LARBS
LARBS is an efficient shell script that will install a fully-featured tiling window manager-based system on any Arch or Artix Linux-based system, without any of the routine of manual post-install processes and configuration.
By default, LARBS installs and deploys my own personal dotfiles which people may know from my videos on YouTube. It will install my special build of dwm which is very cool.
Two types of LARBS users
Is LARBS for you? Probably yes. I don't know how else you would've found this site. The script is for two types of people:
- People who already know their stuff and just want to automate installing a system without doing the boring stuff you've done a million times.
- Novices who want to use and learn about a leet hackerman computer setup like those in the movies for either efficiency or looking cool.
No actual phonies allowed though. The goal of the system for novices is helping you understand how a good Unix system works and how it is modified. I give huge amounts of documentation for this (see below), but this is not a hand-holding distro that does things automatically for you. Instead, you realize how easy it is to set things up automatically yourself.
Gallery
If you see pretty much any of my videos that are screencasts, you will see what LARBS looks like on initial install.
You can also see user-submitted screenshots of LARBS (some with modification) here.
Yeah, mostly just people pulling up htop and stuff to look busy of course...
Installation
On any (preferrably fresh) install of an Arch or Artix Linux, make sure curl
is installed and just run the following as the root user:
curl -LO larbs.xyz/larbs.sh
sh larbs.sh
LARBS will then guide you through installation, which is typically relatively snappy. On my slow internet, it takes around 10 minutes.
Note that the LARBS scripts will not partition any drives or wipe anything, but when it deploys the dotfiles, it will overwrite any preexisting files: e.g. the LARBS bashrc will replace your old bashrc, etc. To avoid even this risk, you can tell LARBS to install for a new username and nothing will be overwritten.
What does LARBS install?
You can check out the programs list that LARBS parses for installation right here! It also gives a brief explanation of why the program is included. Yup, the input text is the documentation. You might call it lazy—I call it peak efficiency!
Here is some idea of the programs installed:
- Suckless software: dwm (window manager), dwmblocks (status bar) st (terminal), dmenu, etc., all sensible builds even with the minimalist source pre-downloaded for you.
- Minimalist and keyboard-centric programs for file management (lf), mail (neomutt), RSS (newsboat), music/audio (ncmpcpp/mpd) etc.
- Highly extensible programs for everything else: sxiv (image viewer), zathura (pdf/djvu/epub reader).
- A well featured and configured shell (zsh) and other core programs, including many elegant scripts.
Note that making your own fork of LARBS is as easy as using your own dotfiles, making a programs file like the one above, and making any other direct changes to the script you want.
Learning the system is fun and easy!
You can figure out about the system in a lot of different ways:
- LARBS has a built-in readme document and list of all the many efficient keybindings that you can read here.
By pressing
super+F1
at any time while in the system you can read this document. - The many illustrative videos on my YouTube channel, some of which are easily watchable in LARBS by pressing
super+F2
. - The documentation on the Github page.
- By just installing it and diving in!
LARBS fan?
Like LARBS?
Advertise it with this sticker on your website linked here:

Donate to help me maintain and improve LARBS!
- Donate to Luke (either one-time or monthly) and leave a comment saying it's for the LARBS fund.
Bitcoin:
bc1q78m8m73pxdxl6fsup3ywexhjuq3rtclhmxdr5h
Monero:
48jewbtxe4jU3MnzJFjTs3gVFWh2nRrAMWdUuUd7Ubo375LL4SjLTnMRKBrXburvEh38QSNLrJy3EateykVCypnm6gcT9bh
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Contact!
You can also ask me questions via email at luke@lukesmith.xyz.
I'll be posting updates about LARBS on my RSS feed.