Shinyspace

Arch postinstall checklist

2026-02-10

Attempt at an easy to find + update list
personal systems, not general tips

• ensure networking + sshd is set up
  file /etc/systemd/network/20-wired.network present systemctl enable sshd systemd-networkd systemd-resolved
  (should be done during install along with ssh key but yea)

• systemctl enable systemd-timesyncd.service

• systemctl enable fstrim.timer

• create user (if you have multiple linuxes, choose specific, high UID)

• groupadd -g 1337 leetuser && useradd -u 1337 -g 1337 -m leetuser

• copy authorized_keys file and chown it to user

• doublecheck that password login is really disabled (check PAM thingy)

• create /etc/sudoers.d/allow-leetuser, contents: leetuser ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

• consider installing paru or yay, but skip if not needed

• consider changing mirrors, but sadly init7 mirror had a weird issue for me (uv)

• consider syncthing?

• install man pages (pacman -Syu man-db man-pages)

• install bash-completion

• install iptables-nft and activate the firewall (installing nftables KEEPS iptables too)

• default nft file seems reasonable, enable: systemctl enable --now nftables.service