Install a desktop

Choose one desktop and one display manager. These commands still run inside the chroot; enable services here without --now. They start after reboot. If your GPU needs a legacy AUR driver, install the desktop packages but skip enabling its display manager until you have followed the NVIDIA instructions.

KDE Plasma

Plasma is the main desktop used in this guide. Plasma 6.8 uses Wayland; X11 applications run through Xwayland.

pacman -S plasma konsole dolphin kate ark gwenview okular xorg-xwayland
systemctl enable plasmalogin.service

The plasma group includes Plasma Login Manager. Accept the group selection to install it. SDDM is an alternative; if choosing it, install sddm and enable sddm.service instead. Enable only one login service.

Optional applications include kcalc, filelight, kdegraphics-thumbnailers, ffmpegthumbs and kdeconnect. Install sshfs if you need KDE Connect's filesystem browsing.

See KDE for session and hardware troubleshooting.

Other desktops

Install only the row you choose. The display manager column identifies the additional package and service to enable. Consult the linked desktop page for session-specific setup; Wayland support varies between desktops.

Desktop	Packages or groups	Display manager
GNOME	gnome (gnome-extra optional)	gdm; enable gdm.service
Xfce	xorg-server xfce4 xfce4-goodies	LightDM, below
LXDE	xorg-server lxde lxdm	Enable lxdm.service
LXQt	xorg-server lxqt breeze-icons sddm	Enable sddm.service; see the wiki for the separate Wayland setup
Cinnamon	xorg-server cinnamon xed xreader gnome-terminal	LightDM, below
Budgie	budgie gdm	Enable gdm.service; current Budgie uses Wayland
MATE	xorg-server mate mate-extra	LightDM, below
Deepin	deepin deepin-extra	Follow its wiki's LightDM and greeter configuration

For rows using LightDM:

pacman -S lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Set greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter in the [Seat:*] section, then enable the service:

systemctl enable lightdm.service

Xorg normally uses the modesetting driver and libinput. Do not install every graphics driver or legacy input driver. Wayland desktops provide their own compositor; installing the wayland package alone does not create a desktop session.