Linux: Settings

This is a list of common settings one might want to change at some point

Battery

Using TLP

TLP is a common linux utility for improving battery life. Some things that you can do are:

• Enable performance/powersave modes when on AC and Battery automatically.
• Enable advanced powersaving features like USB autosuspend, ACPI sleep states, LAN, Wifi, and more.
• Enables the setup of battery thresholds.

See the Hakodocs’ TLP section for more information on the installation process and setup. Additionally, you can read the TLP documentation.

Using PPD

The Power Profiles Daemon (DDP) is a common, and simple way to manage power profiles on Linux with no configuration. On Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S power-profiles-daemon
sudo systemctl enable --now power-profiles-daemon

You can install a manager for your DE, on KDE Plasma:

sudo pacman -S power-devil

then you will be able to change power profiles from your panel/taskbar.

Manually adjusting charging thresholds

You can manually adjust the charging thresholds if your hardware allows it. As a reference you can check your current values by running

echo /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_start_threshold
echo /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_end_threshold

and create a systemd service that rewrites them on boot

[Unit]
Description=Set battery charge thresholds
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo 75 > /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_start_threshold"
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo 85 > /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_end_threshold"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

then simply enable the service

sudo systemctl enable --now battery.service

GRUB

Remaking the GRUB configuration file

Not a setting per se, but it is useful to have this command at hand somewhere.

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Show kernel logs

To show the kernel logs on boot for a hacker feeling, edit the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT variable in your GRUB configuration to contain a loglevel.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3"

Make sure to remove splash or quiet if they appear.

Remember the last launched entry

It is very helpful, specially when dual booting, to make GRUB default to the last launched entry. To do this, edit your GRUB configuration to contain

GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true

Detect Windows entry

To make GRUB detect your Windows installation that is either on a separate partition or disk, first install os-prober

sudo pacman -S os-prober

and add/uncomment to your configuration file

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

Regenerate your configuration file, and reboot.

Make a custom font

Add a theme to GRUB

SDDM

High Resolution Displays

Following the SDDM Arch Wiki Page. To scale the SDDM login screen, first create/edit the file

[Wayland]
EnableHiDPI=true

[X11]
EnableHiDPI=true

When using KDE Plasma, which has a Qt-based greeter, add the following

[General]
GreeterEnvironment=QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=2,QT_FONT_DPI=192

Remapping keys with keyd

Sometimes it is really useful to remap keys to another ones, e.g. CapsLock to Esc or Ctrl. To do this, we use the keyd software, on arch-based distriutions

sudo pacman -S keyd
sudo systemctl enable --now keyd

Then you need to make a configuration file either systemwide or for your user only

PrefersNonDefaultGPU=false