This is a repository of notes from a personal Arch Linux and Windows 11 dual-boot setup on a device affectionately named Wasabi.
The system was used as a daily driver between 2022 and 2025. The included notes were written during its active years and published in 2026. The purpose of this repository is to capture a snapshot of the system during its use, rather than to provide up-to-date Linux information. The vast majority of the processes can still be followed today; bear in mind, however, that some packages and commands may be out of date.
The actual system configuration files are included in this repository, along with the notes. Minor errors and technical inconsistencies are scattered throughout: everything has been preserved as is, as it represents part of what was a fully working and stable system.
The setup was for an Arch Linux installation as the main system, dual-booting with a minimal Windows 11 used only for gaming. The machine itself was a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9, with an Intel processor and graphics.
The Arch installation used a minimal window manager, Qtile, rather than a full desktop environment, and deliberately ran the fewest packages possible. This kept the system simple and stable even with daily updates.
The system and files were backed up in the following ways:
- A custom-made rsync script copied configuration file changes from anywhere in the filesystem to an external drive. It separately backed up the user home folder to a second partition of the drive.
- A bare Git repository tracked configuration file changes throughout the filesystem and uploaded them to GitHub, which was used as a cloud backup.
A custom system-update script ran routine maintenance and cleaning tasks alongside pacman updates, and dumped a list of installed packages in the home folder, which was backed up with the rest of the files. AUR packages were installed manually rather than with an AUR helper to preserve flags and prevent instability; a list of foreign packages was also kept in the home folder, separate from the pacman packages list.
Rofi was used as the system and application menu, Ly as the display manager, Firefox as the browser, Nemo as the file manager, Alacritty as the terminal emulator, Vim as the text editor, and GParted for partition management. The system was capable of virtualisation using a fully configured QEMU/KVM stack, with virt-manager as the GUI.
- Bad behaviour: keyboard layout reverts to US, the keyboard layout kept changing to US randomly for months, with no apparent solution; found the root cause after a seemingly unrelated action.
- PAM error: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring, this innocuous error message showed up in journalctl after every boot; found the cause to be a single file that I had configured incorrectly.
- Kernel error: i801_smbus: SMBus is busy, can't use it!, innocuous kernel error showing up in journalctl after boot; resolved by preventing the module's implicit loading.
- Bad behaviour: screen blanking during media playback, the screen kept on timing out (blanking) even whilst videos or music were playing; wrote a custom Bash script to prevent it from happening.
- Bad behaviour: wrong system time after change to BST, the change to British Summer Time moved the clock forward in Linux by 2 hours rather than 1; the cause was an incorrect time setup in Windows.
- Wasabi setup guide: Arch Linux and Windows 11 dual-boot - this is the full system setup guide. It includes Windows and Arch Linux step-by-step installation, and the post-installation to-do list.
- Wasabi-dotfiles-preview - this is a folder containing all user-created and user-edited configuration files; it is structured the same way as the root folder on a Linux installation, with all original file paths preserved. All user-authored original scripts are stored in usr/local/bin.
The notes and setup guide refer multiple times to the Arch Wiki, which was used consistently and thoroughly whilst building this setup. Visiting it is highly recommended both for up-to-date instructions and as a general Linux knowledge base.
Other sources such as forums and blogs were also used and are linked throughout the notes.
The guide and troubleshooting notes reflect personal system setup and taste. These instructions are not guaranteed to work on different hardware. Some steps involve repartitioning disks and modifying bootloaders, and may cause data loss. Backing up your data is recommended.