The Straightforward guide for installing Arch Linux (2023) — Part 2, Installing Utilities and graphical user interface

Connecting to a network

Wireless

Run wifi-menu . It guides you through the connection process.

Wired

Run systemctl start dhcpcd to get a DHCP lease once you have connected the cable.

Installing the zsh shell

pacman -S zsh zsh-completions

To make it the default shell for a user ( root used here):

usermod -s /bin/zsh root

See ArchWiki’s Page on configuring zsh.

Adding a new standard user

useradd -m -s /bin/zsh -G wheel username

passwd username

Make users of group wheel able to execute commands via sudo

EDITOR=vim visudo

Then go to line 82 and uncomment the highlighted line:

Installing GNOME and some utilities

pacman -S gnome gnome-extra firefox vim python python-pip mlocate mpv cups networkmanager

Enabling NetworkManager

systemctl enable NetworkManager

Enabling GDM

systemctl enable gdm

Enabling CUPS

systemctl enable cups

Reboot and log into the GUI.