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 5 --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 5 --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 ufw gufw zsh

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.

Option 1

For standard linux kernel:

sudo pacman -S nvidia

For linux-lts kernel:

sudo pacman -S nvidia-lts

Option 2

Go with thte NVIDIA DKMS

Install the headers for the kernel you chose.

For zen kernel + lts kernel:

sudo pacman -S linux-zen-headers linux-lts-headers

Then install DKMS:

sudo pacman -S nvidia-dkms

Option 3

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 vlc-plugins-all rclone vivid vulkan-tools ttf-meslo-nerd

  1. Install some apps.

    Click here to install my recommended collection of applications.

  2. Set up the firewall.

    Click here and follow the steps.

  3. Make the fonts look better.

    Click here and follow the steps.