Firstly, install mpd and ncmpcpp:
pacman -S mpd ncmpcpp
Then, setup the mpd config for your user:
mkdir -p ~/.config/mpd cp /usr/share/example/mpdconf.example ~/.config/mpd/mpd.conf echo "pid_file \"~/.config/mpd/pid\"" >> ~/.config/mpd/mpd.conf
Now, add this to your .bashrc or .profile
[ ! -s ~/.config/mpd/pid ] && mpd
If your music is in a different directory than ~/Music, change the line in mpd.conf. Source .bashrc and then run
mpc update
Now you can use ncmpcpp.
Note: If you're on Artix, you'll need to install mpc manually by compiling it:
mkdir -p ~/app cd ~/app wget https://www.musicpd.org/download/mpc/0/mpc-0.35.tar.xz tar xvf mpc-0.35.tar.xz && cd mpc-0.35 meson build cd build ninja sudo ninja install