Short answer: **yes, absolutely** — and Arch is actually a *great* choice for this.
Long answer: you can do **real stenography on a normal keyboard**, mostly from the terminal, with one small graphical piece (X/Wayland) to capture chords.

Let’s break it down cleanly.

**Plover** no instales yay -S plover porque compila,
instala el appimage y vas a tener que instalar fuse2
tambien para que funcione el appimage.

---

## 1️⃣ The core tool: **Plover (OpenSteno)**

Plover is the **real stenography engine** used for court-style steno.
It works with:

* real steno machines ✅
* **normal QWERTY keyboards** ✅

It’s open source and runs on Linux (including Arch).

> ⚠️ Important truth:
> **Pure TTY (Ctrl+Alt+F1) cannot do stenography**, because:
>
> * steno requires **simultaneous key presses (chords)**
> * Linux TTY input is sequential, not chord-aware

So:

* **Terminal-based workflow? YES**
* **Text-only console (no X/Wayland)? NO**

You need **X11 or Wayland**, but you can still *live in the terminal*.

---

## 2️⃣ Install Plover on Arch Linux

### Option A — AUR (recommended)

```bash
yay -S plover
```

or

```bash
paru -S plover
```

### Option B — pip (works everywhere)

```bash
pip install --user plover
```

Run it:

```bash
plover
```

This launches a small GUI window (just the engine).

---

## 3️⃣ Use Plover with a **normal keyboard**

In Plover settings:

```
Machine → Keyboard
```

This enables **QWERTY steno mode**.

### Default keyboard steno layout (important)

```
S T K P W H   F P L T D
A O E U
```

These are *phonetic*, not letters.

You press **multiple keys at once** to produce words.

Example:

* `TKPW` → "g"
* `KAT` → "cat"
* `PWAEUBG` → "basic"

This is **exactly how court reporters type**, just slower at first.

---

## 4️⃣ “Terminal-only” workflow (the good part)

Once Plover is running, it **types into whatever has focus**.

That means you can use:

* `alacritty`
* `kitty`
* `foot`
* `wezterm`
* `xterm`

Example:

```bash
nvim notes.txt
```

Then:

* keep Plover running in background
* type steno chords
* text appears in **Neovim**

💡 From your perspective, it feels like *terminal stenography*.

---

## 5️⃣ Learning steno **from the terminal**

Here’s how to stay terminal-native:

### 📘 Lessons

Use **plain-text lessons**:

```bash
git clone https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover-tutorial
less plover-tutorial/lessons.md
```

Or write your own drills in Markdown and open them in `nvim`.

---

### 🧪 Practice method (recommended)

Split terminal:

```bash
tmux
```

Pane 1:

```bash
nvim lesson.txt
```

Pane 2:

```bash
nvim practice.txt
```

* Read lesson
* Steno-type into practice buffer
* No mouse
* No distractions

---

## 6️⃣ Minimalist Arch setup (my recommendation)

* Window manager: `sway` or `i3`
* Terminal: `foot` or `kitty`
* Editor: `nvim`
* Background app: `plover`

This is about as **anti-enshittified** as typing gets.

---

## 7️⃣ Reality check (important)

Learning steno is:

* 🧠 cognitive
* 🖐️ muscle-memory heavy
* 📉 frustrating at first

But:

* After basics → **200+ WPM is real**
* QWERTY typing caps out ~80–120 WPM
* Steno scales *much* higher

---

## 8️⃣ Want a next step?

I can:

* 🗺️ give you a **30-day steno learning plan**
* 🧩 explain **phonetic theory vs dictionary theory**
* ⌨️ design a **QWERTY steno layout optimized for laptops**
* 🧪 help you avoid RSI while chord typing

Just say which one.