The World According To Vissie

https://www.romangeber.com/arch_linux_install_xorg_and_kde/

yay -S xf86-video-intel xorg-server xorg-apps xorg-xinit xterm xorg-fonts-100dpi xorg-fonts-75dpi autorandr

echo blacklist nouveau >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
yay -S nvidia

The nouveau driver is an open source alternative to the native nvidia binary drivers. Sadly I ran into many issues with that driver. If you prefer open drivers, try to stick with Intel and open source driver supported ATI cards.

Laptops usually need a package called synaptics to enable the touch pad:

pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics synaptics

Which desktop you use is entirely up to YOU. KDE is a bloated monster but it works great for me. Before committing to a desktop, maybe check out some alternatives.

In this part three major components are installed. The Plasma shell which is in fact the Desktop, the KDE applications and a graphical login/session manager.

yay -S sddm plasma kde-applications plasma-nm ttf-dejavu ttf-liberation sddm

plasma-nm is the NetworkManager widget. Skip this if you don’t use NetworkManager. The two font packages make the font’s pretty. sddm is the default login/session manager for KDE.

This will install KDE in all it’s glory with tons of bloat. It’s possible to be more selective but I find the install everything and the remove bits approach more practical for my purposes.

To get it going just start/enable the session manager:

systemctl enable sddm
systemctl start sddm