Install a Desktop Environment

When installing a full desktop environment, most of them handle the audio server and other components automatically. Below is a brief guide to getting started with GNOME.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure your system is up to date:

sudo pacman -Syyu

Required Packages

• gnome: This is the desktop environment itself.
• gnome-tweaks: A settings application for changing themes, fonts, cursors, and various other settings.
• gdm: The login manager (also called the window manager). This is the program where you enter your username and password and select the desktop environment.
• gst-libav: Provides multimedia codecs and enables video file previews in GNOME's file manager, Nautilus.
• pipewire-jack: Provides legacy JACK support for the modern PipeWire audio server.
• noto-fonts-emoji: Google’s Emoji Font, ensuring you don’t end up with missing character symbols.

To install these packages, run the following command:

sudo pacman -S gnome gnome-tweaks gdm gst-libav pipewire-jack noto-fonts-emoji

If you have trouble with some missing Fonts, here is a list with the essentials:

INFO

noto-fonts noto-fonts-emoji noto-fonts-cjk noto-fonts-extra: Essential for wide language coverage, supporting many scripts and special characters.

ttf-source-code-pro, ttf-source-sans-pro, ttf-source-serif-pro: These fonts provide high-quality typefaces for Latin characters in monospace, sans-serif, and serif categories.

ttf-adobe-source-han-sans-otc and ttf-adobe-source-han-serif-otc: Designed for East Asian languages (CJK), offering high-quality sans and serif font options for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters.

ttf-hanazono: Covers historical CJK characters, ensuring compatibility with ancient scripts.

ttf-liberation: Provides metric-compatible fonts for Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New, which helps maintain layout consistency in documents created with these standard fonts.

ttf-dejavu: Some games, especially by Valve, are designed with this font in mind. Installing it prevents tiny, hard-to-read fallback text by providing the correct font size.

Keyboard Layout

If you are using a non-US keyboard layout, it’s advisable to change it with the following command. Logging in with a non-functional layout can be quite challenging:

sudo localectl set-keymap de-latin1

Enable the Display Manager

Next, enable the autostart for the login manager (GDM):

sudo systemctl enable gdm

Reboot

You are now ready to reboot into your new desktop environment!

sudo reboot