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CachyOS Hyprland Developer Workstation Setup

Work in progress.

This document tracks a migration from Windows to a native Linux development workstation. It is updated as the setup is tested and refined.

Goal

Replace a Windows 11 + WSL workflow with a fully native Linux environment.

Before After
Windows 11 CachyOS
WSL Native Linux development
GlazeWM Hyprland (no KDE Plasma desktop)
ShareX grim + slurp + satty
Raycast Vicinae
— Noctalia (bar / control centre)
— Ghostty (terminal)
— Native Linux gaming

KDE applications (Dolphin, Spectacle) are used where they are the best option.

Installation

Secure Boot

Disabled — the CachyOS installer was blocked by Secure Boot.

Bootloader and filesystem

  • Bootloader: Limine
  • Filesystem: Btrfs
  • Encryption: LUKS

After first boot

sudo pacman -Syu

Verify the NVIDIA driver:

nvidia-smi

If this prints GPU information, the driver is working. CachyOS ships the NVIDIA stack preinstalled and keeps the kernel module in sync with the running kernel, so there is normally nothing to install.

You can also click the temperature readout in the Noctalia top bar to see CPU temperature, GPU name and general system information without opening settings.

Packages

Most of the packages below are managed by this project — run the app and install them from the UI rather than by hand:

sudo pacman -S make

./install_unix.sh

The catalog lives in src/personal_os_setup/config/packages.yaml, under a single cachyos: key. This project targets CachyOS specifically — generic Arch and other derivatives are not supported.

Two package managers are used:

  • pacman — official repositories
  • paru — AUR. CachyOS ships paru by default;

Manual fallback

If you are setting up before the app is available:

# Core CLI
sudo pacman -S ripgrep fd fzf jq tree btop fastfetch bat eza zoxide

# Build tooling (needed for Hyprland plugins)
sudo pacman -S base-devel cmake meson cpio git nlohmann-json

# Screenshot and annotation (bound to CTRL+Print in the Hyprland config)
sudo pacman -S grim slurp satty wl-clipboard

# Display and brightness
sudo pacman -S wdisplays brightnessctl wlsunset ddcutil
sudo modprobe i2c-dev            # required by ddcutil for external monitors

# Theming and Wayland integration
sudo pacman -S breeze-gtk kde-gtk-config qt5-wayland qt6-wayland hyprpolkitagent

# AUR
paru -S pycharm

Vicinae has its own installer:

curl -fsSL https://vicinae.com/install | bash

Desktop

Configuration files

Copy the personal configuration for Hyprland and Noctalia into ~/.config. Enable View → Show Hidden Files in Dolphin to see the directory.

Verify the keybindings afterward — for example ALT+F for fullscreen.

Hyprland plugins

hyprpm builds plugins from source, so the build tooling above must be installed first.

hyprpm update

# ALT+TAB window switcher
hyprpm add https://github.com/gfhdhytghd/hymission
hyprpm enable hymission

# Title bars: drag, close, maximise
hyprpm add https://github.com/hyprwm/hyprland-plugins
hyprpm enable hyprbars

hyprpm reload
hyprpm list

Test ALT+TAB for the switcher, and dragging / closing / maximising windows for hyprbars.

Shell

CachyOS defaults to fish as the login shell, with cachyos-fish-config and cachyos-zsh-config both installed.

This setup moves to zsh with oh-my-zsh and the powerlevel10k prompt. .zshrc and .p10k.zsh, plus oh-my-zsh itself and all its plugins/theme, are managed via chezmoi, with its source directory vendored inside this repo at src/personal_os_setup/config/chezmoi/. oh-my-zsh/plugins/theme are declared as git-repo externals in .chezmoiexternal.toml, so a single chezmoi: apply clones and applies everything — no separate sync step or ordering to worry about. Use the app's chezmoi: diff action to preview changes before chezmoi: apply — chezmoi has no auto-backup, so review the diff first. set zsh as default shell remains a separate zsh action.

Theming

Noctalia can set application themes directly (Noctalia settings → Themes). Personal themes are kept rather than using the bundled ones.

Do not remove the Qt5/Qt6 theme packages — the Noctalia theme cannot currently be removed without affecting them.

  • Dolphin: Menu (hamburger) → Configure → Window Color Scheme → Breeze Dark
  • Qt: run qt6ct (and qt5ct) to configure Qt application theming

Still to do

  • Install gaming packages from CachyOS Hello
  • Configure Vicinae
  • configure Noctalia
  • Test desktop integration end to end
  • Verify theming consistency across GTK and Qt applications
  • Remove Kitty and Alacritty once Ghostty is confirmed
  • Remove other unnecessary packages after testing

Applications to try

  • Spectacle — screenshots
  • KDE Connect — phone integration