1. Update the system:
sudo pacman -Syu
  1. Install vim (or other text editor)
sudo pacman -S vim git
  1. Open /etc/pacman.conf and make the following changes in order to improve the overall experience.
sudo vim /etc/pacman.conf
  1. Remove the # from Color and ParallelDownloads.
# Misc options
#UseSyslog
Color
#NoProgressBar
CheckSpace
#VerbosePkgLists
ParallelDownloads = 5
  1. Update the system:
sudo pacman -Sy
  1. Install reflector so you can get the most up-to-date mirrors. You can also choose the mirrors by country if you want.
sudo pacman -S reflector

Create a backup of the mirrorlist file.

sudo cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak

Run this command to get top 10 fastest servers and to also add them to the mirrorlist.

sudo reflector --verbose --download-timeout 20 --latest 10 --protocol https --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

You can also set by the country adding the –country “name-of-the-country” argument.

e.g.: –country “Brazil”

sudo reflector --verbose --country "Brazil" --download-timeout 20 --latest 10 --protocol https --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Updated pacman by running this command:

sudo pacman -Sy
  1. Install a desktop environment (if you have installed Arch with the minimal option)
sudo pacman -S gnome

Enable and start GDM (GNOME display manager)

sudo systemctl enable gdm && sudo systemctl start gdm
  1. Create user directory folders.
sudo pacman -S xdg-user-dirs

xdg-user-dirs-update
  1. Install some important tools.
sudo pacman -S p7zip unrar tar rsync git fastfetch htop exfat-utils fuse-exfat ntfs-3g flac jasper aria2 qemu-full virt-manager dnsmasq

Bluetooth:

sudo pacman -S bluez bluez-utils

sudo modprobe btusb

sudo systemctl enable bluetooth && sudo systemctl start bluetooth

Java:

sudo pacman -S jdk-openjdk

Microcode (choose amd-ucode or intel-ucode):

sudo pacman -S amd-ucode

Update grub:

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  1. Install Flatpak

Flatpak:

sudo pacman -S flatpak
  1. Install paccache to automatically clean package cache.

You can check the size of your package cache by running this command:

du -sh /var/cache/pacman/pkg/

To install paccache, run:

sudo pacman -S pacman-contrib

Enable the service:

sudo systemctl enable paccache.timer
  1. Install NVIDIA driver.

For standard linux kernel:

sudo pacman -S nvidia

For linux-lts kernel:

sudo pacman -S nvidia-lts

Or

For the nvidia-open driver

sudo pacman -S nvidia-open
  1. Install yay

Yay:

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git

cd yay
makepkg -si
  1. Install Preload.
yay -S preload

sudo systemctl enable preload && sudo systemctl start preload
  1. Install essential packages.
sudo pacman -S enchant mythes-en ttf-liberation noto-fonts hunspell-en_US ttf-bitstream-vera pkgstats adobe-source-sans-pro-fonts gst-plugins-good ttf-droid ttf-dejavu aspell-en icedtea-web gst-libav ttf-ubuntu-font-family ttf-anonymous-pro jre8-openjdk languagetool libmythes hspell hunspell nuspell libvoikko vulkan-radeon papirus-icon-theme gnome-tweaks gnome-themes-extra noto-fonts-cjk noto-fonts-emoji
  1. Set up the firewall.

Click here and follow the steps.

  1. Make the fonts look better.

Click here and follow the steps.