# 4. The first fifteen minutes

You have signed in and the screen is mostly empty: a bar across the top, a
wallpaper colour behind it, and nothing else. That is correct. Alloy opens no
windows for you.

Throughout this manual **Mod** means the Super key (the one between Ctrl and
Alt on most keyboards).

## The screen that greets you once

The first time you log in, a terminal opens on `alloy setup`. It offers two
enrollments, both optional:

- **Private network** (Tailscale), so this machine can reach your others.
- **File sync** (Syncthing), so your files follow you onto this machine.

Skipping is fine and reversible. `alloy mesh` and `alloy sync` do the same
enrollments later. Press `q` when you are done. The screen appears once; typing
`alloy setup` by hand always opens it again.

## Open a terminal

    Mod+Return

That is shop, running nushell. It is where you will spend most of your time.

If you would rather find a graphical app by name than type a binary:

    Mod+D

That is the launcher: a fuzzy picker over installed desktop entries, running in
a floating terminal. Two keys, two jobs. `Mod+Return` is for typing commands,
`Mod+D` is for the apps whose binary name nobody remembers.

## Move a window around

Open two or three terminals with `Mod+Return`. They tile automatically.

- `Mod+H/J/K/L` moves focus left, down, up, right.
- `Mod+Shift+H/J/K/L` moves the window itself.
- `Mod+Q` closes the focused window.
- `Mod+F` makes it fullscreen.
- `Mod+1` through `Mod+4` switch workspaces; `Mod+Shift+1` and friends send the
  window with you.

Chapter 5 has the whole list. Those six get you through the day.

## Meet the console

    alloy

is not a command by itself. Every surface is a verb:

    alloy net        # wifi and connections
    alloy audio      # outputs, inputs, and which stream goes where
    alloy display    # scale, rotation, which outputs are on
    alloy settings   # time, hostname, locale, theme, and app configs
    alloy pkg        # what is installed and where it lives
    alloy update     # what image is booted, what is staged, how to go back

Every one of them has the same shape: Tab moves between panes, arrow keys or
`j`/`k` move within a list, Enter acts, Esc cancels, `q` quits, `?` shows help.

Every action prints the command it ran in a pane at the bottom. That is
deliberate. The console is not hiding the CLI from you, it is showing you which
one to learn.

## Get online

    alloy net

Pick your network, press Enter. Joining a network you have never joined before
needs authorization the console does not yet ask for, so for a brand new wifi
network use:

    run0 nmcli device wifi connect "Network Name" --ask

`run0` is how you become root on Alloy. There is no `sudo` habit to keep here.

## Set the volume

The Fn keys work: volume up, down, mute, and the media keys, all with an
on-screen indicator. For anything more precise, `alloy audio` shows every
stream and every device and lets you move one onto the other.

## Take a screenshot

- `Print` captures the whole output.
- `Shift+Print` selects a region.
- `Ctrl+Print` captures the active window.
- `Mod+Print` opens the most recent capture in satty to annotate it.

Captures land in `~/Pictures/Screenshots` and raise a notification saying so.

## Lock the screen

    Mod+Ctrl+L

The session also dims after four and a half minutes, locks at five, and turns
the displays off at ten. A closed lid always locks before suspending.

## Then what

- Chapter 7 if you want to install software. Read it before reaching for a
  package manager; the answer is not `dnf`.
- Chapter 11 if the light theme is not what you want at night.
- Chapter 12 if this machine should share files with your other ones.