Open Web Craft

Clear Linux Desktop Setup

Update 2026‑10‑26: Clear Linux is history. On July 18, 2025 Intel ended support for Clear Linux OS, effective immediately (final release: 43800, July 21, 2025). The desktop Linux I use these days: Bluefin and Omarchy.

How I’ve set up my Clear Linux (GNOME) desktop environment…

Clear Linux Installation

TL;DR By simply following the Clear Linux Getting-Started guide the installation experience is quite polished and overall pretty straight forward!

Basic System Tweaking:

mkdir ~/code
mkdir ~/.bashrc.d 
chmod 700 ~/.bashrc.d
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib
sudo mkdir -p /opt
sudo systemctl start sshd
sudo systemctl enable sshd

In order to use ~/.bashrc.d directory instead of bloated .bashrc one needs to add this to .bashrc:

for file in ~/.bashrc.d/*.bashrc;
do
	source "$file"
done

Then, when creating individual files inside the ~/.bashrc.d, e.g. golang.bashrc, one needs to remeber to give them execution rights:

chmod +x ~/.bashrc.d/*.bashrc

Increase limit for inotify watches:

cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches
echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=32768 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo sysctl -p

For sanity w/ additional binaries it helps creating a file /etc/system-release w/ contents: Clear Linux OS for Intel Architecture.

System settings and “Pimping the bash”

Adjust time and locale simply via GNOME settings…

Adjust keyboard keymap:

Install a minimal but informative and fancy bash prompt for Git users:

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/magicmonty/bash-git-prompt.git .bash-git-prompt --depth=1

Then, add to the ~/.bashrc:

GIT_PROMPT_ONLY_IN_REPO=1
source ~/.bash-git-prompt/gitprompt.sh

Test:

cd ~/.bash-git-prompt/
✔ ~/.bash-git-prompt [master|✔] 
19:36 $

Fonts

Install FIRA CODE font by download latest version and extracting/ copying contents of ttf folder to ~/.fonts followed by fc-cache -fv.

gtop

A awesome system monitoring dashboard for terminal.

equired bundles:

sudo npm install gtop -g

current

Install current-cli to see what language versions are configured in your current environment (npm i -g current-cli)

Software Installation

For sanity (we always want sudo swupd verify --fix to succeed!) we’re only using either software available in Clear Linux bundles or binaries distributed as .tar.gzw/ requirements that can be resolved from Clear Linux bundles.

Software Development Essentials (ie. *-basics)

sudo swupd bundle-add nodejs-basic go-basic java-basic php-basic containers-basic R-basic R-extras

Simplenote

Beloved (syncing) note app of choice. :-)

Download .tar.gz from here https://simplenote.com/ and extract to /opt/simplenote.

Create symlink: sudo ln -s /opt/simplenote/Simplenote /usr/local/bin/simplenote

Add icon to GNOME like so: gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/.local/share/applications/ --create-new:

[…]
Icon[en_US]=/opt/simplenote/Simplenote.png
Name[en_US]=Simplenote
Exec=simplenote
Name=Simplenote
Icon=/opt/simplenote/Simplenote.png

Docker

Required bundles:

One needs to add her/ his user to group docker like so: sudo usermod -G docker -a matthias and re-login.

Docker Compose

sudo -i
curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.16.1/docker-compose-`uname -s`-`uname -m` > /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
exit
docker-compose -version

Scaleway

My cloud provider of choice!

Required bundles:

Add to the ~/.bashrc:

export GOPATH=~/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin

Then install Scaleway CLI:

GO15VENDOREXPERIMENT=1 go get -u github.com/scaleway/scaleway-cli/cmd/scw

Visual Studio Code

Preferred coding editor.

Required bundles:

Download .tar.gz for Linux x64 from https://code.visualstudio.com/ and extract to ~/opt/vscode.

Create symlink: sudo ln -s /opt/vscode/code /usr/local/bin/code

Add icon to GNOME like so:q: gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/.local/share/applications/ --create-new:

[…]
Icon[en_US]=code
Name[en_US]=VSCode
Exec=code
Name=VS Code
Icon=code

GitKraken

Required bundles:

Add to the ~/.bashrc:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/lo

… and create symlink to workaround (hack) missing libraries: sudo ln -s /lib64/libcurl.so.4 /usr/local/lib/libcurl-gnutls.so.4

Then, download .zip from https://www.gitkraken.com/download/ and extract to ~/opt/gitkraken.

Create symlink: sudo ln -s /opt/gitkraken/gitkraken /usr/local/bin/gitkraken

Add icon to GNOME like so: gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/.local/share/applications/ --create-new:

[…]
Icon[en_US]=gitkraken
Name[en_US]=GitKraken
Exec=gitkraken
Name=GitKraken
Icon=gitkraken

Install Robot 3T

Download MongoDB (Binary Installation https://www.mongodb.com/download-center and extract to /opt/mongodb. Also make sure to add it to the path: export PATH=$PATH:/opt/mongodb/bin

Download Robo 3T https://robomongo.org/download and extract into `/opt/robot3t.

To not interfer w/ other (locally build) Qt applications and in order to use Robomongo icon from theme, create a executable file /opt/robot3t/bin/robomongo:

#!/bin/bash
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
QT_PLUGIN_PATH=
/opt/robo3t/bin/robo3t

Then add icon to GNOME like so: gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/.local/share/applications/ --create-new

Icon[en_US]=robomongo
Exec=/opt/robo3t/bin/robomongo
Name[en_US]=Robo 3T
Name=Robo3T
Icon=robomongo

DBeaver

Download latest tar.gz archiv of community edition for Linux 64bit from dbeaver.com and extract to /opt/dbeaver.

Add icon to GNOME like so:q: gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/.local/share/applications/ --create-new:

[…]
Icon[en_US]=dbeaver
Exec=/opt/dbeaver/dbeaver
Name[en_US]=DBeaver
Name=DBeaver
Icon=dbeaver

CrossFTP

Required bundles:

Download latest Portable version from here http://www.crossftp.com/download.htm and extract into /opt/crossftp.

Edit /opt/crossftp/run_client.sh adding the following line:

#!/bin/sh
cd /opt/crossftp
[…]

Add icon to GNOME like so:q: gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/.local/share/applications/ --create-new:

[…]
Icon[en_US]=/opt/crossftp/logo_big.png
Name[en_US]=CrossFTP
Exec=/opt/crossftp/run_client.sh
Name=CrossFTP
Icon=/opt/crossftp/logo_big.png

PHP Composer

Required bundles:

Download latest release version of Composer, as of writing https://getcomposer.org/download/1.5.2/composer.phar…

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo mv /home/matthias/Downloads/composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer
composer -v

Add to the ~/.bashrc:

export PATH=$PATH:~/.config/composer/vendor/bin/

Download http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem and copy certificate PEM file into known location, e.g.:

mkdir -p ~/certs
cd ~/certs
wget http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem

Add to the ~/.bashrc:

export COMPOSER_CAFILE=~/certs/cacert.pem

Hugo

Download latest release for Linux 64bit from https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases and extract the hugobinary to /usr/local/bin/hugo.

Tresorit

Download and run installer script from https://tresorit.com/de/download/linux…

Add to GNOME Startup Applications via Tweak Tool.

Camlistore

Download latest release https://camlistore.org/download and extract to /opt/camlistore.

Add to the ~/.bashrc:

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/camlistore

LibreOffice (Flatpak)

Simply follow the guide to install and run the LibreOffice Flatpak image…

YubiKey

To set up the Clear Linux system for Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) with YubiKey simply follow this guide and install the Firefox Add-on U2F Support Add-on.

GNOME Shell Extensions

Currently GNOME extensions can not be installed via https://extensions.gnome.org/ because even w/ the GNOME Shell integration extension installed/ running, a native host connector is not detected.

Offline-installtion to the rescue!

One needs to download and unpack the extensions, and move it into extensions dir like so:

mv ~/Downloads/clipboard-indicator@tudmotu.com.v26.shell-extension ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/clipboard-indicator@tudmotu.com

Even though the extension is practically installed it is yet disabled. In
order to enable it, one need to use gnome-tweak-tools: find the extension (e.g. titled ‘Clipboard Indicator’), in the Extensions screen and turn it On.
One may need to restart the shell (Alt+F2 and insert r in the prompt) for the extension to be listed there.

Mandatory