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Arch Linux Installation and Post-Install Customization

After using Fedora for 7 years it was time for a change, I wanted something light and fast that also gave me some geeky feeling. Then came Arch Linux, it has awesome installer, has no boaltware, and its all about DIY. So here goes my arch linux lnstallation and post-install customization procedure

Arch Linux Wiki has a good documentation on its installation. Found Here.

1. Pre-Installation Preparation

It all starts with downloading the ISO and creating a bootable media

sudo dd if=/path_to_arch_.iso of=/dev/sdX

Now that you have the media, you need working Ethernet connection, you can use wireless if you can configure WPA2 and connect from terminal. I just took the easy way with ethernet. Note: you can also download the files and use from USB, Check it in wiki Here. However without working internet connection, you won’t just feel the benifits of Arch Linux.

You can test your connection by running

ping -c 3 www.smjrifle.net

2. Get those Partitions Ready

Next Step is to prepare your partition, you can create partition from other linux distribution and use it here, however since I missed geekiness of connecting wireless connection, I had to do this.

Note: If you are booting from CD, your hard disk is sda, if your booting from USB, it can be sdb or sdc.

you can check your Partitions using

fdisk -l

or

cfdisk /dev/sda

which gives bit graphical outlook to select/create partitions.

Now once, you have the partitions ready lets format it. Remember the partition numbers, you want for root and swap. Run these commands individually,

$mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

mkswap /dev/sda2

swapon /dev/sda2

3. Time to install the base system

Lets mount your root partition,

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Lets install the base and developer’s packages now

pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel

Important: Run the command below only once even if it gives error

genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Now check if the fstab has the correct partition, else you won’t boot. I ran into problems while using vi/vim so I am using nano. You can Save by pressing ctrl+x; Press Y to save or N to Discard then pres enter.

nano /mnt/etc/fstab

Finally, its time to login to your system eh! 😀

arch-chroot /mnt

4. Language and location settings

With Arch linux you do everything youself in geeky way.

Run

nano /etc/locale.gen

It will open huge list of locals, uncomment the one you need by removing ‘#’ infront, if your english uncomment [en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8]

Now set the locale, by running these commands.individuallyy,

locale-gen

echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Now configure the timezone, you can find zone and subzone by running

ls /usr/share/zoneinfo and

ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/YOUR_ZONE

mine was Asia/Kathmandu

Configure the clock by running

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/{Zone}/{SubZone} /etc/localtime

Configure the hardware clock by running

hwclock –systohc –utc

Configuring the Repos

You can configure repos by editing pacman.conf to do so run

nano /etc/pacman.conf

If you are using 64 bit system you should go ahead and enable (un-comment) the ‘multilib’ repo:

[multilib]

Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Update the repos by running

pacman -Sy

5. Create users and password

Root Password is empty by default, set the root password by running

passwd

Now create user to access the system by running

useradd -m -g users -G group_name,storage,power -s /bin/bash your_username

Add password for user by running

passwd your_username

Now we need to add the user to list of sudoer’s, that is allow it to perform administrative tasks.

First Install Sudo, yes you need to install that too 🙂

pacman -S sudo

pacman -Ss sudo

Now allowing user of group_name to perform administrative tasks

run

EDITOR=nano visudo

Uncomment

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

by removing ‘#’

Bonus: Install Bash completion package to auto complete commands by running

$pacman -S bash-completion

6. Install boot loader

Run the following commands, individually

pacman -S grub-bios

grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda

cp /usr/share/locale/en@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo

If you are dual booting, have other os like other linux or crappy Wee-n-Dows you need OS Prober, run

pacman -S os-prober

Now Run the grub config to create grub Bootloader file

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Finishing Installation

Now exit, run [$exit]

Unmount fs and reboot by running these

<

umount /mnt

$reboot

7. Booting into your new Arch system

Now remove your USB/CD and the Arch Linux Boots into commandLine. You won’t have internet. So you need to connect to internet manually.

Run

ip link

to find out your network card name, it can be something like “enp4s0”

Enable and start your network by running

sudo systemctl enable dhcpcd@.service

sudo systemctl start dhcpcd@{interface}.service

where {interface} is your network card name;

Test your connection by running

ping -c 3 www.smjrifle.net

8. Installing X – “The graphical Display”

All you have seen till now is a black window with white font, now let’s bless those eyes with some GUI. To test if everything is working lets install the X by running

sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-server-utils

Also install mesa for 3D support

pacman -S mesa

You need to Install your graphics driver, be careful what you select. You can refer to Arch Wiki Here.

All Almost done, now some input drivers, especially touchpad for Laptops

Run

pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics

Now for test default desktop environment

pacman -S xorg-twm xorg-xclock xterm

now boot into graphics by running

startx

If everything is fine you will see windows, you can type exit in terminal to exit the desktop and continue to install preferred Desktop Environment. If you get blank screen, reboot and run the following command.

grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log

It will show what errors have occured, check if it gives any graphics driver error if so remove what you installed and install the driver specified there and test again.

9. Getting your favourite Desktop Environment

I recommend you install Gamin first then you install the desktop environments.

pacman -S gamin

You can now install any desktop environment: Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon. I will install LXDE for me by running. You can install multiple too.

sudo pacman -S lxde

Here are the list of supported desktop environment. Click Me.

you can run

sudo pacman -S desktop_environment_code

The code are small case names in wiki to the right of URL’s of Desktop Environment.

Now install a display Server, GDM for Gnome Based, KDM for KDE Based I installed LXDM for me.

sudo -S lxdm

Then enable and start the service

systemctl enable lxdm.service

systemctl start lxdm.service

I had to run the following command to get my Display Server booted up at startup

echo 'exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch startlxde'> ~/.xinitrc

It consists of startlxde, different desktop environment might have different thing, however it might not be necessary for KDM or GDM.

Now reboot 🙂 You will be presented with login Screen. Login and get ready for Post Installation customization.

10. Post-Installation Customization

When you have booted to the desktop, you will notice it lacks many applications. Lets install them using pacman (<

Some apps are available from AUR. Bookmark this link Arch User Repository

Pacman options:

-S Sync/Install

-R Remove

-U Update

-Ss search

I recommend you start with wget

wget:

pacman -S wget

Git:

pacman -S git

Mercurial/hg:

pacman -S mercurial

Flash Plugin:

pacman -S flashplugin

Zip, 7z: pacman -S p7zip unrar zip

SSH:

pacman -S ssh

Archive Manager:

pacman -S file-roller

Filezilla:

pacman -S filezilla

Gparted:

pacman -S gparted

Gimp:

pacman -S gimp

VLC:

pacman -S vlc

mplayer:

pacman -S mplayer

RhythmBox:

pacman -S rhythmbox

Totem Video Player:

pacman -S totem

Firefox:

pacman -S firefox

ThunderBird:

pacman -S thunderbird

Opera:

pacman -S opera

Chromium:

pacman -S chromium

Transmission:

pacman -S transmission-gtk transmission-cli

Chrome:

wget https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/go/google-chrome/google-chrome.tar.gz

tar -xvf google-chrome.tar.gz

cd google-chrome

makepkg -si -skipinteg

Gedit:

pacman -S gedit

Geany:

pacman -S geany

Sublime: [Go the download page of Sublime and download

tar -xvf "Sublime Text 2.0.2.tar.bz2"

Note: the 2.0.2 maybe different in your case.

mv Sublime Text 2 /opt

ln -s /opt/Sublime Text 2/sublime_text /usr/bin/sublime

sublime /usr/share/applications/sublime.desktop

sublime /usr/share/applications/defaults.list

sudo chown -R root:root "/root/.config/sublime-text-2"

Acrobat Reader:

wget https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ac/acroread/acroread.tar.gz

tar -xvf acroread.tar.gz

$cd acroread/

$makepkg -s -i

Apache:

sudo pacman -S apache

Open config File

sudo gedit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Comment out this line #LoadModule unique_id_module modules/mod_unique_id.so

Mysql:

sudo pacman -S mysql

sudo systemctl start mysqld

sudo mysql_secure_installation

sudo systemctl restart mysqld

PHP:

sudo pacman -S php php-apache

Add php to httpd conf open

sudo gedit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Paste the following

# Use for PHP 5.x:

LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so

AddHandler php5-script php

Include conf/extra/php5_module.conf

sudo systemctl restart httpd

Uncomment mysql in php.ini, open php.ini

sudo gedit /etc/php/php.ini

Uncomment the following lines(remove ‘;’)

extension=mysql.so

extension=mysql.so

Start php and mysql at startup, Run

sudo systemctl enable mysqld httpd

True Type Font:

pacman -S ttf-dejavu

11. Some Trouble Shooting

Network Manager

If you cannot connect to wirelessor find Network Manager, then

//Enable Wireless

pacman -S wireless_tools

For GNOME/Xfce/LXDE users:

If you’ve installed GNOME, Xfce or LXDE as your preferred desktop environment during the initial Arch Linux installation, you will have to execute the following commands in a Terminal, one by one, hitting Enter after each one:

sudo pacman -S network-manager-applet

sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager
$sudo systemctl start NetworkManager

If you’ve used another GNOME-based operating system before, you probably know that NetworkManager is the default and only network management application for the GNOME desktop environment.

It is installed by default in Arch Linux, but for some reason, it is not enabled. This is what we do with the above commands. That’s it! You’ll see the NetworkManager Applet icon in the tray area, from where you can connect to your wireless network.

For KDE users:

If you’ve installed KDE as your preferred desktop environment during the initial Arch Linux installation, you will have to execute the following commands in a Terminal, one by one, hitting Enter after each one:

[$sudo pacman -S kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement]

[$sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager]

[$sudo systemctl start NetworkManager]

[$sudo systemctl disable dhcpd.service]

If you enabled or installed another service, in my case netctl make sure you uninstall it in order to use Network Manager.

Mounting NTFS

Install ntfs-3g by

pacman -S ntfs-3g

Then follow this post

Fix Heating Issues/Switchable Graphics

Follow this post