Sudo

Add your user to the sudoers list

Modify the /etc/sudoers file with the following command and add yourself just below the root entry.

visudo -f /etc/sudoers

# find this line root ALL=(ALL) ALL
# and add yourself as follows.
<your-user> ALL=(ALL) ALL

Install yaourt

Install yaourt to make it easier to install packages from the AUR repository.

Download the package-query and yaourt snapshots from the AUR.

cd <where-you-saved-the-snapshots>
tar -xzf package-query.tar.gz
tar -xzf yaourt.tar.gz
cd package-query
makepkg -i -s
cd ../yaourt
makepkg -i -s

Theme

Install the murrine engine and the vertex theme.

pacman -S gtk-engine-murrine faenza-icon-theggarcia.meme
yaourt -S vertex-themes-git

Download the Polar cursor theme.

mkdir ~/.icons
mv <where-you-saved-the-file> ~/.icons
cd ~/.icons
bzip2 -d 27913-PolarCursorThemes.tar.bz2
tar -xf 27913-PolarCursorThemes.tar
rm 27913-PolarCursorThemes.tar

Open the gnome-tweak-tool. Go to the Extensions option end enable the User themes extension. Close the gnome-tweak-tool and open it again. In the Appearance tab select:

  • GTK+ -> Vertex
  • Icons -> Faenza
  • Cursor -> PolarCursonTheme
  • Shell theme -> Vertex

In the Workspaces tab, set the number of workspaces to 3, or whatever you want, and make the workspace creation static.

You can change the fonts in the fonts tab.

  • Window Titles -> Avenir Next LT Pro Bold Condensed (size 11)
  • Interface -> Avenir Next LT Pro Regular (size 11)
  • Documents -> Avenir Next LT Pro Regular (size 11)
  • Monospace -> DejaVu Sans Mono Book (size 11)
  • Hinting -> None
  • Antialiasing -> Grayscale
  • Scaling Factor -> 1.00

Useful extensions

  • Topicon
  • Places status indicator
  • Pomodoro

Places status indicator comes with gnome. Topicon can be installed via the gnome Extensions site.

You can install the Pomodoro extensions using yaourt.

yaourt -S gnome-shell-pomodoro

Music

Gstreamer plugins to play mp3, ogg, etc.

pacman -S --needed --noconfirm gst-plugins-bad gst-plugins-base gstreamer \
                               gstreamer0.10 gstreamer0.10-bad gstreamer0.10-bad-plugins \
                               gstreamer0.10-base-plugins gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg \
                               gstreamer0.10-good gstreamer0.10-good-plugins \
                               gstreamer0.10-python gstreamer0.10-ugly gstreamer0.10-ugly-plugins