--- // BEST_ARCH // ========

File: README.md Author: 4ndr0666 Edited: 5-25-24

--- // BEST_ARCH // ========

--- // SSDs_ENABLE_WEEKLY_FILESYSTEM_TRIM:

sudo systemctl enable fstrim.timer --now

--- // MAKE_TIMEOUTS&REBOOTS_FASTER:

Edit /etc/systemd/system.conf:

RebootWatchdogSec=10s
DefaultTimeoutStartSec=5s
DefaultTimeoutStopSec=5s

--- // MAKEPKG_PARRALELL_COMPILATION&COMPRESSION:

Edit /etc/makepkg.conf:

Add the following row (replace 7 with CPU threads-1): MAKEFLAGS="-j7"
Edit the row saying COMPRESSXZ=(xz -c -z -) to COMPRESSXZ=(xz -c -z - --threads=0)
sudo pacman -S pigz and edit the row saying COMPRESSGZ=(gzip -c -f -n) to COMPRESSGZ=(pigz -c -f -n)

--- // GPU:

--- // Intel GPU early kernel mode setting:

Ensure the modules intel_agp i915 are first in the MODULES array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf.

Ensure /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf exists. If not, create it with these values:

options i915 enable_guc=2
options i915 enable_fbc=1

sudo mkinitcpio -P
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

NOTE: on some systems (Intel+AMD GPU) adding intel_agp can cause issues with resume from hibernation. Reference.

--- // Fix screen tearing:

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/, add the following conf file: 20-intel.conf

Section "Device"
     Identifier "Intel Graphics"
     Driver "intel"
     Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

sudo mkinitcpio -p linux

--- // Enable betterscreen suspend service:

sudo systemctl enable betterlockscreen@$USER.service

--- // AMD hwdec:

sudo pacman -S libva-mesa-driver mesa-vdpau

Compress initramfs with lz4

Make sure lz4 is installed.

Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf:

Add lz4 lz4_compress to the MODULES list (delimited by ())
Uncomment or add the line saying COMPRESSION="lz4"
Add a line saying COMPRESSION_OPTIONS="-9"
Add shutdown to the HOOKS list (delimited by ())

Run sudo mkinitcpio -p linux to apply the mkinitcpio.conf changes.

Limit journald log size

Edit /etc/systemd/journald.conf:

Uncomment SystemMaxUse= and append 200M (or any size you like).

Disable core dumps

To improve performance and save disk space.

Edit /etc/systemd/coredump.conf, under [Coredump] uncomment Storage=external and replace it with Storage=none. Then run sudo systemctl daemon-reload. This alone disables the saving of coredumps but they are still in memory.

If you want to disable core dumps completely add * hard core 0 to /etc/security/limits.conf.

Enable deep sleep suspension mode

Verify that you're using the inefficient s2idle sleep state before continuing:

cat /sys/power/mem_sleep

Inefficient	Efficient
`[s2idle] deep`	`s2idle [deep]`

Add mem_sleep_default=deep to the kernel command line arguments.

Change IO Scheduler

Change CPU governor

Arch Wiki reference

sudo pacman -S cpupower

To change the governor for the current session run sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance.

To change the governor on boot create a systemd service.

Create /etc/systemd/system/cpupower.service:

[Unit]
Description=Set CPU governor to performance

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/cpupower -c all frequency-set -g performance

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Finally run sudo systemctl enable cpupower.service.

NB: the default governor is powersave and you may want to leave it as it is.

Create /etc/udev/rules.d/50-scaling-governor.rules as follows:

SUBSYSTEM=="module", ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="acpi_cpufreq", RUN+=" /bin/sh -c ' echo performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor ' "

Manage system resources for better performance

Create the script to optimize system memory and swap usage, freecache.sh:

#!/bin/bash
set -e

# AUTO_ESCALATE
if [ "$(id -u)" -ne 0 ]; then
    sudo "$0" "$@"
    exit $?
fi

log_action() {
    echo "$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') - $1" >> /var/log/freecache.log
}

adjust_swappiness() {
    local current_swappiness=$(sysctl vm.swappiness | awk '{print $3}')
    local target_swappiness=60
    if [[ "$FREE_RAM" -lt 1000 ]]; then
        target_swappiness=80
    elif [[ "$FREE_RAM" -gt 2000 ]]; then
        target_swappiness=40
    fi
    if [[ "$current_swappiness" -ne "$target_swappiness" ]]; then
        sudo sysctl vm.swappiness="$target_swappiness"
        log_action "Swappiness adjusted to $target_swappiness"
    fi
}

clear_ram_cache() {
    if [ "$FREE_RAM" -lt 500 ]; then
        sudo sh -c "echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches"
        log_action "RAM cache cleared due to low free memory."
    fi
}

clear_swap() {
    if [ "$SWAP_USAGE" -gt 80 ]; then
        sudo swapoff -a && sudo swapon -a
        log_action "Swap cleared due to high swap usage."
    fi
}

FREE_RAM=$(free -m | awk '/^Mem:/{print $4}')
SWAP_USAGE=$(free | awk '/^Swap:/{printf "%.0f", $3/$2 * 100}')

adjust_swappiness
clear_ram_cache
clear_swap

log_action "Memory and Swap Usage After Operations:"
free -h | tee -a /var/log/freecache.log

Create the monitoring script that will continuously check the system's free memory and update 'tmp/low_memory' when low.

#!/bin/bash
while true; do
    FREE_RAM=$(free -m | awk '/^Mem:/{print $4}')
    # Adjust this threshold as needed, ensuring it's higher than oomd's threshold
    if [ "$FREE_RAM" -lt 1000 ]; then
        touch /tmp/low_memory
    else
        rm -f /tmp/low_memory
    fi
    sleep 60  # Check every 60 seconds
done

Now the Systemd Service file for freecache.sh at /etc/systemd/system:

[Unit]
Description=Free Cache when Memory is Low
After=oomd.service  # Ensures this service runs after oomd

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/System_utilities/freecache.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=

And its Path File at /etc/systemd/system:

[Unit]
Description=Monitor for Low Memory Condition

[Path]
PathExists=/tmp/low_memory

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Service file for the monitoring script:

[Unit]
Description=Monitor Memory Usage

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/System_utilities/memory_monitor.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And finally, enable and start both the 'memory_monitor.service' and 'freecache.path':

sudo systemctl enable memory_monitor.service
sudo systemctl start memory_monitor.service
sudo systemctl enable freecache.path
sudo systemctl start freecache.path

Setup Arch-Audit Timer for security

Create a new service file, arch-audit.service, in /etc/systemd/system/.

    sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/arch-audit.service

Add the following content to the file:

    [Unit] Description=Arch Audit Vulnerability Checking Service
    [Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=/usr/bin/arch-audit -u

Create the Timer File

    sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/arch-audit.timer

Add the following content to the timer file:

    [Unit] Description=Runs arch-audit daily
    [Timer] OnCalendar=daily Persistent=true
    [Install] WantedBy=timers.target

Start the services

    sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    sudo systemctl enable arch-audit.timer
    sudo systemctl start arch-audit.timer

*   You can check the status of the timer with:

```bash
    sudo systemctl status arch-audit.timer

To see the next scheduled run:

    sudo systemctl list-timers arch-audit.timer

Setting up Plymouth

NOTE: this setup implies that you use paru (AUR helper), gdm (display manager), and the default arch kernel.

paru -S plymouth-git gdm-plymouth

Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf:

In HOOKS after base udev insert plymouth
If you're using encryption, in HOOKS replace encrypt with plymouth-encrypt
In MODULES insert your GPU driver module name as first item
- For Intel GPUs: i915
- For AMD GPUs: radeon (note: this is untested)
- For NVIDIA GPUs: nvidia (note: this is untested)
- For KVM/qemu VMs: qxl

Edit /boot/loader/entries/arch-linux.conf: add these arguments in the kernel options (append to the options section): quiet splash loglevel=3 rd.udev.log_priority=3 vt.global_cursor_default=1

sudo systemctl disable gdm
sudo systemctl enable gdm-plymouth
sudo mkinitcpio -p linux

Copy monitor layout from user to GDM

GDM doesn't know how you configure your monitors. It just keep its default configuration and most of the time it's not the same of how you have them configured in your session.

To copy your user's monitors configuration over to GDM, use these commands:

sudo cp $HOME/.config/monitors.xml /var/lib/gdm/.config/
sudo chown gdm:gdm /var/lib/gdm/.config/monitors.xml

Create a swap file

Arch Wiki reference

A form of swap is required to enable hibernation.

In this example we will allocate a 8G swap file.

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/swapfile bs=1M count=8192
sudo chmod 600 /home/swapfile
sudo mkswap /home/swapfile
sudo swapon /home/swapfile # this enables the swap file for the current session

Edit /etc/fstab adding the following line:

/home/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0

Removing the swap file if not necessary/wanted anymore

sudo swapoff -a

Edit /etc/fstab and remove the swapfile entry, and finally:

sudo rm -f /home/swapfile

Alternative route

Use systemd-swap for automated and dynamic swapfile allocation and use. Consult the GitHub project page for more info.

Create a cron tab to automatically free swap and ram cache

Make the script:

#!/bin/bash
# This command frees only RAM cache
#echo "echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches"
# This command frees RAM cache and swap
su -c "echo 3 >'/proc/sys/vm/drop_caches' && swapoff -a && swapon -a && printf '\n%s\n' 'Ram-cache and Swap Cleared'" root

Make it executable:

chmod 755 freecache

Make the crontab:

crontab -e

Append the below line, save and exit to run it at 2 am daily:


0  2  *  *  *  /usr/local/bin/freecache

Enable Hibernation

Arch Wiki reference

Enable magic sysreq

Add this line to a file inside /etc/sysctl.d/ (ie: 99-sysctl.conf)

kernel.sysrq=1

Package Management

Switch to better mirrors

Arch Wiki reference

sudo pacman -S reflector
sudo reflector --latest 20 --protocol http --protocol https --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Enable parallel compilation and compression

Edit /etc/makepkg.conf:

Add the following row (replace 7 with CPU threads-1): MAKEFLAGS="-j7"
Edit the row saying COMPRESSXZ=(xz -c -z -) to COMPRESSXZ=(xz -c -z - --threads=0)
sudo pacman -S pigz and edit the row saying COMPRESSGZ=(gzip -c -f -n) to COMPRESSGZ=(pigz -c -f -n)

Networking

DNSCrypt

Arch Wiki reference

Encrypt your DNS traffic so your ISP can't spy on you. Use pdnsd as a proxy and cache for it.

Install

sudo pacman -S dnscrypt-proxy pdnsd

Configure

Edit /etc/dnscrypt-proxy/dnscrypt-proxy.toml:

Uncomment the server_names list (line 30) and change it as follows: server_names = ['de.dnsmaschine.net', 'trashvpn'] (see Note below)
Change the listen_address list (line 36) to an empty list: listen_address = [] (we're using systemd socket, this avoids port conflicts)

Note: you can find more "Resolvers" in /usr/share/dnscrypt-proxy/dnscrypt-resolvers.csv or here

Edit /usr/lib/systemd/system/dnscrypt-proxy.service to include the following:

[Service]
DynamicUser=yes

Edit /usr/lib/systemd/system/dnscrypt-proxy.socket to change the port dnscrypt runs on. Here is a snippet:

[Socket]
ListenStream=127.0.0.1:53000
ListenDatagram=127.0.0.1:53000

Create /etc/pdnsd.conf like so:

global {
	perm_cache=1024;
	cache_dir="/var/cache/pdnsd";
#	pid_file = /var/run/pdnsd.pid;
	run_as="pdnsd";
	server_ip = 127.0.0.1;  # Use eth0 here if you want to allow other
				# machines on your network to query pdnsd.
	status_ctl = on;
#	paranoid=on;       # This option reduces the chance of cache poisoning
	                   # but may make pdnsd less efficient, unfortunately.
	query_method=udp_tcp;
	min_ttl=15m;       # Retain cached entries at least 15 minutes.
	max_ttl=1w;        # One week.
	timeout=10;        # Global timeout option (10 seconds).
	neg_domain_pol=on;
	udpbufsize=1024;   # Upper limit on the size of UDP messages.
}

server {
    label = "dnscrypt-proxy";
    ip = 127.0.0.1;
    port = 53000;
    timeout = 4;
    proxy_only = on;
}

source {
	owner=localhost;
#	serve_aliases=on;
	file="/etc/hosts";
}

rr {
	name=localhost;
	reverse=on;
	a=127.0.0.1;
	owner=localhost;
	soa=localhost,root.localhost,42,86400,900,86400,86400;
}

Reload systemd daemons, enable and start services:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable dnscrypt-proxy.service pdnsd.service
sudo systemctl start dnscrypt-proxy.service pdnsd.service

Edit your NetworkManager configuration to point to the following IPs for respectively IPv4 and IPv6 DNSes:

127.0.0.1
::1

Mpv

Install the smooth video project or SVP4

Ensure all i915 intel packages with:

yay --needed --noconfirm libva-intel-driver vulkan-intel libvdpau-va-gl lib32-vulkan-intel vulkan-intel libva-intel-driver libva-utils lib32-mesa mesa libva libva-mesa-driver libva-vdpau-driver libva-utils lib32-libva lib32-libva-intel-driver lib32-libva-mesa-driver lib32-libva-vdpau-driver intel-ucode iucode-tool
vulkan-intel lib32-vulkan-intel intel-gmmlib intel-graphics-compiler intel-compute-runtime intel-gpu-tools intel-media-driver intel-media-sdk intel-opencl-clang libmfx

Create a new profile for SVP and add it to the config file. This is my completed mpv.conf file and here is how to add the svp profile.

Edit ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf to include the following:

```bash
# --- // Constants:
--loop-file=inf
--speed=0.50
osc=no
#--loop-playlist=yes
ontop=yes
#border=no
window-scale=0.4
geometry=100%:100%

# --- // SVP_PROFILE:
--profile-add= svp

[svp]
--input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpvsocket
--hr-seek-framedrop=no
--opengl-early-flush=yes
--vf= format=fmt=yuv420p
hwdec=auto-copy
hwdec-codecs=all
--no-resume-playback
--ignore-path-in-watch-later-config=yes

# --- // PLAYER_SETTINGS //
#--loop-playlist=yes
#setpts=PTS*2
#--vd-lavc-dr=yes
#--vd-lavc-assume-old-x264= yes
#--user-agent=libmpv
#--x11-bypass-compositor=no
#--player-operation-mode= pseudo-gui
--sub-visibility=no
#--video-output-levels= full
#--override-display-fps= 60
#--rar-list-all-volumes= yes
#--directory-mode= recursive
#--corner-rounding= 1

# --- // AUDIO_SETTINGS //
#--video-sync=desync
#--video-sync= display-resample
#--audio-device=
#--alsa/sysdefault:CARD= PCH
#audio-pitch-correction=no
#audio-channels=5.1
#audio-channels=auto
#volume-max=250
#--no-audio

# --- // WINDOW_MARGINS //
#--window-scale= 0.500
#geometry=50%:50%
#--snap-window= yes
#--spirv-compiler= shaderc
--stop-screensaver= always
#--osd-blur= 2
#--osd-border-size= 1
#--osd-duration= 8000
#--osd-on-seek= msg-bar
#--force-window= immediate
#--force-seekable= yes
#--display-tags= Title, Channerl_URL, service_name
#--fs= no
#--autofit-smaller= yes
#--geometry=50%+10+10/2
#--geometry=100%:100%
#--keep-open=always
#--keep-open-pause=no
#--taskbar-progress=yes
#--term-title= yes
--title= ${?media-title:${media-title}}- mpv
#--no-border
#--osd-level=1
#--osd-bar=no
#save-position-on-quit=yes
#--video-rotate=<0-359|no>
#keepaspect=no
#--ontop= yes
#--on-all-workspaces= yes

# --- // PROFILES //
#[vdpau]
#--hqscaling=9
#--scale=ewa_lanczossharp
#--scale=bilinear
#--cscale=bilinear
#--cscale=spline36
#--zimg-dither= error-diffusion
#--zimg-scaler= spline36
#--zimg-scaler-chroma= spline36
#--no-correct-pts
#--deband= yes
#--deinterlace= yes
#--interpolation= yes
#--interpolation-preserve= yes
#--linear-upscaling= yes
#--interpolation-threshold= 0.03
#--tscale-param1= mitchell
#--tscale-param2= 0.5
#--sws-scaler= lanczos
#--sws-fast=no
#--sws-allow-zimg=yes
#--zimg-fast=no
#--tone-mapping-max-boost=2.0
#sharpen=5
#--gpu-dumb-mode=yes
#--gpu-context=wayland
#vo=gpu
#vo=gl
#vo=vdpau

#[Act as a web browser]
# Pretend to be a web browser. Might fix playback with some streaming sites,
# but also will break with shoutcast streams.
#user-agent="Mozilla/5.0"
#cache=yes
#demuxer-max-bytes=123400KiB
#cache-pause=no
#demuxer-readahead-secs=20

# --- // Screenshots:
--screenshot-format=png
--screenshot-png-compression=0
--screenshot-directory="~/Pictures/Screens"
--screenshot-template="%F - [%P]v%#01n"
#--screenshot-webp-lossless=yes
#--screenshot-webp-quality=100

# --- // Extension_behavior:
image-display-duration=inf

[extension.gif]
loop-file=inf

[extension.webm]
loop-file=inf

[extension.jpg]
--pause=yes

[extension.png]
--pause=yes

Setup libvirt

sudo pacman -S libvirt ebtables dnsmasq bridge-utils virt-manager
sudo gpasswd -a $USERNAME libvirt
sudo gpasswd -a $USERNAME kvm
sudo systemctl enable libvirtd
sudo systemctl start libvirtd

Make sure to relogin after following the steps above. To create a network:

Open virt-manager
Click on QEMU/KVM
Click Edit > Connection Details in the menu
Click the Virtual Networks tab
Click the + (plus sign) button in the bottom left corner of the newly opened window
Name it whatever
Select NAT as Mode
Leave everything else as it is
Click finish
To start the network, select it in the sidebar and press the ▶️ (play icon) button
To stop the network, press the icon to its left with the 🛑 (stop street sign icon) button (note: the icons could be different depending on the theme)
To start the network on boot, select it in the sidebar and toggle the checkbox that says Autostart: On Boot

GNOME Adwaita theme for Qt apps

Install qt5ct from the repos and adwaita-qt from the AUR
Open up the qt5ct application and select your favorite Adwaita flavor with the default color scheme and press apply
Add the following to ~/.pam_environment:

QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct

Add the following to ~/.profile:

[ "$XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP" = "Openbox" ] || export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME="qt5ct"

--- // FONTS:

Edit ~/.Xresources

Xft.dpi: 110
Xft.autohint: 0
Xft.lcdfilter:  lcdlegacy
Xft.hintstyle:  hintfull
Xft.hinting: 1
Xft.antialias: 1
Xft.rgba: rgb

! Style: nightfox
! Upstream: https://github.com/edeneast/nightfox.nvim/raw/main/extra/nightfox/nightfox.Xresources
*background: #192330
*foreground: #cdcecf
*color0:  #393b44
*color1:  #c94f6d
*color2:  #81b29a
*color3:  #dbc074
*color4:  #719cd6
*color5:  #9d79d6
*color6:  #63cdcf
*color7:  #dfdfe0
*color8:  #575860
*color9:  #d16983
*color10: #8ebaa4
*color11: #e0c989
*color12: #86abdc
*color13: #baa1e2
*color14: #7ad5d6
*color15: #e4e4e5

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 35 Commits
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
bashrc		bashrc
chroot.md		chroot.md
garuda-chroot		garuda-chroot
permscli.py		permscli.py
standardpermissions.acl		standardpermissions.acl

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4ndr0666/Best-Arch

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--- // BEST_ARCH // ========

--- // SSDs_ENABLE_WEEKLY_FILESYSTEM_TRIM:

--- // MAKE_TIMEOUTS&REBOOTS_FASTER:

--- // MAKEPKG_PARRALELL_COMPILATION&COMPRESSION:

--- // GPU:

--- // Intel GPU early kernel mode setting:

--- // Fix screen tearing:

--- // Enable betterscreen suspend service:

--- // AMD hwdec:

Compress initramfs with lz4

Limit journald log size

Disable core dumps

Enable deep sleep suspension mode

Change IO Scheduler

Change CPU governor

Manage system resources for better performance

Setup Arch-Audit Timer for security

Setting up Plymouth

Copy monitor layout from user to GDM

Create a swap file

Removing the swap file if not necessary/wanted anymore

Alternative route

Create a cron tab to automatically free swap and ram cache

Enable Hibernation

Enable magic sysreq

Package Management

Switch to better mirrors

Enable parallel compilation and compression

Networking

DNSCrypt

Install

Configure

Mpv

Setup libvirt

GNOME Adwaita theme for Qt apps

--- // FONTS:

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