Installing Arch Linux

From My Big Bad Wiki

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Prerequisites 3 rc.conf 4 REWRITING FOR EASIER FOLLOWING AND LESS OVERALL STEPS 5 Reboot 6 Web Browser 6.1 Enabling the Numlock Key 7 Networking 7.1 Wired 7.2 Wireless 8 Configuring Audio 9 Apps 9.1 Daemon Apps 9.1.1 SSHd 9.2 Accessory Apps 9.3 Development Apps 9.4 Graphics Apps 9.5 Multimedia Apps 9.6 Codecs 9.7 Network Apps 9.8 Office Apps 9.9 Themes 10 CPU Scaling 11 DVD/CDrom Access 12 Mounting 13 Printing 14 Fun Stuff 14.1 Conky 14.2 Figlet 15 Mouse Scrolling 16 New Notes 17 Installing from AUR (Arch User Repository) 17.1 Good packages to get from AUR 18 Installing Yaourt 19 Installing software from AUR 20 Credits

Note: Just like every other page on this wiki, it is a work in progress. Results are not guaranteed. Use at your own risk

Introduction

Prerequisites

rc.conf

REWRITING FOR EASIER FOLLOWING AND LESS OVERALL STEPS

First step is to run an update as root.

pacman -Syu

Now add a regular user

adduser

Install sudo so you can log in as the regular user and complete the rest of the installation

pacman -S sudo

Configure your user for sudo rights

export EDITOR=nano && visudo

Uncomment the following line by removing the #

# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Add the standard user the wheel group

gpasswd -a username wheel

Type exit to log off as root and then log in as your standard user. Then run the package update command using sudo

sudo pacman -Syyu

From hear on out, all root commands will be ran from your user account prepended with sudo.

sudo pacman -S xorg xf86-input-keyboard xf86-input-mouse hal mesa gnome gdm gnome-terminal chromium ttf-dejavu ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-liberation

Add hal to the startup daemons, if you haven't added it already. (must be completed before booting in to X (if you want your keyboard and mouse to work)

sudo nano /etc/rc.conf

Install whatever video driver you need

ATI

sudo pacman -S xf86-video-ati

Nvidia

sudo pacman -S nvidia

sudo pacman -R epiphany

sudo gpasswd -a username video

sudo pacman -S gedit file-roller gconf-editor gcalctool evince gnome-power-manager gnome-utils unzip

Reboot

sudo pacman -S flashplugin jre

Web Browser

su
 
pacman -R epiphany

pacman -S firefox

pacman -S flashplugin jre

Enabling the Numlock Key

su
pacman -S numlockx

Networking

Wired

Wireless

su
pacman -S ipw2200-fw network-manager-applet

Modify the rc.conf file.

• Need to add the eth1 entry
• Need to comment out eth0

eth0="dhcp"
eth1="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(!eth0)

• Add networkmanager & dhcdbd to the end of the Daemons section and comment out network

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng hal !network netfs crond networkmanager)

gpasswd -a username network

Configuring Audio

Install Alsa

sudo pacman -S alsa-utils

Bring up the initial volumes

sudo alsamixer

Save the config

sudo alsactl store

Add your user the audio group

sudo gpasswd -a username audio

Add alsa to the DAEMONS sections

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng hal !network netfs crond networkmanager @alsa)

Apps

Daemon Apps

SSHd

sudo pacman -S openssh

Add to hosts.allow

nano -w /etc/hosts.allow

sshd: ALL

Add sshd to the DAEMONS section of your rc.conf file so it runs on boot-up

Accessory Apps

Development Apps

pacman -S bluefish monodevelop

Graphics Apps

sudo pacman -S gthumb scrot f-spot gimp inkscape

Multimedia Apps

sudo pacman -S vlc

Codecs

pacman -S gstreamer0.10 gstreamer0.10-python gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-good gstreamer0.10-bad gstreamer0.10-ugly gstreamer0.10-good-plugins gstreamer0.10-ugly-plugins gstreamer0.10-bad-plugins gstreamer0.10-base gstreamer0.10-base-plugins

Network Apps

pacman -S skype rdesktop pidgin purple-plugin-pack pidgin-encryption pidgin-libnotify aspell-en nmap wireshark-gtk irssi filezilla dnsutils whois

Office Apps

sudo pacman -S openoffice-base

Themes

sudo pacman -S gnome-themes-extras tango-icon-theme tango-icon-theme-extras

CPU Scaling

Edit /etc/conf.d/cpufreq

# valid suffixes: Hz, kHz (default), MHz, GHz, THz
min_freq="800MHz"
max_freq="1.87GHz"

Add the following to modules section and the daemons section of your rc.conf

MODULES=(acpi-cpufreq cpufreq_ondemand

DAEMONS=(cpufreq

DVD/CDrom Access

sudo gpasswd -a username optical

Mounting

sudo pacman -S ntfs-3g
sudo gpasswd -a username storage

Printing

pacman -S cups hplip samba system-config-printer-gnome

Fun Stuff

Conky

pacman -S conky fortune-mod

gpasswd -a username log

Create a file in your home directory called .startconky and use the code below as an example to start conky delayed so it loads properly in gnome.

• Make the file executable chmod a+x .startconky

#!/bin/bash

######################################
##                                  ##
##   This Conky startup script      ##
##   shows how you can start        ##
##   Conky mulitple times and       ##
##   use different configs for      ##
##   each session.                  ##
##                                  ##
##   The sleep statement before     ##
##   each is important for Conky    ##
##   to display properly if you     ##
##   Gnome.                         ##
##                                  ##
######################################

sleep 20 &&	# 0 good for Xfce - use 20 to 30 for Gnome
conky -c ~/Conky/conkyrc-panel-0 &
sleep 20 &&
conky -c ~/Conky/conkyrc-panel-1 &
sleep 20 &&
conky -c ~/Conky/conkyrc-panel-2 &

Figlet

pacman -S figlet

Usage:

figlet -f slant I Love Arch

Output

    ____   __                       ___              __  
   /  _/  / /   ____ _   _____     /   |  __________/ /_ 
   / /   / /   / __ \ | / / _ \   / /| | / ___/ ___/ __ \
 _/ /   / /___/ /_/ / |/ /  __/  / ___ |/ /  / /__/ / / /
/___/  /_____/\____/|___/\___/  /_/  |_/_/   \___/_/ /_/ 

Mouse Scrolling

This is specific to my Thinkpad Z60m (May work with other Thinkpads as well).

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-thinkpad.conf

Add:

Section "InputClass"
Identifier	"Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
MatchProduct	"TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint"
MatchDevicePath	"/dev/input/event*"
Option	 "EmulateWheel"	 "true"
Option	 "EmulateWheelButton"	"2"
Option	 "Emulate3Buttons"	"false"
Option	 "XAxisMapping"	 "6 7"
Option	 "YAxisMapping"	 "4 5"
EndSection

You will need to restart hal and xorg for it to take effect.

New Notes

This section will get organized in the near future

pacman -S gnome-system-tools
gpasswd -a username stb-admin

pacman -S nautilus-share
This line has to go the end of [global] section of the smb.conf
>> include = /etc/samba/usershare.conf
>> add yourself to samba group

pacman -S remind

pacman -S tuxpaint

Installing from AUR (Arch User Repository)

I found the official AUR usage guide a little hard to follow, so I created this straight to the point guide that I follow when building a package from AUR.

1. Browse/Search AUR for your desired application
2. From the application page, download the tarball
3. Install any dependencies listed on the application page.
4. Copy the tarball to ~/builds
5. Extract the tarball
6. Change into the new directory
7. Run makepkg
8. If it finishes without error, then su and pacman -U foo.pkg.tar.gz
9. If it errors out, then it's off to the internet for troubleshooting. Start with the comments sections of the application page in AUR.

Good packages to get from AUR

Installing Yaourt

Install yaourt then install rest of stuff from AUR using the following syntax

sudo pacman -S base-devel cvs subversion

sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf

[archlinuxfr] 
#Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/x86_64
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/i686

Installing software from AUR

yaourt -S ttf-ms-fonts

yaourt -S human-icon-theme

yaourt -S icon-themes

yaourt -S xcursor-vanilla-dmz xcursor-vanilla-dmz-aa

yaourt -S tuxpaint-config

yaourt -S tuxpaint-stamps

yaourt -S nautilus-dropbox

Credits

• http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide