In this video, I will show you how I installed, configured and tweaked my Plasma 5 desktop on Arch Linux.
I have tried different distribution with Plasma 5,
but KDE Plasma 5 on Arch Linux has been my best experience.
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It's Average Linux User.
I make videos about how to install, configure, tweak and use Linux.
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This tutorial assumes you have Arch Linux installed on your system.
I have already shown how to install Arch Linux
in the video "Installing Arch Linux in less than 10 minutes" .
I leave the link in the description.
If you have not installed Arch Linux yet, check it out.
You may also find useful the video "10 Things to do first in Arch Linux".
See the link in the description as well.
I prefer installing a very minimal Plasma desktop
and then build up by installing only the packages I really need.
In Arch Linux, you can install Plasma 5 in three ways:
First, you can install the group package plasma.
It will install the full Plasma 5 desktop which includes around 40 packages.
This option is probably the most optimal and flexible.
You select what the plasma group packages you want to install
and later you can remove any package if you want.
The second option is to install plasma-meta.
It installs the same packages as the first option,
but it joins all packages together as dependencies
and thus it is less flexible.
The advantage is however that if the meta package itself is updated with new packages
these packages will be installed automatically during the update.
The last option is to install plasma-desktop.
This option installs very minimal Plasma desktop.
It includes only a key set of packages to make KDE Plasma 5 work.
It even doesn't include a file manager.
Given these three options, I would recommend installing plasma-meta for users
who like the shortest way and don't care if there are some extra packages on the system
which are not used by a user.
If you want full control of what you install and you prefer to keep it simple,
install the minimal plasma-desktop and then build up.
This is what an advanced user would do.
The first option to install the plasma group is somewhere intermediate between the other two.
I will proceed with the last option.
By this way you build a system you want
and you get all the advantage of keeping your system minimal
and thus your system will be very fast.
For example, my system with Plasma 5 boots in less than 10 sec and uses less than 500 Mb of RAM.
I have shown how to install the minimal Plasma 5 desktop
in the video "Installing Arch Linux in less than 10 minutes"
and the current tutorial is a followup of that video.
But let me quickly remind you how to do it.
You need to install xorg and xorg-xinit.
Then you need to create the X initiation file.
It has the name .xinitrc and placed in your home directory.
The content of the file is "exec startkde".
Then you install plasma-desktop.
I installed SDDM as a display manager.
And enabled it in systemd.
In that video, I also installed konsole, which is a terminal emulator,
dolphin - a file manager firefox as a web browser
and kate as a text editor.
That's what I installed in the previous video.
Now, let's install some more applications which I use on my minimal Plasma 5 desktop.
First, we will install some theme tools.
Type sudo pacman -S breeze-gtk breeze-kde4 kde-gtk-config
These are essential packages for the cohesion in look between GTK and KDE applications.
For example,
this is how the GTK application GIMP looks in KDE environment without these packages.
This is how it looks with these packages installed and configured.
When you installed these packages, go to Settings→ Application style
and in GNOME application style set Breeze themes in all the fields.
Now, all GTK applications will look native in KDE.
Another theme option I would like to share with you is
how to make the Login screen have a Plasma 5 look.
I use SDDM manager, which is recommended for Plamsa 5.
This is how it looks by default.
Not very pleasant.
To enable the Breeze theme in SDDM, you need edit its config file.
Type sudo nano /etc/sddm.conf
And in the section Theme, set the Current theme to breeze.
Ctrl+O to save and Ctrl+X to exit.
Reboot.
Now, the Login screen looks much better.
Finally, install kdeplasma-addons.
Type: sudo pacman -S kdeplasma-addons
It contains many Plasma widgets and plugins that will improve your Plasma experience.
Second, we will complete our connection tools.
Install the networkmanager and plasma-nm packages.
I think it is obvious that networkmanager is a network connection manager application.
The plasma-nm package is a KDE applet to manage network connections.
Then you need to enable the networkmanager.
If you have any other network services enabled.
Disable them.
I used dhcpcd during my install.
So, I disable it: sudo systemctl stop dhcpcd
sudo systemctl disable dhcpcd
Then enable the NetworkManager:
sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager and
sudo systemctl start NetworkManager
Also, make sure you have your hosts configured correctly.
I showed how to do it in my Arch Linux installation video.
I leave the link to that part of the video in the description.
After you reboot the system and you should have a network applet working in your system tray.
If you use Bluetooth, you need to install bluez and bluez-utils packages.
I do not have a Bluetooth, so I cannot show you how to configure it.
I refer you to the Arch Wiki for that.
The link is below this video.
If you need a VPN, depending on the service you use
you can install any of these packages.
My VPN provider uses Cisco VPN and I use openconnect to configure it.
So, I install openconnect and networkmanager-openconnect.
Then I can go to the network settings and set up my VPN.
I believe it works similarly for other VPN services.
Third, we will enable audio volume control.
You need to have PulseAudio installed.
Again, I have to refer to my Arch Linux Installation video, where I installed all PulseAudio packages.
Also, for some media formats you need GStreamer Multimedia Framework.
I have shown how to install it in my "10 Things to do first in Arch Linux".
See the links below this video.
Here, you simply install plasma-pa,
which is an applet for audio volume management using PulseAudio.
Restart your Plasma 5 by log out and log in.
And you have a volume control on your panel.
Fourth, we will install some KDE specific and desktop essential applications.
This is what I install on my system and I think any desktop should have most of these apps.
I list them all as one command below this video.
I installed ark – a tool to work with archives.
kinfocenter – a simple tool that gives you the information about your system.
kwalletmanager – is the setting tool for your kwallet.
If you don't know kwallet is a KDE authentication management tool.
It stores your passwords on the system.
gwenview – a KDE image viewer.
I also recommend installing kipi-plugins.
kipi-plugins is the set of plugins that extend the functionality of gwenview and digiKam.
If you have a large photo library, you would also love digiKam.
It is a very powerful KDE photo management application.
Of course, if you need to do any image manipulation, there is no better tool than GIMP.
spectacle – a KDE Screenshot Utility.
If you work with graphics you will also find useful kcolorchooser and Kruler.
You can use kcolorchooser to get the HTML code for any color on your screen.
kruler can be used to measure anything on your screen.
libreoffice-fresh – is an office suit.
I think LibreOffice is the best.
But you can install any other office program.
For example, many people prefer wps-office.
You can install it from the AUR.
okular – a KDE PDF viewer.
I think Okular is the best PDF viewer on Linux.
Amarok – KDE music player.
The music player is a matter of taste.
I like Amarok.
The best alternative in my view would be Clementine.
But there are many other options.
vlc – Well, it is the best open source video player.
speedcrunch – complex calculator.
If you need to do simple tasks like addition, division, etc, you can use Plasma search plugin
with Alt+F2 and then do any calculation.
But for more serious math, speedcrunch is the best in my view.
redshift – Redshift is probably a must have application in any desktop.
It changes the temperature of your screen according to the time.
The screen colors are cold during the day and warm at night.
It is very good for your eyes.
It reduces eye strain and improves your sleep if you sit in front of your computer at night.
For KDE you also need to install redshift widget.
It is available in AUR.
I use Yaourt as my AUR manager.
So, I type
yaourt -S plasma5-applets-redshift-control-git --noconfirm
and install it.
If you don't know how to use the AUR, I have a video about it.
Check it out.
Then I simply add the redshift widget to the panel.
There are a few more applications I use,
but I think they are not necessary for the many users.
For example, kompare – a very good KDE application to compare text files.
kfind – an application to find Files/Folders.
It is little extended in comparison to search within Dolphin file manager.
ktorrent - a KDE torrent application.
If you do downloads using torrents, ktorrent is a great torrent app.
So, this is what I think will be the most useful for majority of users.
Also, I would like to mention how you can extend the functionality of your Plasma 5
by adding Dolphin service menus.
I have a separate video about it.
I put a link in the description.
For the end, I would like to say that Plasma 5 has many tools for configuring your system with graphical interface.
For example, you can configure SDDM graphically if you install sddm-kcm package.
But I prefer to keep things simple.
I need to configure SDDM only once.
So, I can do it by direct editing the config file, as I have done in this video
and probably I will not ever touch it again.
So, there is not reason to bloat the system with sddm-kcm package
Remember, the simpler your system is, the less likely things will break.
Comment below if you have any addition to these recommendations.
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Thank you for watching.
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