What's the goal? This looks silly.

This really defeats the purpose of using linux distros imo. The whole point was freedom of customisation and truely make it my own.

If I wanted a lock stock barrel experience I would just stick with Windows or macOS.

What the hell is this challenge?
Am I allowed to add my printer? What about setting up my screen resolution? If I scale the fonts to match, that's dangerously close to "customization". Can I switch to dark theme?
I can install software, but what about shell extensions that are in my distro's repository? That's software, but also customization.

I swear, OP does not know what he is talking about and is posting for clout, just look at his post history.

pacstrap /mnt base linux

do you want me to use screen, mutt and lynx?

Arch, and Plasma. That already gets me 90% there to my normal setup

I like challenges like just like any other person, but aren’t they supposed to be… fun, at least? Of If I wanted to do what you’re describing I’d just go back to Windows or Mac

How would that work on Arch Linux which literally doesn't come with anything out of the box?

And how would I add accounts or any settings without touching dotfiles?

The .config folders have important files, like git config. With that being the exception, most of my config files are empty. I have the most Vanilla GNOME setup. My setup is so vanilla, it is also missing the contrast hi-color logos, which is added by default in Fedora in multiple applications, like Firefox or Inkscape.

S&M

So... install a minimal distro image and the usual with the only caveat of being forced to type something that I want to run in the CLI instead of setting up hotkeys? Such challenge, much horror.