Dotfiles to customize your Hyprland desktop on Arch and EndeavourOS

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If you've just switched to Arch or EndeavourOS and want a beautiful Hyprland desktop environment without spending weeks tinkering, dotfiles for customizing the Hyprland desktop are exactly what you need. They allow you to have a usable, elegant, and more or less "turnkey" system while you gradually learn how everything is built underneath.

Throughout this article, we'll review various dotfile collections for Hyprland (JaKooLit, ML4W, HyDE, Hecate, minimalist configurations optimized for battery life, etc.), what they offer, what type of user they're recommended for, and how they fit into real-world needs: work, gaming, laptops with short battery life, or a desire to delve deeply into Arch. We'll also cover installation details, common keyboard shortcuts, and alternative options like bspwm or Qtile if Hyprland doesn't quite suit your needs.

What are dotfiles and why are they key to Hyprland?

In the Linux ecosystem, dotfiles are hidden configuration files (starting with “.”) that define the look and behavior of your environment: window manager, terminal, toolbar, app launcher, editor, etc. In Hyprland, they play an even more critical role because, as a highly configurable Wayland compositor, much of the user experience is built precisely from these files.

Instead of manually editing each file from scratch, many users share their repositories of pre-built dotfiles , often with automated installation scripts. This allows you to have a modern desktop in minutes with Waybar, Rofi, Kitty, Neovim, notifications, dynamic themes, and shortcuts ready to use, and then customize it from there.

Hyprland is a perfect fit for those seeking a highly customizable desktop with a "wow" factor . The "ricing" community has embraced it wholeheartedly: fluid animations, transparencies, dynamic backgrounds, and themes that change according to the wallpaper. The well-designed dotfiles allow you to enjoy all of this without struggling with every little detail from day one.

If you're coming from more traditional environments like KDE Plasma or GNOME, these dotfiles function as a kind of "advanced template" for Hyprland : you get sensible shortcuts, a well-chosen set of applications, and a polished aesthetic, without sacrificing the fine-tuning that Arch offers. Ideal for those coming from Zorin OS, Ubuntu, or similar systems who want something more "hardcore" but still usable for work.

Popular dotfiles for Hyprland: JaKooLit, ML4W, HyDE, End-4 and others

Several names come up repeatedly in the community when someone asks about user-friendly dotfiles for installing Hyprland . Each pack has its own personality, philosophy, and level of complexity, so it's a good idea to understand what each one offers before jumping in.

The dotfiles from JaKooLit and My Linux For Work (ML4W) are often cited as fairly complete options for those who want a ready-to-use desktop environment with guided installation and good application integration. HyDE and End-4, on the other hand, are also strong contenders in the community, with slightly different approaches but sharing the goal of providing a beautiful Hyprland desktop without starting from scratch.

If you've already tried several of these packs and are now using, for example, HyDE but are encountering minor problems , it's normal to wonder what other option might offer you something more stable, more modular, or easier to understand so you can learn at your own pace.

Furthermore, there are users who prioritize PC gaming, especially with NVIDIA graphics cards, and wonder if it's worth sticking with Hyprland or switching to bspwm configurations or other window managers , which have historically been less problematic with NVIDIA than some Wayland compositors, or even trying a Liquorix kernel optimized for gaming.

Hyprland on Arch and EndeavourOS: stability, tinkering, and daily work

Hyprland works wonderfully with Arch-like distributions, and by extension with EndeavourOS, which is a "friendly" Arch . For someone coming from Zorin OS who wants to maintain a stable work environment but without losing the ability to tinker with everything, this combination is very appealing.

EndeavourOS gives you a graphical installer, a selection of base packages, and system management tools, while pure Arch requires following a step-by-step installation guide (partitioning with cfdisk, mounting partitions, configuring locale, GRUB, users, etc.). Both paths are compatible with Hyprland dotfiles, so it depends on how complicated you want to make things upfront.

The charm of mixing Arch/EndeavourOS with Hyprland is that you can combine a highly flexible rolling release system with an ultra-customizable desktop environment . With some good dotfiles, you have something functional for working and studying, but with the freedom to change every section of the configuration: shortcuts, animations, themes, toolbars, widgets, and so on.

For those who need a stable machine because they work with it daily, the key is to choose dotfiles that don't abuse unstable plugins and that offer sensible maintenance scripts, for example to update the system, create snapshots, or adjust power depending on whether you're on battery or plugged in.

Dotfiles optimized for laptops: battery, eye candy, and autoswitch

An increasingly common approach is the use of dotfiles focused on optimizing battery life in laptops , without completely sacrificing visual appeal when plugged in. A typical example is a Framework 13 configured with Hyprland, where idle power consumption is around 3.5W and 4-8W during light use, allowing for 8-10 hour coding sessions.

The idea is to play with two "modes" of use: on battery power and with the charger connected . When the system detects that you don't have an external power source, it prioritizes battery life: Hyprpaper is turned off, a more subdued static theme is selected, Hyprland animations and effects are toned down or disabled, and more aggressive power-saving settings are enabled.

As soon as you plug in the charger, the desktop transforms: tools like Wallust and Matugen come into play to dynamically recolor the system according to the wallpaper, animations, transparencies, and eye candy are restored in Hyprland, and a random background is activated. It's a very convenient way to have both a "work and battery life" mode and a "showy desktop" mode without having to manually change each parameter.

This type of dotfile usually opts for a compact and legible typeface like Iosevka Nerd Font , designed to maximize the amount of information displayed on screen without tiring the eyes, especially useful in code and terminal.

The application selection also follows a fairly defined pattern: Hyprland as the compositor, Waybar as the status bar, Rofi as the launcher, Kitty as the terminal, Zsh with Oh My Zsh and Powerlevel10k as the main shell, Neovim for text editing, Dolphin and Yazi as file managers, Mako for minimalist notifications, Obsidian for notes, and Firefox with a customized userChrome and integration with tools like pywalfox or wallust for color customization. All of this is entirely tinted by the wallpaper's colors.

Typical application stack in Hyprland dotfiles

Beyond the variations between repositories, there is a "combo" of applications that is repeated quite often in the best-rated dotfiles for Hyprland , precisely because they integrate very well with dynamic themes and offer a comfortable workflow.

On the visual side, Hyprland acts as a Wayland compositor with support for advanced animations , while hyprpaper or similar tools handle the wallpaper. Waybar is often the preferred toolbar because it's lightweight, configurable in JSON or CSS, and supports custom modules.

To launch applications, most users opt for Rofi (or Wayland-friendly alternatives) , which can be themed to match the rest of the desktop. In the terminal, Kitty stands out for its performance and ease of integration with dynamic color schemes, as do Ghostty, Foot, and Alacritty in more experimental configurations.

On the command line, you'll often find Zsh with Oh My Zsh and Powerlevel10k , which provides a very informative prompt with icons, git status, and colors tailored to the overall theme. For editing code and configuration, Neovim enhanced with color plugins (like neopywal in combination with wallust) is a classic.

The desktop environment is rounded out with Dolphin and/or Yazi as file managers , Mako for minimalist notifications, and Obsidian for notes, which can be customized with a specific theme (such as "Border") and then recolored with Matugen. Finally, Firefox is often personalized through userChrome and extensions like pywalfox to ensure that all browsing matches the system's color scheme.

Arch/Endeavour installation and system preparation for dotfiles

Before you start installing Hyprland dotfiles, it's important to have your Arch system properly configured , especially if you're doing a manual installation rather than something like EndeavourOS. In short, the process involves preparing the disk, configuring the base system, and getting the environment ready for automated scripts.

Partitioning is usually done with cfdisk due to its ease of use , creating something like this: 300 MB for the EFI partition (EFI System type), a swap partition of about 15 GB (adjustable according to your RAM), and the rest of the space for the root directory “/”. Once created, the partitions are formatted, the swap partition is enabled, and the file systems are mounted at /mnt.

Next, the fstab file with UUIDs is generated so that the partitions are automatically mounted at boot, and the new system is accessed using chroot on /mnt . There, basic aspects such as the time zone are configured using a symbolic link, the hardware clock is synchronized, and the locales in /etc/locale.gen are edited to enable the desired language.

After generating the locales and setting the LANG variable (for example, Spanish), the keyboard layout is configured via /etc/vconsole.conf to use a Spanish map , the hostname is defined, and a strong password is assigned to the root user. A regular user is also created, granted sudo privileges (by editing the sudoers file appropriately), and the NetworkManager service is enabled.

The final step in the basic setup is usually to install and configure GRUB in EFI mode , generating its configuration file and rebooting to verify that the Arch bootloader appears correctly. Once inside the installed system, utilities such as xdg-user-dirs are installed to create the basic user folders (Desktop, Downloads, Music, etc.), and the install.sh script from the chosen dotfiles is invoked to automate package installation and configuration copying.

Automation with scripts: install.sh, Ansible and profiles

Many modern dotfile repositories include fully automated installation scripts . These range from simple install.sh scripts that use pacman and yay, to more advanced setups with Ansible capable of rebuilding your entire configuration on a new machine.

A common practice is to have a .dotfiles.v2 file designed for Arch, while an older v1 file might be geared towards Ubuntu with i3 or other environments . Rebuilding the configuration with Ansible ensures that package installation, copying configuration files, and applying system settings are reproducible, which is ideal if you frequently reinstall or manage multiple machines.

Some projects like Hecate take this further and offer a modular installer with profile selection . During the process, you can choose between a minimalist profile, a development-oriented profile, a gaming-focused profile, or a "madlad" profile that installs everything at once (dev and gaming packages).

These advanced installers also typically let you choose your preferred terminal (kitty, ghostty, foot, alacritty) and shell (bash, zsh, fish), as well as your primary browser. This way, the dotfiles adapt to your preferences without forcing you into a rigid configuration , while maintaining the overall system structure.

In some cases, extra scripts are included, such as system update tools that also create snapshots before updating, or small helpers to change themes, regenerate the color palette from the wallpaper, or adjust services like Docker and VirtualBox after installation.

Hecate: Modular dotfiles for Hyprland with dynamic profiles and themes

Within the Hyprland ecosystem, Hecate is one of the most interesting dotfile collections for those seeking a modular yet relatively guided approach . Its author conceived it as a personal learning project, but it has matured into a sufficiently stable beta state for others to use and contribute to.

Hecate is based on a fully modular Hyprland configuration , where the installer builds the system according to your choices. Instead of forcing a single pre-configured environment, it offers usage profiles (minimalist, developer, gamer, madlad) to adjust the packages and services that will be installed.

Furthermore, it allows you to select different terminals (kitty, ghostty, foot, alacritty) and shells (bash, zsh, fish) directly from the installer, along with your preferred browser. This flexibility makes it a good option for both beginners and those who already know their preferences but don't want to build everything from scratch.

One of its strengths is automatic theming based on the wallpaper . You change the wallpaper and the rest of the system recolors, maintaining visual consistency across apps and the taskbar. It also incorporates custom update scripts that not only update the system but also generate snapshots so you can revert to a previous state if something goes wrong.

As an added bonus, Hecate includes an application called Pulse, developed in Go and Wails, which graphically displays CPU, RAM, GPU , and system statistics, integrating seamlessly with the rest of the experience. Overall, all automation relies on shell scripts and centralized configuration in toml files , making it easy to maintain control without sacrificing flexibility.

ML4W, HyDE, JaKooLit and other collections “to get off to a good start”

When someone is new to Linux or Hyprland, they usually look for dotfiles that allow for "install and use" without too much of a learning curve . This is where packages like ML4W, HyDE, and JaKooLit come in, prioritizing a good experience from the very beginning.

ML4W (My Linux For Work) has become popular for offering a productivity-oriented environment with a visually appealing yet uncluttered design . It's often a good choice for those who, in addition to tinkering, need something serious for work: good terminal integration, a clear toolbar, well-designed shortcuts, and a sensible selection of applications.

HyDE, for its part, places a strong emphasis on visual appeal and a modern desktop feel . If you're currently using it but encountering some issues, it could be due to Hyprland updates, plugins that aren't compatible with the latest version, or minor package conflicts. Even so, it's a highly regarded project for those seeking a visually appealing setup.

JaKooLit offers dotfiles that tend to be beginner-friendly , with very clear scripts and a relatively easy-to-understand and modify configuration structure. It's one of the names that comes up most often when someone asks in forums which dotfiles to use for first-time users of Hyperland and Arch/Endeavour.

End-4 and other less well-known repositories complete the picture, offering variations in aesthetics, application sets, and automation levels. The important thing to understand is that, although they all run on Hyprland, there is no single "best" option : it depends on whether you prioritize stability, aesthetics, gaming, laptops, learning, or a balanced mix of everything.

Typical keyboard shortcuts in Hyprland dotfiles

A common feature in almost all of these dotfiles is that they define a generous set of keyboard shortcuts , usually using the Windows key as a "mod". This allows you to control windows, open applications, and move between workspaces quickly, which is crucial in window managers like Hyprland.

Among the most common shortcuts you will find combinations such as mod + ENTER to open the terminal (usually Kitty), mod + E to launch the file explorer (for example Nemo or Dolphin), mod + M to open the application launcher (Rofi) and mod + B to launch the browser (Brave, Firefox or another depending on the pack).

Other common shortcuts are mod + C to open the code editor (VS Code or Neovim in terminal), mod + S for screenshots, mod + L to lock the desktop (for example with swaylock), mod + W to close the active window, mod + F to toggle floating mode, and mod + Space to switch a window to full screen.

As for navigating between windows, the standard practice is to map mod + H/J/K/L to move the focus left/down/up/right (inspired by Vim), and combinations with ALT to actually move the window in those directions. Additionally, shortcuts using SHIFT and the arrow keys are often defined to resize active windows without having to drag with the mouse.

Well-documented dotfiles often include tables or lists of shortcuts in the repository's README, which makes it much easier to learn the configuration "language" without having to delve into all of Hyprland's files at first.

Additional services and tools: Docker, VirtualBox, KeePass, and screen sharing

Some dotfiles repositories are not limited to Hyprland and its direct ecosystem, but also include configurations and notes for development and virtualization services such as Docker or VirtualBox, as well as complementary applications for daily life.

It's relatively common to find scripts or instructions for installing Docker, enabling its service, adding your user to the docker group , and ensuring everything is ready to work with containers. Sometimes, additional repositories with examples or specific configurations for Docker projects are also linked.

With VirtualBox, the idea is usually to: install the main package, add the LTS kernel headers and load the necessary modules , add the user to the vboxusers group and install the Guest Additions to improve integration and performance of virtual machines.

In the area of ​​security and password management, KeePass is often installed using yay or another AUR helper, including steps to add the Spanish language and the necessary plugins by copying them to their corresponding folders on the system. All of this can be automated from the dotfile scripts themselves or documented in the README.

Finally, for screen sharing in Wayland environments, many packages already include the necessary configuration in the dotfiles, so installing a handful of screen sharing packages (portal, PipeWire support, etc.) will have you practically ready. If something goes wrong, it's advisable to review the official Screen Sharing documentation and adapt it to the specific version of Hyperland and portals you're using.

Hyprland vs bspwm, Qtile and other alternatives for playing and learning

Although Wayland is very popular, it's not the only option. If you plan to use your PC for gaming and have an NVIDIA graphics card , you might want to consider window managers like bspwm, which have traditionally had fewer driver and compatibility issues than some recent Wayland compositors.

There are some very well-crafted dotfiles for bspwm, such as those by gh0stzk, designed for a classic, clean, and lightweight tiling desktop. For gaming, this can be a winning combination, as many tools and games still run more directly under X11 than under Wayland, although this is improving over time.

Another interesting alternative is Qtile, a dynamic window manager for X11 that's fully configurable in Python . It's minimalist, highly hackable, and has a solid foundation—perfect if you also want to learn a bit of Python while customizing your environment.

If you're curious, some users share their Qtile dotfiles on GitHub , ready to download and install. As with Arch, it's best to follow the official installation guide step by step to ensure everything is compatible with your hardware and operating system.

In any case, the famous phrase "Arch is not for beginners" is becoming increasingly debatable. With a willingness to learn, patience, and good dotfiles as a starting point, you can use Arch/EndeavourOS with Hyprland, bspwm, or Qtile even if you haven't been using Linux for years , as long as you take the time to understand what you're installing.

With this whole landscape of dotfile collections for Hyprland, modular profiles like Hecate, fine-tuned configurations for laptops, complete application stacks, and alternatives like bspwm or Qtile, you have plenty of room to find a balance between stability for work, options for gaming, and that "ricing" touch that makes your desktop as personal as you want, starting with something functional from the first boot and reserving the fine tinkering for when you feel like dissecting every configuration file.