I’ve been using Arch or Arch-based distributions for over a year now. In this time testing a few of them, I’ve always lacked a simple and logical way of installing the same “essential” software. To tackle this, I’ve created a metapackage with all this software and this is what I’ve got so far:

# Maintainer: Bruno Miguel https://twitter.com/brunomiguel

pkgname=‘bruno-essentials’ pkgdesc=“A metapackage for some packages I find essential. Requires userrepository.eu repo” pkgver=‘0.0.2’ pkgrel=2

url=‘https://github.com/brunomiguel/base-bruno' arch=(‘any’) license=(‘GPL3’)

depends=( # base ’tmux’ ‘rxvt-unicode’ ‘urxvt-tabbedex’ ‘gotop-git’ ‘pakku’ ‘inxi’ ‘brightnessctl-git’ ‘broot’ ‘ranger’ ‘htop’ ‘git’ ‘scat’ ‘scaleway-cli’ ‘reflector’ ‘qjournalctl’ ‘openvpn’ ‘openssh’ ‘cpupower’ ‘bash-completion’

# editors
'vim' 'micro' 'marktext-bin' 'notable-bin' 'quilter'

# cli utilities
'terminal-markdown-viewer' 'redshift' 'youtube-dl' 'unrar' 'unzip' 'spicetify-cli' 'pfetch-git' 'profile-cleaner' 'cups'

# multimedia
'acestream-launcher' 'gimp' 'gimp-plugin-gmic' 'gimp-refocus' 'spotify' 'pavucontrol' 'vlc' 'curseradio-git' 'mpv-acestream' 'jpegoptim' 'optipng' 'acestream-engine' 'trimage' 'pngzop'

# fonts
'ttf-fira-go' 'ttf-fira-mono-ibx' 'ttf-league-mono' 'ttf-inter-ui' 'interui-otf'

# plasma (somewhat minimal)
'kvantum-qt5' 'kvantum-theme-materia' 'plasma-desktop' 'konsole' 'ark' 'gwenview' 'kde-gtk-config' 'kdeplasma-addons' 'ksysguard' 'powerdevil' 'user-manager' 'spectacle' 'kio-extras' 'kipi-plugins' 'kcalc' 'kcron' 'okular' 'dolphin' 'dolphin-plugins' 'sweeper' 'kdeconnect' 'oxygen' 'plasma-nm' 'plasma-pa' 'plasma5-applets-redshift-control' 'konsole' 'okular' 'kate' 'print-manager'

# browsers
'brave-dev-bin' 'firefox' 'firefox-i18n-pt-pt' 'falkon-git' 'librewolf-bin'

# desktop utilities
'roxterm' 'flameshot' 'libreoffice-fresh' 'filelight'

# security
'bitwarden-bin'

# i3
'i3-gaps-rounded-git' 'polybar' 'rofi' 'compton-tryone-git' 'nitrogen'

# themes and icons
'korla-icon-theme' 'arc-icon-theme' 'boston-icon-theme-git'	

#gamimg
'steam' 'gamehub'

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You can keep up with the changes on Github.