nevaforget
8f1309c596
CLAUDE.md and README.md still named Waybar as the bar, Walker as the
launcher and swaync as the notification daemon. quickshell took all three
over in July, and the packages left the lists in 22c2b92, so the docs were
describing a session nobody runs.
Corrected: component table, startup sequence, keybinds, config-override
table and the user-service list in README; the quickshell and Waybar
sections, the battery and nightlight toggles and the fontconfig note in
CLAUDE.md. The Waybar merger section is kept and marked retired -- the
configs and scripts are still shipped.
Two things checked against the source rather than assumed: quickshell is
started by quickshell.service, not spawn-at-startup, and the Alt+W toggle
is already gone from config.kdl. moonarch-waybar-updates stays live --
UpdatesIndicator.qml calls it.
Moonarch
Reproducible Arch Linux desktop environment — fully automated from bare metal to a configured Niri (scrollable tiling Wayland) system with Catppuccin Mocha theming.
Moonarch combines archinstall for the base system with post-install automation that handles packages, XDG defaults, system services, greeter, idle management, and a a Quickshell bar that carries the launcher, the notifications and the popouts. The result is a complete development/productivity desktop that can be rebuilt from scratch in minutes.
Why These Choices
| Component | Choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Compositor | Niri | Scrollable tiling — no fixed grid, infinite horizontal workspace. Purpose-built Wayland compositor, not an X11 port. |
| Greeter | greetd + ReGreet | Minimal, Wayland-native login. ReGreet is a GTK4 greeter from the official repos, running inside its own Niri instance and inheriting the system GTK theme. |
| Lock Screen | gtklock | ext-session-lock-v1 through gtk-session-lock — compositor guarantees lock on crash. PAM authentication. Modules add the avatar, clock and power buttons swaylock had no way to show. Background is a blurred copy of the default wallpaper, blurred at build time: GTK3 has no blur and gtklock takes no screenshot. |
| Power Menu | Quickshell popout (PowerPopout.qml) |
Lock, logout, hibernate, reboot, shutdown; every action except lock needs a second click. Part of the bar, so it needs no own package. |
| Idle Manager | stasis + wayland-pipewire-idle-inhibit | Separate AC/battery power plans. Brightness dimming, DPMS, lock (via gtklock), and suspend on configurable timeouts. The companion inhibitor holds a Wayland idle-inhibitor while audio plays — keeps the screen awake during windowed browser video, which stasis' pactl detection skips by design. |
| Bar | Quickshell | Composable QML bar shipped as a named config. Own widgets and popouts for audio, network, bluetooth, battery, brightness, CPU governor, camera, clipboard, calendar and power. Also the notification daemon. |
| Launcher | Quickshell popout (LauncherPopout.qml) |
Application launcher over DesktopEntries, bound to Super+Space. Launches through app2unit so each app gets its own systemd scope. Terminal entries go through app2unit-term, which needs xdg-terminal-exec. |
| Terminal | Foot | Fast, minimal Wayland-native terminal. Server mode for instant window spawning. |
| Shell | Zsh | Programmable completion, FZF integration, syntax highlighting. |
| Audio | PipeWire | Drop-in replacement for PulseAudio/JACK with lower latency. RNNoise input denoising configured out of the box. |
| Display Management | kanshi + wdisplays-persistent | kanshi auto-switches output profiles on hotplug. wdisplays-persistent saves changes directly to kanshi config. |
| Notifications | Quickshell NotificationServer |
Owns org.freedesktop.Notifications; toasts plus a notification popout in the bar. swaync was the previous daemon and was dropped on 2026-09-14. |
| Clipboard | cliphist + quickshell | Clipboard history stored in runtime dir, wiped on session start. The quickshell bar provides the picker (Super+C) with search, image thumbnails, and per-entry delete. |
| GTK Theme | catppuccin-mocha-lavender-standard+default | Catppuccin Mocha with the Lavender accent, matching Kvantum and the lock screen. Catppuccin's GTK theme is Colloid recolored -- it carries vinceliuice's theme as a submodule -- so the widget shapes are unchanged from before. |
| Icons | Colloid-Grey-Catppuccin-Dark | Catppuccin-colored icon set matching the GTK theme. |
| Cursor | Sweet-cursors | Visible on dark backgrounds without clashing. |
| Font | UbuntuSans Nerd Font | Clean sans-serif with full Nerd Font glyph coverage for bar/terminal icons. |
| Wallpaper | waypaper + awww | waypaper provides GUI selection, awww handles animated transitions (60 FPS, 2s crossfade). |
| Night Light | wlsunset | Wayland-native blue light filter via wlr-gamma-control. Toggleable from the bar's nightlight indicator. |
| Firewall | UFW | Simple deny-incoming/allow-outgoing default. Sane baseline without iptables complexity. |
| AUR Helper | paru | Rust-based, pacman-compatible. Supports the custom package repo that ships the moonarch package itself. |
Quick Start
Fresh Install (Bare Metal)
- Boot the Arch ISO and download the config:
curl -O https://gitea.moonarch.de/nevaforget/moonarch/raw/branch/main/config/user_configuration.json archinstall --config user_configuration.json - Choose disk and kernel interactively — everything else comes from the config.
- Reboot, log in, then:
/opt/moonarch/scripts/post-install.sh - Reboot again — done.
The archinstall config clones this repo to /opt/moonarch via custom-commands.
post-install.sh handles the remaining ~95 packages, all configs, themes, services,
and user setup.
Update
moonup # or: moonarch-update
Interactive updater that upgrades system and AUR packages, reconciles package lists
against what's installed, and cleans orphaned packages. Config deployment happens
automatically via the moonarch-git package on paru -Syu.
Health Check
moondoc # or: moonarch-doctor
Diagnostic tool that verifies the system state against moonarch defaults: services, configs, packages, helper scripts, firewall, shell and directory permissions. Reports pass/fail/warn per check with a summary at the end.
Project Structure
config/
user_configuration.json archinstall config (locale, audio, services, custom-commands)
packages/
official.txt Arch repo packages (~80), one per line
aur.txt AUR packages (~20), one per line
scripts/
lib.sh Shared helpers sourced by post-install.sh
post-install.sh Main automation (packages, configs, themes, services)
moonarch-update Interactive updater (deployed to /usr/bin/ as moonup)
moonarch-doctor System health checker (deployed to /usr/bin/ as moondoc)
defaults/
xdg/ System-wide XDG configs (deployed to /etc/xdg/)
niri/config.kdl Compositor: layout, keybinds, startup apps
quickshell/moonarch/ Bar: widgets, popouts, theme (QML component library)
foot/foot.ini Terminal: font, colors, keybinds
waybar/, walker/, swaync/ Retired — configs kept, packages no longer installed
kanshi/config Display profiles (empty seed, user-configured via wdisplays)
stasis/stasis.rune Idle manager: AC/battery power plans
pipewire/ Audio: RNNoise input denoising
waypaper/config.ini Wallpaper manager: backend, folder, transitions
fastfetch/config.jsonc System info display
gtk-3.0/, gtk-4.0/ GTK theme settings
bin/ Helper scripts (deployed to /usr/bin/)
moonarch-btnote Bluetooth device battery monitor (upower + notify-send)
moonarch-capsnote Caps Lock toggle notification
moonarch-waybar-updates Package update checker (repo + AUR); read by the bar's UpdatesIndicator
moonarch-batsaver-toggle Toggle battery charge limit (80% ↔ 100%)
moonarch-nightlight Toggle wlsunset blue light filter on/off
moonarch-camera-list List cameras with their on/off state
moonarch-camera-toggle Switch one camera on or off (via pkexec)
moonarch-camera-boot Switch all cameras off (run at boot by moonarch-camera.service)
moonarch-waybar* Retired with Waybar — wrapper plus the cpugov/gpustat/hidpp/
batsaver/nightlight module scripts (moonarch-waybar-updates excepted)
moonarch-sink-switcher Retired with walker — dmenu helpers with no dmenu left
moonarch-vpn (audio sink, VPN, power profile; the bar's popouts cover all three)
moonarch-cpugov
shell/zshrc Zsh config: prompt, aliases, FZF, completion
etc/greetd/ greetd daemon, greeter Niri config, regreet config + CSS
etc/systemd/user/ Systemd user services (quickshell, cliphist, kanshi, nautilus, wlsunset)
etc/systemd/system/ System services (battery conservation restore, camera switch-off on boot)
backgrounds/wallpaper.jpg Default wallpaper (shared by desktop, greeter, lock screen)
Startup Sequence
greetd ─► niri (greeter instance) ─► regreet ─► user authenticates
│
▼
niri (user session)
│
┌────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
foot waypaper nm-applet polkit agent
(server) (wallpaper) (VPN) (auth)
systemd user services (graphical-session.target):
quickshell (bar + notifications), kanshi, cliphist, nautilus, wlsunset
Keybinds (Default)
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Super+Return |
Open terminal (foot) |
Super+Space |
App launcher (Quickshell popout) |
Super+Q |
Close window |
Super+O / Super+Tab |
Overview |
Super+F |
Maximize column |
Super+Shift+F |
Fullscreen window |
Super+V |
Toggle floating |
Super+H/J/K/L |
Focus left/down/up/right |
Super+Ctrl+H/J/K/L |
Move window |
Super+Shift+H/J/K/L |
Focus monitor |
Super+1-9 |
Switch workspace |
Super+C |
Clipboard history |
Super+E |
File manager |
Super+A |
Audio control (Quickshell popout) |
Super+N |
Network / VPN (Quickshell popout) |
Mod+M |
Media player (Quickshell popout) |
Mod+Escape |
Session menu (Quickshell popout) |
Print |
Screenshot |
Ctrl+Print |
Screenshot screen |
Alt+Print |
Screenshot window |
Customization
All system configs live in /etc/xdg/ and can be overridden per-user in ~/.config/:
| Component | System Default | User Override |
|---|---|---|
| Niri | /etc/xdg/niri/config.kdl |
~/.config/niri/config.kdl (includes system config) |
| Quickshell | /etc/xdg/quickshell/moonarch/ |
~/.config/quickshell/moonarch/shell.qml (copy and recompose) |
| Foot | /etc/xdg/foot/foot.ini |
~/.config/foot/foot.ini |
| kanshi | /etc/xdg/kanshi/config |
~/.config/kanshi/config |
| PipeWire | /etc/xdg/pipewire/ |
~/.config/pipewire/ |
| Zsh | /etc/zsh/zshrc.moonarch |
~/.zshrc + ~/.zshrc.d/ |
Helper scripts in /usr/bin/moonarch-* are not meant to be overridden — they
are part of the system and updated via paru -Syu.
System Services
| Service | Purpose |
|---|---|
| greetd | Login greeter (runs regreet inside Niri) |
| NetworkManager | Network management (WiFi, VPN, Ethernet) |
| bluetooth | Bluetooth stack (bluez) |
| systemd-timesyncd | NTP time synchronization |
| ufw | Firewall (deny incoming, allow outgoing) |
| power-profiles-daemon | Power profiles over D-Bus (EPP + ACPI platform_profile) |
User Services (systemd --user)
| Service | Purpose |
|---|---|
| quickshell | Bar and notification daemon (restarted on crash) |
| cliphist | Clipboard history (wipes on session start, stores in runtime dir) |
| kanshi | Dynamic display configuration (auto-switch output profiles on hotplug) |
| nautilus | File manager preload (faster first launch) |
| stasis | Idle manager (dimming, DPMS, lock, suspend on AC/battery plans) |
| wayland-pipewire-idle-inhibit | Holds a Wayland idle-inhibitor while audio plays (keeps screen awake for windowed browser video that stasis skips) |
| wlsunset | Blue light filter (off by default; enabled per user) |
Moonarch Ecosystem
Moonarch is the deployment and configuration layer. It no longer carries companion programs of its own — the session UI comes from the official repos or from the Quickshell config in this repository:
| Was | Now |
|---|---|
| moongreet (greetd greeter) | ReGreet, greetd-regreet |
| moonlock (screen locker) | gtklock |
| moonset (power menu) | PowerPopout.qml in the Quickshell config |
What remains in the custom package repository
is moonarch-git itself plus the cursor theme; the retired projects keep their
PKGBUILD directories there, unbuilt, so the way back stays open.
License
MIT