Arch packages I install on a clean Arch install
Here's a list of no-nonsense packages that I immediately install after installing a fresh arch linux, and just as importantly why I install them.
These are what I install because I might find the linux default apps - here's looking at you man pages - are just too much hassle to use. Life is hard enough, so why make it harder for yourself?
Eza
It brings colours to your ls commands! It's also a more modern-day equivilant to ls, and it's written in Rust.
.bashrc update:
alias ls='eza --long'
plocate
When looking for a file on your PC, then this is a pretty quick way of doing it. It's faster than using the default find command, and it stores everything in a simple database. Remember to run updatedb before you start your first-ever search. You should also start the plocate-updatedb.service and have it run in the background.
.bashrc update:
alias find='plocate'
micro
This is better than nano, and much more intuitive than vi in the terminal world, it uses many of the standard commands, so to save a document it's ctrl+s for example, and ctrl+q will quit the application. It's also highly customizable too!
.bashrc update:
alias vi='micro'
alias nano='micro'
bat
Simple replacement to cat. Perhaps my least used command, but it comes with syntax hi-lighting, and git integration.
.bashrc update:
alias cat='bat'
fastfetch
Neofetch is no longer supported for oh, about 3 years now, so this is the replacement. It does the same (and more) as neofetch but, you know, fastfetch is actually supported and maintained!
Plus fastfetch is written in C++, whilst neofetch is written in bash.
.bashrc update:
alias neofetch='fastfetch'
tldr
A true man page replacement - why put yourself through some poorly written documentation (yes, that's what man pages generally are in my opinion!). Save yourself some grey-hairs, and simply install tldr, and you'll get the information that you need quickly, and easily.
.bashrc update:
alias man='tldr'
trash-cli
rm for the rest of us. Too many times rm can be dangerous to your system if you're not 100% sure of what you're deleting. trash-cli will give you a way out if you mistakenly delete the wrong file(s), as it simply moves the file to the trash, and you need a 2nd command to actually delete what's in the trash.
.bashrc update:
alias rm='trash-put'
alias rm -f ='trash-delete'
wl-clipboard
A CLI wayland clipboard that you can use across applications, plus gives you access to a history of your copy & pastes.
There's no .bashrc alias here, as you'll need to configure it in say hyprland or the Desktop Environment that you use.
paru
The only package you'll need to install from the AUR, so you'll need to clone the git repo to your PC, and follow the install instructions. Personally I think that this should be available in the standard ie non-AUR repos, as this is a suitable replacement to pacman, and it updates your AUR packages, all using the same command paru -Syu.
.bashrc changes:
alias pacman='paru'
I hope that this list is useful, and it helps you out on your linux journey!
You can install the above (except paru) by copying and pasting this:
sudo pacman -Syu eza plocate micro bat chezmoi fastfetch tldr trash-cli wl-clipboard