What is Salient OS?

Salient OS is an arch-based rolling-release distribution aimed at creative multi-media users / gaming enthusiasts. It comes pre-configured with various applications out of the box to aid you in getting started quickly without having to download these applications yourself.

The default user is 'liveuser' with no password and autologin is enabled for the live session.

The installer can be found in the main menu under the System category, namely, Install Salient OS. Salient OS uses the Calamares Installer by default.

Xfce Specific tweaks include a modified keyboard shortcut to close windows, since xfce doesn't have it enabled natively: CTRL + Shift + Q : useful for unresponsive apps / windows.

Nano now has syntax highlighting enabled for those who prefer it over Vim.

Salient OS has two ISOs available at present, XFCE and KDE Plasma.

1. After install, update your system

When you first install it is recommended to refresh the mirror list and to perform any upgrades that may be required. Run these aliases / commands from a terminal.

Use Reflect to Update the mirrorlist

sudo reflect

Reflect UK for UK residents

sudo reflectuk

Refresh the newly updated mirrors

sudo pacupd

Ensure required upgrades are applied

sudo pacupg

Update AUR packages (dxvk/lutris)

There are a few packages which were git sourced (compiled from source) to help enable the features included in Salient OS. These are updated by utilising Yay the command line AUR helper tool. Yay isn't restricted to AUR though, you can use it as you would pacman with almost 100% parity.

yay -Syu

2. Enhanced Settings for Linux Gamers

For gamers utilising Esync / DXVK, Lutris / Steam Proton, the system and security limits have been configured accordingly to give the best performance out of the box, saving you these additional steps. Included are DXVK (32/64), Winetricks, Vulkan-ICD (32/64) to assist Lutris when installing non-native games on the platform.

Included and configured by default is Feral Interactive's 'GameMode' set of system level optimisation that can be applied directly to your games.

Currently GameMode includes support for optimisations including:

• CPU Governor
• I/O Priority
• Kernel Scheduler (SCHED_ISO)
• Screensaver inhibiting
• GPU Overclocking (Nvidia and AMD)
• Custom scripts

3. Requesting GameMode

After installing libgamemodeauto.so.0 simply preload it into the game:

gamemoderun ./game

Or edit the steam launch options:

gamemoderun %command%

Note: for older versions of GameMode prior to 1.3, use this string in place of gamemoderun:

LD_PRELOAD="$LD_PRELOAD:/usr/\$LIB/libgamemodeauto.so.0" +r_renderAPI 1

Please note the backslash here in \$LIB is required.

4. Installing Cuda Toolkit

CUDA is a parallel computing platform and programming model that makes using a GPU for general purpose computing simple and elegant.

In a terminal type:

sudo pacman -S cuda

Enable CUDA in Blender

Open blender settings, system and select Cuda. With this enabled you can take advantage of real-time previews using Eevee, blender's new real-time render engine. You can select both Cuda and Cpu, if you wish, depending on the load on your system from whatever project(s) you have open.

5. Enable Tap to Click (Touchpad)

Installed by default is xf86-input-libinput because xf86-input-synaptics ( based on Arch Wiki ) is in maintenance mode and no longer updated.

Open your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (or create one) and add the following:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "tap-by-default"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
    MatchDriver "libinput"
    Option "Tapping" "on"
EndSection

Save and restart your system

An alternate method is, in a terminal type:

libinput-list-devices
xinput list-props "your touchpad devices"

Enable tap-click

xinput set-prop "your touchpad devices" "libinput Tapping Enabled" 1

Some people like to use tap to click on their touchpad :)

6. Compositing Effects

Compton is now included if you'd prefer to use it over Xfce-Compositor. If you would prefer the former, then you can simply tick the compton autostart in the Session and Startup Dialog from within the Settings panel. Log out / in for that change to come into effect. You'll also need to disable xfce-compositor to avoid conflicts.

Don't run both compositors together, you will experience issues!

When gaming though, in general, you may find you have better performance by turning off compositing altogether for that session.

Disable Compton

killall compton

Disable Xfce Compositor

Settings / Windows Manager Tweaks / Compositor / Enable Display Compositing

7. End Notes

Note about .bashrc configuration files

The .bashrc file sources other related startup files which are located in a folder named .bash (hidden by default). Within that are your .alias, .colors, .export, .func and .path - I've broken these down into segments to make it easier to track configuration.

Note about the Vim configuration

When you first run Vim (if you do) it will download a series of plugins that i find particularly useful. Once installed type: :q to exit the plugin manager. It will also do this for Root if you use Vim in that environment. Enjoy an auto configured Vim :) - If however, you have your own preferred configuration you can delete the .vimrc in your home folder (hidden by default) and run with a stock Vim configuration.

That's it! - Thank you for choosing Salient OS!

If you need assistance you can find me on: https://www.youtube.com/c/silent-robot https://sourceforge.net/projects/salient-os