Arch Linux Fresh Setup - VM Test & Migration Plan

Test a fresh Arch Linux installation in a VM, migrating only essential configurations from the current 65-repo, 45-stow-package environment. Goal: a clean, reproducible setup that boots to productive in under an hour.

Problem Statement

The current workstation has accumulated:

  • 65 git repositories across atelier/_bibliotheca/ (28) and atelier/_projects/personal/ (37)

  • 45 stow packages in dots-quantum with 200+ config files

  • 4 legacy nvim configs (instrumentum, modulus, modulus-fidus, nvim-core) superseded by domus-nvim

  • Unknown dependency drift between packages

A new machine should start clean, not clone the entropy.

Related

Improvement Proposals

Proposals from ecosystem audit — 2026-04-04. For team review and prioritization.
Priority Proposal Rationale Effort

P1

Consolidate lessons learned from thinkpad-t16g

The T16g deployment (11 phases) surfaced real-world issues with the fresh setup process. Extract reusable patterns into this project.

M

P2

Tier strategy decision matrix

Document the minimal vs standard vs full installation tiers. Each tier has a package set, use case, and estimated install time.

M

P2

Post-install validation checklist

A step-by-step verification partial: networking, audio, display, GPU, Bluetooth, power management, stow packages. Prevents missed steps.

S

P3

Package group reference

Categorized package lists: base system, desktop environment, development tools, networking, multimedia. With explanation of why each is included.

M

Consolidation with thinkpad-t16g

The thinkpad-t16g project documented 11 sequential phases of Arch deployment. Several of those phases are generic (not hardware-specific) and should be extracted:

  • Phase 3 (base system) — pacstrap, fstab, locale, network

  • Phase 4 (bootloader) — systemd-boot or GRUB

  • Phase 5 (first boot) — user creation, sudo, SSH

  • Phase 8 (stow deployment) — dots-quantum integration

These can become shared partials included by both projects.

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