Checklist for setting up Linux

I’m writing this little guide to help me remember what I need to set up a new Linux installation (when going distro-hopping or setting up a new PC). Could be useful to someone else reading this too, who knows?

Useful repos

Use the following repos to automate some of the setup tasks.

• Dotfiles
  • git, bash, tmux, neovim, starship
• Homelab
  • docker, caddy, dnsmasq, grafana, prometheus, nextcloud

Linux

• Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma
• System theme: Catppuccin Mocha Lavender
• Application theme: Lightly
• Cursor theme: Catppuccin
• Icons: Papirus Dark
• Monospace font: JetBrains Mono Nerd Font
• Wallpaper: endy_vector_satteliet (EndeavourOS community wallpaper)
• Terminal: default (Gnome, Konsole etc.)
  • Terminal multiplexer: tmux (see dotfiles for config), don’t forget to install tpm
• Terminal prompt: Starship
• Web browser: Brave
• Clipboard: xclip (required for tmux)

Programming

• IDE: Neovim - full config in dotfiles
  • Telescope requires ripgrep, fd
  • Do a checkhealth after configuration
• Git: check dotfiles for improved log commands (git lg, lg1, lg2 etc.)
• JavaScript/TypeScript:
  • nvm
  • pnpm
• Python:
  • pyenv
  • poetry
• Rust
• Go
• HTML (not a programming language, fight me)

Homelab

• Docker
• Web server: Caddy
• DNS server: dnsmasq
  • Copy over /etc/dnsmasq.conf and /etc/resolv.conf from homelab repo.
  • Ensure systemd-resolved service is stopped, disabled and masked.
  • Start and enabled dnsmasq.
• SSH
  • Install sshd and enable it: sudo service ssh enable
  • Setup certificate based authentification for access from my other PC:
    • Create a new key-pair ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"
    • Append the contents of id_ed15519.pub to authorized_keys on the host PC
    • Test your SSH connection
  • Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config with the following:
    • Change default port: Port n
    • Disable password authentication: PasswordAuthentication no
  • Setup another certificate for Github CI access using a similar process.
• Nextcloud
  • Use Nextcloud AIO image with docker
  • Ensure the borg backup is itself backed up to an external drive
  • Setup a systemd service with a timer to trigger the nextcloud-preview-generator
• Firewall: use ufw to only open up the right ports