacwall, depicting the dependency graph of the installed packages. Sway prints an intrusive error message if its output wasn't found, and I don't want to break other distros.
• Automatically start Chromium with Ozone support enabled.

Dependencies

Get pacwall from AUR.

thinkpad

These configs are specific to my laptop. Settings are:

• us/us-intl/hu keyboard layout
• Switch layouts with Alt+Shift
• Swap CapsLock and Esc keys
• Enable tap to click, disable touchpad while typing
• Automatically rotate the screen
• On-screen keyboard (requires sway 1.5 for activation)
• Automatically manages my at-home display setup

dependencies

Get rot8-git from AUR. Install kanshi.