Gnome on Arch Linux

What it does

This is just a small install script for the gnome desktop on arch linux.
It installs a few packages and tweaks the desktop a little using dconf.

DISCLAIMER

This script is only meant for the installation of gnome and the initial configuration. If you already have shortcuts (key combinations) present and they collide with those coming from this script, things could break!

Also certain extensions expect to be able to use certain key combinations since they are normally not used. Using this script Super+1 e.g. is meant to bring you to workspace 1. Certain extensions might want to use Super+1 to launch an application 1 instead. This leads to problems, so be aware of this.

What's included?

Packages

This script currently includes the automatic installation of the following packages:

Package	Why?
gnome-shell	Actual desktop
gnome-tweaks	Tweaking tool
gnome-shell-extensions	Ability to extend gnome shell using extensions
gnome-control-center	Basic control center to change settings

Actual tweaking

List of tweaks / changes

• WIP
• WIP
• WIP

Usage

To run the script just clone the repository and execute install.sh. This will install the packages and then exit.
Providing --all will install the packages and also tweak the desktop according to the .conf-files within the dconf directory. The actual magic happens here.
If you only want to use certain parts of this configuration, use dconf load / < ./dconf/FILENAME.conf instead.

Notes

Display managers

There is no plan to implement installing display managers.
When running gnome you should probably use gdm if you plan on using gnome's screensaver since it relies gdm to work.
Running anything else will result in you having to find your own solution for screen locking.

Manually starting a session

If you don't want to use any display manager (thinking of startx), you should always run gnome-session instead of gnome-shell.
This allows you to still be able to logout of your session without having to kill your gnome-shell.

Below you see an example .xinitrc file to be able to demand a specific graphical session from a tty.

#!/bin/sh
# Default if nothing else is specified
default=awesome

# Session becomes whatever you choose via cli
# If nothing is chosen, default is used
session=${1:-$default}


# Switch case (add your desktop accordingly)
case $session in
    awesome)
        exec awesome
        ;;

    i3)
        exec i3
        ;;

    cinnamon)
        exec cinnamon-session
        ;;

    xfce|xfce4)
        exec xfce4-session
        ;;

    gnome)
        export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
        export GDK_BACKEND=x11
        exec gnome-session
        ;;

    kde)
        exec startplasma-x11
        ;;

    *)
        exec $default
        ;;
esac

Usage:
startx /PATH/TO/YOUR/.xinitrc YOUR_DESKTOP

Example:
startx /home/donien/.xinitrc gnome

If you don't want to specify your .xinitrc everytime, you can use an alias.
alias startx="startx $HOME/.xinitrc"
Now you can just use startx gnome.