My Dotfiles

This repository contains my personal dotfiles for configuring my development environment. It includes settings for various tools and applications that I regularly use. The setup targets a fast, keyboard-driven workflow on GNU/Linux, specifically Arch GNU/Linux with the dwl Wayland compositor. It is meant to be practical, not minimalist: the lean, dependency-free tooling (the ./install script, small POSIX-sh helpers) sits next to heavyweight applications I need for work (game engine, .NET) - see Non-free packages for what that pulls in.

Requirements

• GNU/Linux-based operating system
• Git (git) - for cloning the repository
• Bash - the ./install script is plain Bash, no other dependencies
• Sudo privileges - for the system-wide (/etc) configuration

Please back up your existing dotfiles before installing.

Installation

Symlinks are managed by a small, dependency-free Bash script (./install). The whole mapping lives in a single file, setup/links.conf - one line per link, two columns: <source-in-repo> <target>. Targets under ~ are user configs; /etc/… targets are system configs and are linked via sudo.

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/leonhardweiler/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles
cd ~/dotfiles

Create all symlinks from links.conf (user and, via sudo, /etc targets) and (re)activate the systemd units:

./install                 # = ./install link  (everyday: refresh symlinks + units)

Fresh machine - one command: ./install setup runs the whole bootstrap. On a terminal it shows a menu of optional steps (Enter picks the defaults); it then links every config (implies --force, backing up real files to .bak) and runs the selected steps:

./install setup

The optional steps (menu entries; each also has a flag, see below):

Step	Flag	Default
Install packages from programs.txt	--programs	✓
(Re)activate systemd units	--systemd	✓
Add user to the required groups (usermod -aG)	--groups
Set the timezone (/etc/localtime)	--timezone ZONE
Generate locales (locale-gen)	--locale	✓
Deploy the getty@tty1 autologin drop-in	--getty-autologin
Passwordless sudo for wheel (/etc/sudoers.d/)	--sudoers
Rebuild the initramfs (mkinitcpio -P)	--initramfs
Install fonts + refresh the font cache (fc-cache)	--fonts
Enable the Legion battery conservation mode	--legion-conservation
Build + install dwl from config/dwl/config.h	--dwl
Build + install wbg (wallpaper program)	--wbg

Each step is also runnable on its own for automation: ./install --<step> runs just those steps (no linking, no menu), e.g. ./install --timezone Europe/Vienna or ./install --groups --sudoers. To skip the menu but still do the full setup, pass the flags to setup: ./install setup --programs --systemd --locale.

The scripts assume the repo lives at ~/dotfiles; if you clone elsewhere, export DOTFILES_DIR (used by update_programs_list) accordingly.

Useful variants:

./install status          # show state of every entry (ok / foreign link / real file / missing)
./install validate        # check links.conf (strict, read-only) - no filesystem changes
./install --user-only     # only ~ targets, never touch /etc, no sudo
./install -n              # dry run: print what would happen, change nothing
./install --force         # back up real files/dirs at the target to .bak, then link
./install unlink          # remove the symlinks this repo manages

Every command validates links.conf first and aborts on any problem (nothing changed), reporting links.conf:<line>: <msg>. It rejects: a missing target, stray extra fields, an absolute source, a non-existent source, a duplicate target, a target outside ~ / /etc / /usr/local, and a glob that matches nothing. A glob that may legitimately be empty can be marked with a third optional field (config/foo/* ~/dir optional). Run ./install validate on its own to check without linking.

Everyday use is just ./install (idempotent, never overwrites real files). setup is the one-shot fresh-machine bootstrap; to only (re)install packages without touching anything else, run ./setup/install-programs directly.

Repo layout: every config lives directly under config/<name>/ (flat source paths - e.g. config/btop/btop.conf), and setup/links.conf maps each source to its target. Existing symlinks are always replaced; by default ./install never overwrites a real file/dir (only symlinks are replaced) - use --force to back those up to .bak and replace them. unlink only removes symlinks that point back into this repo. If a source path ends in /*, each entry inside it is linked individually into the target directory, which stays real - used for config/usrbin/* -> ~/.local/bin, so foreign entries there (e.g. claude) are left untouched. setup/ holds the deployment machinery: the link map (links.conf), the package manifest (programs.txt), the install-programs bootstrap script, and the data lists the installer reads instead of hardcoding them - services.txt (systemd units), groups.txt and fonts.txt. The package list itself is regenerated by update_programs_list (config/usrbin/, on PATH), which the pacman hook also calls.

After installation, restart your shell or source ~/.bashrc to apply the Bash configuration.

Systemd Services

System Services

The system services below are enabled automatically by ./install (the system entries in setup/services.txt, via systemctl enable - without --now, so the running session is not disturbed; start them manually or reboot to activate). To do it by hand:

sudo systemctl enable --now NetworkManager.service
sudo systemctl enable --now getty@tty1.service
sudo systemctl enable --now systemd-timesyncd.service
sudo systemctl enable --now fstrim.timer

Note: PipeWire/WirePlumber (user-scope, enabled per-user by package presets) have no enable-able system *.service and are therefore not in the list.

Battery conservation mode (Legion)

Charging stops at ~60% to spare the battery. This used to be a legion-conservation.service run at every boot, which was unnecessary: the ideapad_acpi driver writes the flag through to the embedded controller, and the EC keeps it across reboots and power-offs. It is a one-shot setup step now:

./install --legion-conservation

The step is idempotent (a no-op when the flag is already set) and skips itself when the sysfs entry is missing, i.e. on non-Legion hardware. By hand:

echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/bus/platform/drivers/ideapad_acpi/VPC2004:00/conservation_mode

Disabled at boot (startup-time trims)

These are preset-enabled by their packages but deliberately turned off by ./install (the disable entries in setup/services.txt) to shave boot time - they sit on / needlessly delay the critical path. To do it by hand:

sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager-wait-online.service

• NetworkManager-wait-online.service - blocks network-online.target until a link is up; pointless on a laptop where NetworkManager brings the link up asynchronously after login.

Check status:

sudo systemctl status <name>.service

Login-time helpers (no user units)

There are no systemd user units. What would otherwise want a .timer/.service runs as a plain command from the dwl autostart (autostart[] in config/dwl/config.h), so nothing needs to be enabled:

• Battery warning - a shell loop calls bat_check every 2 minutes: while true; do ~/.local/bin/bat_check; sleep 120; done.

PipeWire/WirePlumber/figma-agent are enabled by their own package presets and are not managed here.

Contents

Component	Path
Bash	~/.bashrc, ~/.config/bash
btop	~/.config/btop
Claude Code	~/.claude/{skills,settings.json}
dwl	compiled + /usr/local session
foot	~/.config/foot
Git	~/.config/git
KeePassXC	~/.config/keepassxc
MIME defaults	~/.config/mimeapps.list
mkinitcpio	/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
MPV	~/.config/mpv
Neovim	~/.config/nvim
wob (OSD)	~/.config/wob
Pacman hooks	/etc/pacman.d/hooks
PipeWire	~/.config/pipewire
qt5ct	~/.config/qt5ct
Rofi	~/.config/rofi
Scripts	~/.local/bin
Systemd System	/etc/systemd/system/
Wallpapers	~/.local/share/wallpapers
wbg	compiled + /usr/local binary
yt-save add-on	packed XPI + ~/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts

My Setup

I use Arch GNU/Linux with the dwl Wayland compositor. The file programs.txt contains a complete list of installed packages. A pacman hook (/etc/pacman.d/hooks, installed via the pacman package) regenerates it automatically after every pacman/yay transaction. You can still refresh it manually while installing via the install script.

Note: This setup has been primarily tested on Arch GNU/Linux. Other distributions may require adjustments.

Non-free packages

In the interest of honesty: programs.txt is not a free-software-only manifest. Some tracked packages are proprietary and installed from the AUR:

• unityhub (and the Unity editor it manages) - proprietary game engine.
• plasticscm-client-gui - proprietary version control (Unity/PlasticSCM).
• figma-agent-linux-bin - proprietary font helper for Figma.

In addition, linux-firmware and amd-ucode ship non-free binary blobs (device firmware / CPU microcode) that the stock linux kernel loads. If you want a fully free system, drop the packages above and swap linux/linux-firmware for linux-libre/linux-libre-firmware (note: some hardware then loses driver support). The rest of the tooling (dwl, foot, Neovim, mpv, KeePassXC, …) is free software.

Manual system state (not symlinked)

Some system state is not a config file this repo can symlink. Most of it is now available as optional ./install setup steps (see the table above), but the commands are kept here as reference and for doing them by hand. Checklist:

• User groups (./install --groups) - add your user to the groups the tracked tools need:

  sudo usermod -aG wheel,input,uucp,disk,lock <user>

  Group changes take effect after re-login. Conversely, drop groups whose program you no longer have installed, e.g. sudo gpasswd -d <user> docker.

• Timezone (./install --timezone Europe/Vienna): sudo ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Vienna /etc/localtime

• Locales (./install --locale): /etc/locale.conf and /etc/locale.gen are tracked, but the locales still have to be generated once: sudo locale-gen.

• Bootloader / kernel cmdline: the custom kernel is started via EFISTUB (see below); systemd-boot remains installed on the ESP (/efi) as the fallback. The kernel options amd_pstate=active usbcore.autosuspend=1 quiet live in the EFI boot entry resp. in /efi/loader/entries/arch.conf (options line) - machine-specific (root=UUID=…), so set them by hand rather than tracking the file.

• Not tracked on purpose (machine-specific / secrets): /etc/hostname, /etc/fstab (UUIDs), and NetworkManager Wi-Fi profiles (/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/*.nmconnection, contain PSKs).

• ESP on-demand mount (/etc/fstab, machine-specific so by hand): the EFI partition does not need to be mounted at boot - only bootctl and kernel updates touch it. Mounting it lazily via x-systemd.automount keeps efi.mount (and its systemd-fsck) off the boot path; it is mounted transparently on first access and unmounted again after the idle timeout. The /efi line reads:

  UUID=1477-6A85  /efi  vfat  noauto,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.idle-timeout=2min,rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro  0 0
  

  Apply without a reboot: sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo umount /efi && sudo systemctl start efi.automount (pass 0 disables the boot-time fsck).

• getty@tty1 autologin drop-in (./install --getty-autologin; /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/autologin.conf): there is no display manager. getty@tty1 is overridden to log leo in automatically (agetty --autologin leo), and the login shell then execs the dwl session from ~/.bash_profile (only on tty1, only if no Wayland session is already up). The drop-in must be a real copy on the root partition, not symlinked via links.conf - systemd reads unit drop-ins early at manager start, when a /home symlink would still be a dead link. Deploy by hand:

  sudo install -d -m755 /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d
  sudo install -m644 config/systemd-system/getty@tty1.service.d/autologin.conf \
      /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/
  sudo systemctl daemon-reload

  Because dwl is started from a plain autologin shell (not a display manager), the console keymap workaround that ly needed is unnecessary: no password is typed on the VT, and dwl applies its own xkb layout once it starts.

• sudo (./install --sudoers): this setup relies on passwordless sudo for the wheel group (%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL, written to /etc/sudoers.d/10-wheel-nopasswd and validated with visudo -c) - a deliberate convenience choice; adjust to taste.

• Claude Code runs without permission prompts - also deliberate, and worth reading together with the passwordless sudo above, because the two compound. config/bash/.bashrc aliases the binary (alias claude='claude --dangerously-skip-permissions'), so every invocation skips the permission prompts, and config/claude/settings.json sets "skipDangerousModePermissionPrompt": true to drop the one-time warning about that mode as well. The combined blast radius is therefore "the agent can do anything this user can, including root via NOPASSWD sudo, without asking". That is the intended workflow here and the alias is meant to stay the command; to start Claude with prompts anyway, bypass the alias with \claude or command claude. If you adopt this repo, this is a decision to make consciously rather than inherit.

Notes

• Some applications may require additional dependencies not covered by this repository.
• Adjust paths and configurations to your personal environment.
• Backing up existing configurations is strongly recommended.
• To update the program list without relinking, run update_programs_list (on PATH via ~/.local/bin; the same script the pacman hook uses).
• To install all packages from programs.txt, run ./setup/install-programs

Copying the last command and its output (copy-last-command)

Ctrl+Shift+Y in foot puts the last command and its output on the clipboard, ready to paste somewhere else:

Input: printf "zeile eins\nzeile zwei\n"
Output:
zeile eins
zeile zwei

Three pieces make that work:

• config/bash/foot-shell-integration.bash (→ ~/.config/bash/, sourced from ~/.bashrc) emits the OSC-133 markers foot needs — A before each prompt, C before a command's output and D after it. This also enables foot's prompt jumping (Ctrl+Shift+Z/X).
• The command line itself is not inside the marked output region, so the same file writes it to $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/foot-last-command.<foot-pid> before running it (a DEBUG trap reading history 1).
• config/usrbin/copy-last-command is bound to foot's pipe-command-output (config/foot/foot.ini). foot feeds it the output on stdin, the script reads the command back from the file above — keyed by the foot process that spawned both — and pipes the result into wl-copy.

Because the two halves are matched through the owning foot process, each window copies its own last command. This assumes foot runs one process per window (no --server/footclient, which is how this system runs it), and the shell being a child of that process — the Input: line stays empty otherwise.

Ctrl+Shift+A does the same for everything on screen, i.e. every pair since the last clear:

Input: echo eins
Output:
eins

Input: printf "a\nb\n"
Output:
a
b

That one is config/usrbin/copy-visible on foot's pipe-visible, and it works differently: foot pipes the visible screen as plain text, with no OSC-133 markers left in it, so the script has to find the prompt lines itself. It does that with a regex built for this PS1 (optional battery percentage, a space-free path starting in ~ or /, then $ ) — change the prompt and that regex has to follow. Output above the first prompt (a command whose prompt has already scrolled off) is kept as a block with an empty Input:.

Application launcher (app_menu)

MOD+I opens config/usrbin/app_menu instead of rofi's built-in drun mode. The reason is a single behaviour: in drun, Return with nothing left in the list hands the typed text to the shell and answers with a Failed to execute: '<typo>' dialog. rofi does have a flag against that - -no-custom, which is what makes Return a no-op in mount_menu and sanitize_menu - but it is implemented in the dmenu mode only, so getting it here meant listing the applications ourselves and going through dmenu.

The script keeps what drun actually showed: it scans the .desktop files of the XDG data dirs (~/.local/share/applications first, so a file there overrides the system one of the same desktop-id), drops the entries marked NoDisplay/Hidden, whose TryExec program is missing, or that are meant for another desktop (OnlyShowIn/NotShowIn, matched against XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=dwl), and starts the pick with its Exec line - field codes (%f, %U, …) removed, Path= as the working directory, Terminal=true through foot. Shift+Return runs any entry in a terminal.

Most-used first, as before: the counter file is ~/.cache/app_menu.history, in the same <count> <desktop-id> format drun writes, so the first run adopts ~/.cache/rofi3.druncache and the order does not start over from alphabetical.

Removable drives (mount_menu)

MOD+M opens a rofi menu of every removable filesystem (config/usrbin/mount_menu, on PATH via ~/.local/bin). Each line starts with the action it performs, so the menu stays searchable by typing mount, eject or a drive label:

mount    /dev/sda1        14.6G  vfat        SANDISK
unmount  /dev/sdb1       931.5G  ext4        backup  ->  /run/media/leo/backup
eject    /dev/sda         14.6G  drive       SanDisk Ultra

eject is the one-pick path for pulling a stick out: it unmounts everything still open on that drive, syncs, and then tells the kernel to delete the block device (/sys/block/<disk>/device/delete) so it spins down - the part a bare unmount does not do. Buses without that entry (SD cards, NVMe) are safe once unmounted and synced.

Mounting is plain mount(8)/umount(8) through sudo -n, riding on the passwordless wheel rule from the --sudoers step - no udisks2, no daemon, no polkit, no fstab entries. Drives land under /run/media/<user>/<label> (/run is a tmpfs, so a mount point left behind by a crash is gone after a reboot) and are mounted nosuid,nodev,noatime; FAT/exFAT/NTFS additionally get uid/gid/umask so they belong to the user, while a Linux filesystem keeps its own ownership. Internal filesystems are hidden - mount_menu --all lists them too. Anything already mounted outside /run/media, /media or /mnt - /, /home, swap - is never offered, so the menu cannot touch a system mount.

Because everything runs through sudo -n, the menu reports an error instead of hanging if that sudo rule is missing. Encrypted volumes are not supported: this kernel is built without device-mapper, so dm-crypt and LVM do not exist here.

Stripping metadata from files that leave the machine (sanitize)

A photo carries the camera model and its serial number, the lens, the GPS position and the second it was taken; a PDF names the author and the scanner; a video names the device. None of that should follow a file out of the house, so there are two ways to get rid of it - one deliberate, one automatic - both built on config/usrbin/sanitize.

sanitize picks its tool by file type, because no single one is good at everything:

Type	Tool	Why
images	exiftool -all=	cuts out the metadata segments and leaves the pixels alone - lossless
audio / video	ffmpeg -c copy -map_metadata -1	drops container tags and chapters without re-encoding
everything else	mat2	PDF, docx/odt, svg, epub, archives - metadata hides in places exiftool does not write

Two things leak as loudly as EXIF and are handled as well:

• The file name. IMG_20240513_142233.jpg states date and time outright, so the result is renamed to image-<8 hex digits>.jpg (--keep-name opts out).
• The modification time. A browser upload sends the file's lastModified along with the bytes. The copy is stamped with the current time - that tells the recipient nothing they do not know already, while a fixed fake date would announce that the file was scrubbed.

A format mat2 does not understand is a hard error, never a silent pass: better no file than one that only looks clean. To see what survived: exiftool -a -G1 -s <file>.

By default the original is untouched and the copy goes to $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/sanitized - a tmpfs that dies with the session, so cleaned copies never pile up on disk.

MOD+S - the rofi menu (sanitize_menu): one window, filtering the files below ~ live as you type, newest first. Return puts the cleaned image itself on the clipboard (paste into Signal, a mail, a browser field); Shift+Return puts the path of the cleaned copy there, for "upload a file" dialogs (Ctrl+L, then Ctrl+V). Two keys because wl-copy can offer only one MIME type per invocation.

The filtering is rofi's own, over a list built once at startup - which only stays instant while that list stays small, so it holds just the formats that carry metadata at all (EXTENSIONS in the script). That is nearly the same set sanitize can process, so what it leaves out would have errored out on Return anyway; here it cuts 278k files down to 19k. Hidden files and directories are skipped too - nothing in ~/.cache is meant to be sent.

Building that list takes ~80 ms, and the way there is instructive. rg --files walks the tree on several threads and matches the extensions itself, so only the 19k survivors get stat'ed for their mtime. The surprise was the sort: ordering 19k lines costs 170 ms under de_DE.UTF-8 and 11 ms under LC_ALL=C - collation, not comparison, is the expense. LC_ALL=C is therefore set on sort and sed alone, never for the script, since rofi and the file names it displays still want the real locale.

The clipboard (clipboard_sanitize, started from the dwl autostart): copying a picture and pasting it into a chat never touches the disk, so the menu above never sees it. One wl-paste --watch per image type - png, jpeg, webp, tiff, gif, avif - strips what comes in and puts it back, only if that changed something, and never twice, since the content it writes is remembered by hash. A file copied in a file manager is not covered: that puts a text/uri-list on the clipboard, and the receiving application then reads the original off disk. Use MOD+S for those.

What none of this can fix is the contents: a screenshot still shows window titles, paths and a clock, and a "redacted" PDF may still carry the text underneath the black box.

YouTube lists (yt-save add-on, yt_save, yt_menu)

Two markdown lists in a separate notes repo - yt/remember.md and yt/watchlist.md - hold YouTube links as - [name](url). Keeping them by hand meant opening the file and pasting into it; this is the same two lists with a keypress on each end.

Saving, in the browser. The yt-save add-on (config/zen-yt/) binds Ctrl+Alt+R (remember) and Ctrl+Alt+W (watchlist). What it saves, in order: the YouTube link under the mouse pointer, otherwise the video the tab is on, otherwise nothing - no flash, no error, so a mistaken keypress in a text editor stays a non-event. Only code inside the page can see the pointer, hence the content script: it reports the hovered link, and the background page pairs that with the shortcut.

The title is the part that needs care. A thumbnail link contains no title at all - its text is the duration badge plus the screen-reader spelling of the same number - so the content script does not read the link it is on. It reads the title attribute if there is one, otherwise it walks up to the card the link sits in and takes the title from another link to the same video id (grids pair a thumbnail link with a title link) or from the card's title element, and only falls back to the link's own text (overlays stripped), the thumbnail alt and finally aria-label, which pads the title with channel, views and duration.

Where the length is not an element but glued to the end of the string ("Windows has driven me to tears.... 28 minutes"), it is cut off the title instead - but only when the words are lengths (minutes, Minuten, hours, …), the numbers are the ones in the card's duration badge, and the word in front is not an in/under/unter. That is what keeps "… Explained in 11 Minutes" and "Die 3 Musketiere" intact.

Both halves are needed because a page cannot write to a file. The bridge is native messaging: Zen starts config/usrbin/yt_save for one message and it exits again. That is what KeePassXC does here too, and it is why there is no open port, no daemon and no polling - the older sketch of this feature had a userscript talking to 127.0.0.1, and none of that survived.

yt_save strips the tracking parameters (si, pp, feature, utm_*; v, list and a timestamp that came with the link are kept, none is ever added), refuses a link already on either list, appends the entry, and flashes wob green through osd - the confirmation dictate gives. A duplicate flashes red instead, so the keypress always answers. New entries go into the section above the first ## heading, which is what keeps them out of the "godot" block at the bottom of the watchlist.

Opening, in dwl. MOD+Y runs config/usrbin/yt_menu, one rofi window with both lists, prefixed, so typing W narrows it to the watchlist:

[W] lenin misunderstood - was tun?
[W] godot / metroidvania playlist
[R] nice sounds/background track

Enter opens the entry in a new browser tab, Alt+BackSpace takes it off the list without opening. Removed lines are not deleted but moved to yt/watched.md with the date. A removal does not end the menu: rofi comes back with the shortened list and the text that was typed (dropped once it matches nothing), so several entries can go in one pass. The pick comes back from rofi as a row number plus that text (-format 'i f'), not as the entry text, so two entries with the same name cannot be confused - and the line is only removed if the url is still on it, in case the file was edited while the menu was open.

Neither script commits. Both only write the files in ~/files/repos/notes/yt/; every commit in the notes repo is made by hand.

Setup, once. ./install links at.leo.yt_save.json into ~/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts (Firefox-based browsers look there whatever the app is called) and both scripts into ~/.local/bin. Zen is built with MOZ_REQUIRE_SIGNING=false, so with xpinstall.signatures.required = false in about:config the unsigned add-on installs permanently: config/zen-yt/build-xpi packs it, about:addons → gear → Install Add-on From File installs it. While changing it, about:debugging → Load Temporary Add-on loads the directory directly and skips the packing.

If a keypress produces no flash at all, the host never ran - the extension logs why in the console of about:debugging.

Screen locker (waylock)

dwl's lockcmd is waylock, replacing the former hyprlock. waylock has no config file - it is configured entirely through CLI flags, so the whole configuration lives in lockcmd[] in config/dwl/config.h and changing it means rebuilding (./install --dwl):

static const char *lockcmd[] = { "waylock", "-ignore-empty-password",
                                 "-init-color", "0x191414",
                                 "-input-color", "0xdddddd",
                                 "-input-alt-color", "0x999999",
                                 "-fail-color", "0xaa2222", NULL };

waylock only ever paints the whole screen in one solid color, which one depending on the state (locked / input received / authentication failed). The following hyprlock features therefore have no equivalent and are gone:

• screenshot background and blur_passes
• the input field as such - size, outline thickness, rounding, placeholder text, font and font color, fade_on_empty, positioning
• hide_cursor
• fail_timeout (waylock has no configurable delay after a failed attempt)

What carried over: ignore_empty_input -> -ignore-empty-password, the background color -> -init-color, the outline color -> -input-color.

New Initramfs

mkinitcpio.conf is tracked and linked to /etc/mkinitcpio.conf via links.conf (source config/mkinitcpio/mkinitcpio.conf). After modifying it, regenerate the initramfs with ./install --initramfs, or by hand:

sudo mkinitcpio -P

mkinitcpio -P now only rebuilds the stock linux preset. The custom kernel (vmlinuz-custom-r17) boots without an initramfs (root=PARTUUID=…; all boot drivers are =y), so its former custom.preset and the initramfs-custom-r17.img have been removed. The custom boot entry /efi/loader/entries/arch-custom-r17.conf has no initrd line. The r14 entry keeps its existing static initramfs-custom-r14.img as a fallback.

EFISTUB

The custom kernel is booted directly by the firmware, without a bootloader in between. Two properties make that trivial here: the kernel is built with CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y (so vmlinuz is a valid EFI binary) and it boots without an initramfs, so there is nothing to chain-load. The kernel command line travels as the boot entry's optional data (UCS-2), which is what the stub reads.

Register a kernel on the ESP with efistub-entry (config/usrbin/, needs root):

sudo efistub-entry vmlinuz-custom-r18

Without a second argument it reuses the command line of the running kernel (/proc/cmdline); pass one explicitly to change it:

sudo efistub-entry vmlinuz-custom-r18 'root=PARTUUID=… rw quiet amd_pstate=active'

The script derives disk and partition from the ESP itself (bootctl --print-esp-path, triggering the automount first) and is idempotent: an existing entry with the same label is deleted before the new one is created, so repeated runs do not pile up duplicates in the boot menu. efibootmgr --create puts the new entry at the front of BootOrder.

systemd-boot stays installed at the ESP fallback path (/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI), and that is the point: this Insyde firmware carries no OS-created NVRAM entry of its own (it boots the disk through the generic EFI Hard Drive entry). Should it ever drop our EFISTUB entry, the machine falls back to systemd-boot and boots exactly as before. Removing the EFISTUB entry by hand does the same:

sudo efibootmgr --delete-bootnum --bootnum <NNNN>

Trade-off versus systemd-boot: a new kernel is no longer a new .conf file in /efi/loader/entries/ but a new NVRAM entry, i.e. one efistub-entry run per kernel revision (the old entry has a different label and has to be deleted by hand). Also note that CPU microcode cannot be loaded early on this path - without an initramfs there is nowhere to put amd-ucode.img. That is unchanged from before: neither boot entry ever referenced it.

License

Licensed under the ISC License - SPDX identifier ISC. The full license text is in LICENSE. Bundled third-party files (e.g. under config/mpv/) keep their own license.