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https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Install_Arch_Linux_from_existing_Linux&diff=71224
Install Arch Linux from existing Linux
2009-06-26T04:00:43Z
<p>MethodOne: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Category:Getting and installing Arch (English)]] <br />
[[Category:HOWTOs (English)]] <br />
<br />
This guide is intended to combine and update the three previously existing and highly similar alternative install guides on this wiki. This guide is intended for anybody who wants to install Arch Linux from any other running Linux -- be it off a LiveCD or a pre-existing install of a different distro.<br />
<br />
==Install From Existing Linux== <br />
<br />
===Overview=== <br />
Arch Linux's Pacman can be configured (-r) to perform operations in any directory you like, using that as the context of "root" while running. <br />
<br />
The pacman package available from the mirrors includes a static-linked version of the binary (pacman.static) which should run in most any modern linux environment, without the need of dependencies. <br />
<br />
This is useful for building up new Arch Linux systems from scratch from other LiveCDs or different systems running another Linux environment, creating new chroot environments on a "host" system, maintaining a "golden-master" for development & distribution, or other fun topics like rootfs-over-NFS for diskless machines. <br />
<br />
In the case of an x86_64 host, it is even possible to use i686-pacman to build a 32-bit chroot environment. See [[Arch64 Install bundled 32bit system]]. <br />
<br />
Throughout this guide, we will refer to partitions as /dev/hdxx or /dev/sdxx. This refers to whatever dev entry you have on your system for the partition in question. The convention is:<br />
Drive 1, Partition 1: /dev/hda1 or /dev/sda1<br />
Drive 1, Partition 2: /dev/hda2 or /dev/sda2<br />
Drive 2, Partiiton 1: /dev/hdb1 or /dev/sdb1<br />
etc...<br />
<br />
We will refer to it as /dev/sdxx whenever possible, but realize depending on your system it could be /dev/hdxx.<br />
<br />
If you have a broadband connection available through the installation process and just want to do a basic install, [http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ UNetbootin] may also be an easy solution worth to have a look at.<br />
<br />
===Setup host system=== <br />
<br />
You need to install the archlinux package manager pacman on your host linux environment. In addition you will need a list of pacman mirrors sites which is used to download data on available packages as well as the packages themselves.<br />
<br />
====Get the required packages====<br />
<br />
You need to get the required packages for your host linux environment. The examples given here assume you are using a i686 environment. If you are running on an 64bit linux instead you should replace each occurance of "i686" with "x86_64".<br />
<br />
All version numbers given here may change. Please check the version numbers the packages are at first and note them down. The version numbers can be found [http://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/i686/pacman/ here for pacman] and [http://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/i686/pacman-mirrorlist/ here for pacman-mirrorlist]. Once you are sure of the version numbers download the required packages:<br />
mkdir /tmp/archlinux<br />
cd /tmp/archlinux<br />
wget ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/core/os/i686/pacman-3.2.2-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
wget ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/core/os/i686/pacman-mirrorlist-20090616-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
tar xzvf pacman-3.2.2-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
tar xzvf pacman-mirrorlist-20090616-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
In addition to the dynamically linked pacman there is a statically linked version available. This does integrate better into all the different host linux systems possible. This static version is not part of the normal archlinux setup anymore but can be found at http://repo.archlinux.fr/i686/. Use the following command to get it:<br />
cd /tmp/archlinux<br />
wget http://repo.archlinux.fr/i686/pacman-static-3.2.2-1.pkg.tar.gz<br />
tar xzvf pacman-static-3.2.2-1.pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
====Install the required files into the host system====<br />
<br />
Since we will use pacman.static for the initial setup, we only need a few files installed into the host. This can be done by running the following commands as root:<br />
cp /tmp/archlinux/etc/pacman.conf /etc<br />
mkdir /etc/pacman.d<br />
cp /tmp/archlinux/etc/pacman.d/* /etc/pacman.d<br />
cp /tmp/archlinux/usr/bin/pacman.static /usr/bin<br />
<br />
If you do not mind to litter your install host, you can also extract all the downloaded tar balls into your root directory by running as root:<br />
cd /<br />
tar xzf /tmp/archlinux/pacman-*pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
You may also turn these tarballs into packages for your distribution with the [http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/alien/ alien] tool. See the man page of the tool for instructions. The packages created that way may be installed into your host distribution using the usual package management tools available there. This approach offers the best integration into the host linux environment. For a debian package based system this is done with the following commands:<br />
cd /tmp/archlinux<br />
alien -d pacman-3.2.2-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
alien -d pacman-mirrorlist-20090108-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
alien -d pacman-static-3.2.2-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
RPM based systems will need to replace the parameter "-d" with "-r".<br />
<br />
These distribution packages can then get installed using the normal package management tools of the host linux environment.<br />
<br />
====Configure the host linux system==== <br />
<br />
Configure your /etc/pacman.conf to your liking, and remove unnecessary mirrors from /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist. Also, enabling at least a few mirrors might become necessary, as you may experience errors during syncing if you have no mirror set. You may want to manually resolve DNS in the /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist, because pacman-static for i686 may not be able to get address information on x86_64 systems.<br />
<br />
If you're installing from a LiveCD, and you have a system with a low amount of combined RAM and swap (< 1 GB), be sure to set the cachedir in /etc/pacman.conf to be in new arch partition (e.g. - /newarch/var/cache/pacman/pkg). Otherwise you could exhaust memory between the overhead of the existing distro and downloading necessary packages to install.<br />
<br />
===Prepare disk for Arch=== <br />
Prepare the new Arch system's filesystems and then mount them. If your host system has any gui tools for this, such as gparted, cfdisk, or mandrakes diskdrake, feel free to use them. <br />
<br />
To format a partition as ext3, you run (where /dev/sdxx is the partition you want to setup): <br />
# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdxx <br />
as reiserfs: <br />
# mkreiserfs /dev/sdxx <br />
swap: <br />
# mkswap /dev/sdxx <br />
Most other filesystems can be setup with their own mkfs variant, take a look with tab completion. Available filesystems depend entirely on your host system. <br />
<br />
Once you have setup the filesystems, mount them. Throughout this, We will reference the new Arch / at /newarch, however you can put it wherever you like. <br />
# mkdir /newarch <br />
# mount /dev/sdxx /newarch <br />
<br />
It is also possible to build the root filesystem in a normal directory on the install-host, for transfer to a target system over the network, or to create a master tarball etc. <br />
<br />
===Install Base System===<br />
Update pacman, you may have to create the /newarch/var/lib/pacman folder for it to work:<br />
# mkdir -p /newarch/var/lib/pacman <br />
<br />
Install the 'base' group of packages:<br />
# pacman.static -Sy base -r /newarch<br />
<br />
'''NOTE:''' Pacman cache directory is not modified by -r parameter. If you don't want cache to be created in pre-existing distro use --cachedir or modify pacman.conf as mentioned in [[Install_From_Existing_Linux#Setup_host_system|host system setup]]!<br />
<br />
===Prepare System=== <br />
<br />
First, ensure the correct /dev nodes have been made for udev:<br />
ls -alF /newarch/dev<br />
<br />
This result in a list containing lines similar to the following (the dates will differ for you):<br />
crw------- 1 root root 5, 1 2008-12-27 21:40 console<br />
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 2008-12-27 21:42 null<br />
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 5 2008-12-27 21:40 zero<br />
<br />
Delete and recreate any device which has a different set of permissions (the crw-... stuff plus the two root entries) and major/minor numbers (the two before the date).<br />
<br />
cd /newarch/dev <br />
rm console ; mknod -m 600 console c 5 1 <br />
rm null ; mknod -m 666 null c 1 3 <br />
rm zero ; mknod -m 666 zero c 1 5<br />
<br />
All device nodes should have been created for you already with the right permissions and you should not need to recreate any of them.<br />
<br />
Mount various filesystems into the new Arch system. <br />
mount -o bind /dev /newarch/dev<br />
mount -t proc none /newarch/proc<br />
mount -o bind /sys /newarch/sys<br />
<br />
==Continue system preperation==<br />
<br />
In order for DNS to work properly you need to edit /newarch/etc/resolv.conf or replace it with the resolv.conf from your running distribution <br />
cp /etc/resolv.conf /newarch/etc/ <br />
<br />
Copy your pacman mirror list into the new system:<br />
cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /newarch/etc/pacman.d<br />
<br />
Make sure that it is set up correctly.<br />
<br />
Chroot into the new system <br />
chroot /newarch /bin/bash<br />
<br />
===Install The Rest=== <br />
<br />
Install your preferred kernel, and any other packages you may wish to install. <br />
For the default kernel (which is already installed!):<br />
pacman -S kernel26 <br />
<br />
If you wish to install extra packages now, you may do so with: <br />
pacman -S packagename<br />
<br />
===Configure System=== <br />
Edit your /etc/fstab, remembering to add /, swap and any other partitions you may wish to use. Be sure to use the /dev/sd* (sda1, sda2, sdb1, etc) for the partitions instead of /dev/hd*, as Arch uses the sdxx convention for all drives.<br />
<br />
Edit your rc.conf to your liking <br />
<br />
Edit /etc/locale.gen, uncommenting any locales you wish to have available, and build the locales <br />
locale-gen<br />
<br />
===Setup Grub=== <br />
Allow grub-install to run properly while chrooted:<br />
grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab <br />
<br />
Also, if you want to keep grub from your existing install, you may use grub-install from the Arch chroot, then redo a grub-install from your existing installation. If grub-install fails, you can manually install:<br />
grub <br />
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 (You should see some results here if you have done everything right so far. If not, back up and retrace your steps.)<br />
grub> root (hd0,X) <br />
grub> setup (hd0) <br />
grub> quit <br />
<br />
Double check your /boot/grub/menu.lst when done if installing from a LiveCD. Depending on the host, it could need correcting from hda to sda, and a prefix of /boot as well in the paths. <br />
<br />
Instructions for [[GRUB]] and [[LILO]] are available on this wiki.<br />
<br />
===Finishing Touches===<br />
[[Beginners_Guide#Configure_the_System|Configure your System]]<br />
You can ignore 2.11, but the rest of that guide should be of use to you in post-installation configuration of your system.<br />
<br />
===Install Complete=== <br />
Reboot to your new system! <br />
<br />
==Troubleshooting== <br />
<br />
===Kernel Panic===<br />
If when you reboot into your new system you get a kernel panic saying console couldn't open: <br />
kinit: couldn't open console, no such file... <br />
<br />
This means you didn't follow the instructions above. Follow the steps to create basic device nodes at the beginning of preparation.<br />
<br />
===Root device '/dev/sd??' doesn't exist=== <br />
If when you reboot into your new system you get a error messages like this: <br />
Root device '/dev/sda1' doesn't exist, attempting to create it... etc. <br />
<br />
This means the drives are showing up as "hda1" instead of "sda1" In which case change your GRUB or LILO settings to use "hd??" or try the following. <br />
<br />
Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and change "ide" to "pata" in the "HOOKS=" line. Then regenerate your initrd. (Make sure you have chroot'ed into the new system first.) <br />
mkinitcpio -p kernel26<br />
<br />
If you are using LVM make sure you add "lvm2" in the HOOKS line. Regenerate your initrd as above.</div>
MethodOne
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Install_Arch_Linux_from_existing_Linux&diff=71223
Install Arch Linux from existing Linux
2009-06-26T03:58:38Z
<p>MethodOne: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Category:Getting and installing Arch (English)]] <br />
[[Category:HOWTOs (English)]] <br />
<br />
This guide is intended to combine and update the three previously existing and highly similar alternative install guides on this wiki. This guide is intended for anybody who wants to install Arch Linux from any other running Linux -- be it off a LiveCD or a pre-existing install of a different distro.<br />
<br />
==Install From Existing Linux== <br />
<br />
===Overview=== <br />
Arch Linux's Pacman can be configured (-r) to perform operations in any directory you like, using that as the context of "root" while running. <br />
<br />
The pacman package available from the mirrors includes a static-linked version of the binary (pacman.static) which should run in most any modern linux environment, without the need of dependencies. <br />
<br />
This is useful for building up new Arch Linux systems from scratch from other LiveCDs or different systems running another Linux environment, creating new chroot environments on a "host" system, maintaining a "golden-master" for development & distribution, or other fun topics like rootfs-over-NFS for diskless machines. <br />
<br />
In the case of an x86_64 host, it is even possible to use i686-pacman to build a 32-bit chroot environment. See [[Arch64 Install bundled 32bit system]]. <br />
<br />
Throughout this guide, we will refer to partitions as /dev/hdxx or /dev/sdxx. This refers to whatever dev entry you have on your system for the partition in question. The convention is:<br />
Drive 1, Partition 1: /dev/hda1 or /dev/sda1<br />
Drive 1, Partition 2: /dev/hda2 or /dev/sda2<br />
Drive 2, Partiiton 1: /dev/hdb1 or /dev/sdb1<br />
etc...<br />
<br />
We will refer to it as /dev/sdxx whenever possible, but realize depending on your system it could be /dev/hdxx.<br />
<br />
If you have a broadband connection available through the installation process and just want to do a basic install, [http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ UNetbootin] may also be an easy solution worth to have a look at.<br />
<br />
===Setup host system=== <br />
<br />
You need to install the archlinux package manager pacman on your host linux environment. In addition you will need a list of pacman mirrors sites which is used to download data on available packages as well as the packages themselves.<br />
<br />
====Get the required packages====<br />
<br />
You need to get the required packages for your host linux environment. The examples given here assume you are using a i686 environment. If you are running on an 64bit linux instead you should replace each occurance of "i686" with "x86_64".<br />
<br />
All version numbers given here may change. Please check the version numbers the packages are at first and note them down. The version numbers can be found [http://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/i686/pacman/ here for pacman] and [http://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/i686/pacman-mirrorlist/ here for pacman-mirrorlist]. Once you are sure of the version numbers download the required packages:<br />
mkdir /tmp/archlinux<br />
cd /tmp/archlinux<br />
wget ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/core/os/i686/pacman-3.2.2-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
wget ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/core/os/i686/pacman-mirrorlist-20090616-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
tar xzvf pacman-3.2.2-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
tar xzvf pacman-mirrorlist-20090108-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
In addition to the dynamically linked pacman there is a statically linked version available. This does integrate better into all the different host linux systems possible. This static version is not part of the normal archlinux setup anymore but can be found at http://repo.archlinux.fr/i686/. Use the following command to get it:<br />
cd /tmp/archlinux<br />
wget http://repo.archlinux.fr/i686/pacman-static-3.2.2-1.pkg.tar.gz<br />
tar xzvf pacman-static-3.2.2-1.pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
====Install the required files into the host system====<br />
<br />
Since we will use pacman.static for the initial setup, we only need a few files installed into the host. This can be done by running the following commands as root:<br />
cp /tmp/archlinux/etc/pacman.conf /etc<br />
mkdir /etc/pacman.d<br />
cp /tmp/archlinux/etc/pacman.d/* /etc/pacman.d<br />
cp /tmp/archlinux/usr/bin/pacman.static /usr/bin<br />
<br />
If you do not mind to litter your install host, you can also extract all the downloaded tar balls into your root directory by running as root:<br />
cd /<br />
tar xzf /tmp/archlinux/pacman-*pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
You may also turn these tarballs into packages for your distribution with the [http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/alien/ alien] tool. See the man page of the tool for instructions. The packages created that way may be installed into your host distribution using the usual package management tools available there. This approach offers the best integration into the host linux environment. For a debian package based system this is done with the following commands:<br />
cd /tmp/archlinux<br />
alien -d pacman-3.2.2-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
alien -d pacman-mirrorlist-20090108-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
alien -d pacman-static-3.2.2-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
RPM based systems will need to replace the parameter "-d" with "-r".<br />
<br />
These distribution packages can then get installed using the normal package management tools of the host linux environment.<br />
<br />
====Configure the host linux system==== <br />
<br />
Configure your /etc/pacman.conf to your liking, and remove unnecessary mirrors from /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist. Also, enabling at least a few mirrors might become necessary, as you may experience errors during syncing if you have no mirror set. You may want to manually resolve DNS in the /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist, because pacman-static for i686 may not be able to get address information on x86_64 systems.<br />
<br />
If you're installing from a LiveCD, and you have a system with a low amount of combined RAM and swap (< 1 GB), be sure to set the cachedir in /etc/pacman.conf to be in new arch partition (e.g. - /newarch/var/cache/pacman/pkg). Otherwise you could exhaust memory between the overhead of the existing distro and downloading necessary packages to install.<br />
<br />
===Prepare disk for Arch=== <br />
Prepare the new Arch system's filesystems and then mount them. If your host system has any gui tools for this, such as gparted, cfdisk, or mandrakes diskdrake, feel free to use them. <br />
<br />
To format a partition as ext3, you run (where /dev/sdxx is the partition you want to setup): <br />
# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdxx <br />
as reiserfs: <br />
# mkreiserfs /dev/sdxx <br />
swap: <br />
# mkswap /dev/sdxx <br />
Most other filesystems can be setup with their own mkfs variant, take a look with tab completion. Available filesystems depend entirely on your host system. <br />
<br />
Once you have setup the filesystems, mount them. Throughout this, We will reference the new Arch / at /newarch, however you can put it wherever you like. <br />
# mkdir /newarch <br />
# mount /dev/sdxx /newarch <br />
<br />
It is also possible to build the root filesystem in a normal directory on the install-host, for transfer to a target system over the network, or to create a master tarball etc. <br />
<br />
===Install Base System===<br />
Update pacman, you may have to create the /newarch/var/lib/pacman folder for it to work:<br />
# mkdir -p /newarch/var/lib/pacman <br />
<br />
Install the 'base' group of packages:<br />
# pacman.static -Sy base -r /newarch<br />
<br />
'''NOTE:''' Pacman cache directory is not modified by -r parameter. If you don't want cache to be created in pre-existing distro use --cachedir or modify pacman.conf as mentioned in [[Install_From_Existing_Linux#Setup_host_system|host system setup]]!<br />
<br />
===Prepare System=== <br />
<br />
First, ensure the correct /dev nodes have been made for udev:<br />
ls -alF /newarch/dev<br />
<br />
This result in a list containing lines similar to the following (the dates will differ for you):<br />
crw------- 1 root root 5, 1 2008-12-27 21:40 console<br />
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 2008-12-27 21:42 null<br />
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 5 2008-12-27 21:40 zero<br />
<br />
Delete and recreate any device which has a different set of permissions (the crw-... stuff plus the two root entries) and major/minor numbers (the two before the date).<br />
<br />
cd /newarch/dev <br />
rm console ; mknod -m 600 console c 5 1 <br />
rm null ; mknod -m 666 null c 1 3 <br />
rm zero ; mknod -m 666 zero c 1 5<br />
<br />
All device nodes should have been created for you already with the right permissions and you should not need to recreate any of them.<br />
<br />
Mount various filesystems into the new Arch system. <br />
mount -o bind /dev /newarch/dev<br />
mount -t proc none /newarch/proc<br />
mount -o bind /sys /newarch/sys<br />
<br />
==Continue system preperation==<br />
<br />
In order for DNS to work properly you need to edit /newarch/etc/resolv.conf or replace it with the resolv.conf from your running distribution <br />
cp /etc/resolv.conf /newarch/etc/ <br />
<br />
Copy your pacman mirror list into the new system:<br />
cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /newarch/etc/pacman.d<br />
<br />
Make sure that it is set up correctly.<br />
<br />
Chroot into the new system <br />
chroot /newarch /bin/bash<br />
<br />
===Install The Rest=== <br />
<br />
Install your preferred kernel, and any other packages you may wish to install. <br />
For the default kernel (which is already installed!):<br />
pacman -S kernel26 <br />
<br />
If you wish to install extra packages now, you may do so with: <br />
pacman -S packagename<br />
<br />
===Configure System=== <br />
Edit your /etc/fstab, remembering to add /, swap and any other partitions you may wish to use. Be sure to use the /dev/sd* (sda1, sda2, sdb1, etc) for the partitions instead of /dev/hd*, as Arch uses the sdxx convention for all drives.<br />
<br />
Edit your rc.conf to your liking <br />
<br />
Edit /etc/locale.gen, uncommenting any locales you wish to have available, and build the locales <br />
locale-gen<br />
<br />
===Setup Grub=== <br />
Allow grub-install to run properly while chrooted:<br />
grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab <br />
<br />
Also, if you want to keep grub from your existing install, you may use grub-install from the Arch chroot, then redo a grub-install from your existing installation. If grub-install fails, you can manually install:<br />
grub <br />
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 (You should see some results here if you have done everything right so far. If not, back up and retrace your steps.)<br />
grub> root (hd0,X) <br />
grub> setup (hd0) <br />
grub> quit <br />
<br />
Double check your /boot/grub/menu.lst when done if installing from a LiveCD. Depending on the host, it could need correcting from hda to sda, and a prefix of /boot as well in the paths. <br />
<br />
Instructions for [[GRUB]] and [[LILO]] are available on this wiki.<br />
<br />
===Finishing Touches===<br />
[[Beginners_Guide#Configure_the_System|Configure your System]]<br />
You can ignore 2.11, but the rest of that guide should be of use to you in post-installation configuration of your system.<br />
<br />
===Install Complete=== <br />
Reboot to your new system! <br />
<br />
==Troubleshooting== <br />
<br />
===Kernel Panic===<br />
If when you reboot into your new system you get a kernel panic saying console couldn't open: <br />
kinit: couldn't open console, no such file... <br />
<br />
This means you didn't follow the instructions above. Follow the steps to create basic device nodes at the beginning of preparation.<br />
<br />
===Root device '/dev/sd??' doesn't exist=== <br />
If when you reboot into your new system you get a error messages like this: <br />
Root device '/dev/sda1' doesn't exist, attempting to create it... etc. <br />
<br />
This means the drives are showing up as "hda1" instead of "sda1" In which case change your GRUB or LILO settings to use "hd??" or try the following. <br />
<br />
Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and change "ide" to "pata" in the "HOOKS=" line. Then regenerate your initrd. (Make sure you have chroot'ed into the new system first.) <br />
mkinitcpio -p kernel26<br />
<br />
If you are using LVM make sure you add "lvm2" in the HOOKS line. Regenerate your initrd as above.</div>
MethodOne
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=DeveloperWiki:TrademarkPolicy&diff=51685
DeveloperWiki:TrademarkPolicy
2008-10-23T17:31:57Z
<p>MethodOne: /* Attribution */</p>
<hr />
<div>: ''This article is part of the [[DeveloperWiki]].''<br />
<br />
=Trademark Policy=<br />
The objective of the Arch Linux trademark policy is to encourage widespread use of the Arch Linux trademarks by the Arch Linux community while controlling that use in order to avoid confusion on the part of Arch Linux users and the general public, to maintain the value of the image and reputation of the trademarks and to protect them from inappropriate or unauthorised use.<br />
<br />
The sections below describe what is allowed, what isn't allowed, and cases in which you should ask permission. If you have any doubt, please contact us at '''trademarks@archlinux.org'''.<br />
<br />
===The Trademarks===<br />
Aaron Griffin (hereinafter the "Arch Linux Project Lead") and Judd Vinet, on behalf of Arch Linux, own a number of trademarks including "ARCHLINUX", "ARCH LINUX", "A simple, lightweight Linux distribution" and the stylized Arch Linux logo. The trademarks are recognized in both word and logo form. Any mark beginning with the letters ARCH is sufficiently similar to one or more of the trademarks that permission will be needed in order to use it. This policy encompasses all marks, in word and logo form (collectively referred to as "Trademarks").<br />
<br />
===Permitted Use===<br />
Certain usages of the Trademarks are fine and no specific permission from us is needed.<br />
<br />
'''Advocacy.''' Arch Linux is built by, and largely for, its community. We share access to the Trademarks with the entire community for the purposes of discussion, development and advocacy. We recognise that most of the open source discussion and development areas are for non-commercial purposes and will allow the use of the Trademarks in this context, provided:<br />
<br />
* the Trademark is used in a manner consistent with the Usage Guidelines below<br />
* there is no commercial intent behind the use<br />
* what you are referring to is in fact Arch Linux. If someone is confused into thinking that what isn't Arch Linux is in fact Arch Linux, you are probably doing something wrong.<br />
* there is no suggestion (through words or appearance) that your project is approved, sponsored, or affiliated with Arch Linux or its related projects unless it has been approved by and is accountable to the Arch Linux Project Lead<br />
<br />
'''Derived works.''' The ability to customise Arch Linux to meet your specific needs is one of the great strengths of free software in general, and Arch Linux in particular. While we encourage customisation and derivation of Arch Linux, we must balance that freedom with the integrity of the Trademarks and the quality which they represent. To help reach that balance, we have established the following guidelines and definitions.<br />
<br />
We recognise and encourage the concept of a "'''remix.'''" Remixes are derived versions of Arch Linux, and it is intended that any software and hardware certifications will apply to a Remix. Therefore the changes from official Arch Linux products must be minimal to be permitted to use the Trademarks. These changes can include configuration changes through the existing Arch Linux configuration management tools, changes to artwork and graphical themes and some variance in package selection. In general, a Remix can have applications from the Arch Linux archives added, or default applications removed, but removing or changing any infrastructure components (e.g., shared libraries or desktop components) will result in changes too large for the resulting product to be called by a Trademark. Note that if the nature of the product's divergence from Arch Linux changes, the Remix naming and Trademark use may no longer apply.<br />
<br />
Therefore, if you are creating a derivative of Arch Linux, you may use the Trademarks in association with the software product provided:<br />
<br />
* the changes are minimal and unsubstantial, as described above<br />
* there is no commercial intent associated with the new product<br />
* the Trademark is used in a way that makes it clear that your project is a development effort related to the Arch Linux source, but that the software you are working upon is not in fact Arch Linux as distributed by the Arch Linux project<br />
* there is no suggestion (through words or appearance) that your project is approved, sponsored, or affiliated with Arch Linux or its related projects unless it has been approved by and is governed by the Arch Linux Project Lead.<br />
<br />
If you are producing a new product which is based on Arch Linux but which has more substantial changes than those described above as a Remix, you are allowed to state (and we would encourage you to do so) that your product is "derived from Arch Linux", "based on Arch Linux", or "a derivative of Arch Linux" but you may not use the Trademarks to refer to your product. In some cases you may be allowed to use the Trademarks, but permission must be explicitly granted by the Arch Linux Project Lead. In that event, these products will need a trademark license, and such a license can be revoked if the nature of your divergence from Arch Linux changes. Products which include very invasive changes, such as a new kernel, the inclusion of packages which are not part of the Arch Linux repositories, or anything else that significantly impacts the technical quality or user experience would fall into this category are unlikely to be approved. (Note that if you are including packages which are not part of the Arch Linux repositories, we encourage you to work within the community processes, such as the Arch User Repository (AUR) to submit and maintain those packages within the community repositories in order to minimise this issue.)<br />
<br />
'''Building on Arch Linux or for Arch Linux.''' If you are producing new software which is intended for use with or on Arch Linux, you may use the trademark in a way which indicates the intent of your product. For example, if you are developing a system management tool for Arch Linux, acceptable project titles would be "System Management for Arch Linux" or "Arch Linux Based Systems Management". We would strongly discourage, and likely would consider to be problematic, a name such as ArchMan, Arch Management, ArchTools, etc. Furthermore, you may not use the Trademarks in a way which implies an endorsement where that doesn't exist, or which attempts to unfairly or confusingly capitalise on the goodwill or brand of the project.<br />
<br />
'''Commentary and parody.''' The Arch Linux Trademarks are designed to cover use of a mark to imply origin or endorsement by the project. When a user downloads something called Arch Linux, they should know it comes from the Arch Linux project. This helps Arch Linux build a reputation that will not be damaged by confusion around what is, and isn't, Arch Linux. Using the Trademarks in your discussion, commentary, criticism or parody, in ways that unequivocally do not imply endorsement, is permissible. Anyone is free to write articles, create websites, blog about, or talk about Arch Linux -- as long as it's clear to everyone -- including people completely unfamiliar with Arch Linux -- that they are simply referring to Arch Linux and in no way speaking for the Arch Linux project.<br />
<br />
We reserve the right to review all usage within the open source community, and to object to any usage that appears to overstep the bounds of discussion and good-faith non-commercial development. In any event, once a project has left the open source project phase or otherwise become a commercial project, this policy does not authorize any use of the Trademarks in connection to that project.<br />
<br />
===Restricted use that requires a trademark license===<br />
Explicit permission from the Arch Linux Project Lead is necessary to use any of the Trademarks under any circumstances other than those specifically permitted above. These include:<br />
<br />
* Any commercial use.<br />
* Use on or in relation to a software product that includes or is built on top of a product supplied by us, if there is any commercial intent associated with that product.<br />
* Use for merchandising purposes, e.g. on t-shirts and the like.<br />
* Services relating to any of the above.<br />
<br />
If you wish to have permission for any of the uses above or for any other use which is not specifically referred to in this policy, please email '''trademarks@archlinux.org''' and we'll let you know as soon as possible if your proposed use is permissible. Permission may only be granted subject to certain conditions and these may include the requirement that you enter into an agreement with us to maintain the quality of the product and/or service which you intend to supply at a prescribed level.<br />
<br />
While there may be exceptions, it is very unlikely that we will approve Trademark use in the following cases:<br />
<br />
* Use of a Trademark in a company name.<br />
* Use of a Trademark in a domain name which has a commercial intent. The commercial intent can range from promotion of a company or product, to collecting revenue generated by advertising.<br />
* The calling of any software or product by the name Arch Linux (or another related Trademark), unless that software or product is a substantially unmodified Arch Linux product, or properly labelled as a "Remix" as described above.<br />
* Use in combination with any other marks or logos. This include use of a Trademark in a manner that creates a "combined mark," or use that integrates other wording with the Trademark in a way that the public may think of the use as a new mark (for example Club Arch Linux or ArchBooks, or in a way that by use of special fonts or presentation with nearby words or images conveys an impression that the two are tied in some way).<br />
* Use in combination with any product or service which is presented as being Certified or Official or formally associated with us or our products or services.<br />
* Use in a way which implies an endorsement where that doesn't exist, or which attempts to unfairly or confusingly capitalise on the goodwill or brand of the project.<br />
* Use of a Trademark in a manner that disparages Arch Linux and is not clearly third-party parody.<br />
* On or in relation to a software product which constitutes a substantially modified version of a product supplied by the Arch Linux project, that is to say with material changes to the code, or services relating to such a product.<br />
* In a title or metatag of a web page whose primary intention or result is to influence search engine rankings or result listings, rather than for discussion, development or advocacy of the Trademarks.<br />
<br />
===Logo Usage Guidelines===<br />
<br />
In addition to the restrictions imposed above, '''the Trademark declaration ( &trade; ) must remain intact''' whenever displaying the logos.<br />
<br />
Our logos are presented in multiple colours and it is important that their visual integrity be maintained. It is therefore preferable that the logos only be used in their standard form but if you should feel the need to alter them in any way, please keep the following in mind:<br />
<br />
* Any scaling should retain the original proportions of the logo.<br />
* A monochrome version (white, black, etc.) should be used in certain situations, such as when applying it to colourful or "busy" backdrops that would otherwise make the logo difficult to read.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=====Attribution=====<br />
''The Arch Linux trademark policy is published under the CC-BY-SA license, courtesy of the [http://www.ubuntu.com/ Ubuntu project]. You are welcome to base your own project trademark policies off of it, but you must give credit to the [http://www.ubuntu.com/ Ubuntu project] as the original source, and let others use your changes freely.''</div>
MethodOne
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Newcomers_Guide&diff=36752
Newcomers Guide
2008-02-06T03:26:07Z
<p>MethodOne: /* Using proprietary Graphics Driver (nVIDIA, ATI) */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Category:Getting and installing Arch (English)]]<br />
[[Category:About Arch (English)]]<br />
[[Category:HOWTOs (English)]]<br />
{{i18n_links_start}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Dansk|Dansk_Begynderguide}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Deutsch|Beginners Guide (Deutsch)}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|English|Beginners Guide}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Česky|Průvodce začátečníka (Česky)}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Italiano|Beginners Guide (Italiano)}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Lietuviškai|Pradedančiųjų gidas (Lietuviškai)}}<br />
{{i18n_links_end}}<br />
==Preface==<br />
<br />
=====Everything you ever wanted to know about installing Arch, but were afraid to ask=====<br />
This document will guide you through the process of installing and configuring [[ArchLinux|Arch Linux]]; a simple, lightweight GNU/Linux distribution, <code>UNIX</code>-like operating system. It is aimed at new Arch users, but strives to serve as a strong reference and informative base for all. While this guide intends to show how to gain a fully configured Arch Linux system (a graphical desktop environment, the ability to view DVDs, browse the internet, work with emails, and listen to music), it is impossible to show (or even anticipate) all possibilities and options. By design, this guide must focus on some critically useful steps; you may want to dig deeper using the [[Main Page|Arch Linux Wiki]] or the [http://bbs.archlinux.org/ Arch Linux Forums]. You may also be interested in reading [[The Arch Way]], which outlines the underlying principles of the Arch Linux distribution.<br />
<br />
The article is broken up into 3 main parts:<br />
<br />
'''[[#Part I: Install the Base System|Part I: Installing the Base system]]'''<br />
<br />
'''[[#Part II: Install X and configure ALSA|Part II: Installing X and configuring ALSA]]'''<br />
<br />
'''[[#Part III: Installing and configuring a Desktop Environment|Part III: Installing a Desktop Environment]]'''<br />
<br />
=====DON'T PANIC!=====<br />
Please realize that the Arch Linux installation procedure may be very different from other GNU/Linux distributions you have tried, especially if you are a beginner. The Arch Linux system is built '''by the user''' from the ncurses installer and base system with nothing more than a bash shell and basic system tools. Unlike most other distributions, there are no default environments nor configurations forced upon the user. From the command line, you will add packages from the Arch repositories using the [[pacman]] tool via your internet connection, until your system is customized to your requirements. This allows for maximum flexibility, choice, and system resource control. Because '''you''' build it, you will invariably know the nuts and bolts of your system, and become familiar with what is under the hood. <br />
<br />
The Arch Linux system is configured by editing text files. It offers no GUI tools and will not hold your hand during setup and customization, but nor will it get in your way by design. <br />
Remember also, that Arch Linux is aimed at competent GNU/Linux users as well as users who are willing to invest the time to learn about the mechanics of the system. <br />
<br />
''The design principles behind Arch are aimed at keeping it simple.'' <br />
<br />
Note that 'simple' does not mean 'easy' nor 'user-friendly' in this context, but rather; 'without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications'. In short; an elegant, minimalist approach.<br />
<br />
'''Following this guide closely is essential in order to successfully install a properly configured Arch Linux system.'''<br />
* You may wish to print out this guide as a 42 page book which will serve as a useful Arch Linux user reference. <br />
*''If you would like to add to this wiki, please include the "Why" as well as the "How", where appropriate. The best documentation teaches us how, as well as why!''<br />
----<br />
Welcome to Arch! Now, let's get started.<br />
<br />
==Part I: Install the Base System==<br />
===Obtain the latest Core ISO ===<br />
<br />
You can obtain Arch's latest official snapshot from [http://www.archlinux.org/download/ www.archlinux.org/download/].<br />
<br />
It is recommended to choose the '''core-iso''' since this guide is geared toward the core installation process. <br />
<br />
The core-iso contains only the necessary packages to create a minimal GNU/Linux base system. ''Note that a minimal Base System does not include a GUI.'' The rest of the Arch Linux system, including a Graphical User interface is built from the command line using i686-binary packages and configuration files. The process is covered in detail below.<br />
<br />
Burn the ISO to CD. Generally, using a maximum speed of no more than 16x is recommended for reliable burns.<br />
<br />
===Boot Arch Linux CD===<br />
As you follow these directions, you may find the [[Official Arch Linux Install Guide]] helpful as well. In addition, [http://www.archlinux.org/static/docs/arch-install-guide.html a printable copy] is available.<br />
<br />
Insert the CD into your CD-ROM drive and boot from it. You may have to <br />
change the boot order in your computer BIOS or press a key (usually F11 or F12) <br />
during the BIOS phase.<br />
<br />
Some useful options when booting off the Arch Linux CD:<br />
* '''ide-legacy''' if you have trouble with IDE drives<br />
* '''noapic acpi=off pci=routeirq nosmp''' if your system hangs during the boot process<br />
* '''memtest86+''' if you want to check your memory for errors<br />
* '''lowmem''' is useful for older machines with limited RAM.<br />
<br />
'lowmem' requirements:<br />
<br />
96 MB RAM x86_64 (all packages selected)<br />
<br />
85 MB RAM i686 (all packages selected)<br />
<br />
64 MB RAM i686 (only base packages selected)<br />
<br />
Choose "Arch Linux Installation / Rescue System". If you need to change the boot options press e for editing the boot lines.<br />
The system will now boot and present a welcome text with some explanations when ready.<br />
<br />
===Changing the keymap===<br />
Press enter at the welcome screen. If you have a non-US keyboard layout type<br />
km<br />
at the prompt and choose the appropriate keymap.<br />
<br />
''Example''(norwegian) for illustrative purposes:<br />
<br />
In console keymap screen select<br />
no-latin1<br />
In console font screen select<br />
lat0-16<br />
<br />
Choosing "default8x16.psfu.gz" for console font is a safe choice.<br />
<br />
===Start the Installation===<br />
Enter<br />
/arch/setup <br />
to start the installation. <br />
<br />
<br />
====Select an installation source====<br />
You will be prompted for an installation source. Choose CD if you are using a core ISO, or choose FTP if you are using the FTP ISO.<br />
<br />
====Prepare Hard Drive====<br />
Select the first menu entry "Prepare Hard Drive". Beware that "Auto-Prepare" may not be a safe choice because it will erase the entire hard drive.<br />
Here we will manually partition the hard drive. Choose "2. Partition Hard Drives", select the hard drive you want (/dev/sdx), and edit the partition table to your needs.<br />
<br />
''The Arch Linux installer uses the cfdisk utility to partition the hard drive.''<br />
<br />
''At this point, more advanced GNU/Linux users who are familiar and comfortable with manually partitioning may wish to skip down to '''[[#Select Packages|Select Packages]]''' below.''<br />
<br />
=====Partition Info=====<br />
<br />
Partitioning a hard disk drive defines specific areas (the partitions) within the disk, that will each appear and behave as a separate disk and upon which a filesystem may be created (formatted). Partitions are broken up into "Primary", "Extended", and "Logical". <br />
<br />
Primary partitions can be bootable, and are limited to 4. Beyond 4 partitions, we are forced to use an extended partition which will contain logical partitions.<br />
<br />
Extended partitions are not usable by themselves; they are merely a "container" for logical partitions. A hard disk may contain only one extended partition; which can then be sub-divided into logical partitions. <br />
<br />
When partitioning a disk, one can see this numbering scheme by creating primary partitions sda1-3 followed by creating an extended partition, sda4, and subsequently creating logical partition(s) within the extended partition; sda5, sda6, and so on.<br />
<br />
=====Swap Partition=====<br />
A swap partition is a place on your hard drive where "virtual ram" resides, allowing the kernel to easily use disk storage for data that does not fit into physical RAM. <br />
<br />
Historically, the general rule for swap partition size was 2x the amount of physical RAM. Over time, as computers have gained ever larger memory capacities, this rule has become increasingly deprecated. Generally, on machines with up to 512MB RAM, the 2x rule is usually sufficient. On machines with 1GB RAM, generally a 1x rule is adequate. If you have gratuitous amounts of RAM (more than 1024 MB) it may be possible to completely forgo a swap partition altogether, though this is not recommended. We will create a 1 GB swap partition in this example.<br />
* ''If you plan on using suspend-to-disk, (hibernate) you must have a swap partition at least '''equal''' in size to the amount of physical RAM, and some users even recommend oversizing it beyond the amount of physical RAM by 15%.''<br />
<br />
=====Partition Scheme=====<br />
A disk partitioning scheme is a very personalized preference. Each user's choices will be unique to their own computing habits and requirements. What you need at the least is one primary partition which contains the root [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system Filesystem] ( / ) and one for swap. Other candidates for separate partitions include /boot (which mainly contains the kernel) /var, and /home (which contains the user data). It is good practice to have / and /home on separate partitions. This makes it possible to reinstall Arch Linux (or even another distro) for any reason, while keeping your data, music, pictures, and desktop environment preferences.<br />
<br />
In this example, we will stick with one partition for /, one partition for /home, and a swap partition.<br />
<br />
=====cfdisk===== <br />
Let's start creating the primary partition that will contain the '''root''', (/) filesystem. <br />
<br />
Choose '''N'''ew -> Primary and enter the size you want (something between 4 and 8 GB is a good choice for a full-featured Linux system). Put the partition at the beginning of the disk. Select the newly created partition and choose '''B'''ootable to make this partition bootable. <br />
<br />
Also choose the '''T'''ype by designating it as '83 Linux'. <br />
<br />
Add another partition for your /home directory. Choose another primary partition and set the size to a value you like. The size really depends on what your users store in their home directories, so I cannot make any suggestions. The size may vary between a few hundred megabytes for some office documents up to hundreds of gigabytes for videos and MP3s. If you want to use the entire remaining space on your hard disc, remember to reserve a quantity for the swap partition. (1 GB, or 1024MB, in our example)<br />
<br />
Likewise, select the '''T'''ype as 83 Linux. <br />
<br />
At last we create a third partition for swap. Select a size between 512 MB and 1 GB and change the '''T'''ype to 82 (Linux swap / Solaris).<br />
<br />
This is what your Layout should look like (size may vary depending on your decisions):<br />
<br />
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)<br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
sda1 Boot Primary Linux (4096 - 8192)<br />
sda2 Primary Linux (> 100)<br />
sda3 Primary Linux swap / Solaris (512 - 1024)<br />
<br />
Choose '''W'''rite and type ''''yes''''. Beware that this operation may destroy data on your disk if you deleted partitions. Choose '''Q'''uit to leave the partitioner. <br />
Choose Done to leave this menu and continue with "Set Filesystem Mountpoints".<br />
<br />
=====I have IDE devices, why do they look like SCSI devices?=====<br />
Since the latest developments of the Linux kernel which include the libata and PATA modules, all IDE, SATA and SCSI drives have adopted the sd''x'' naming scheme. This is perfectly normal and should not be a concern.<br />
<br />
====Set File system Mountpoints====<br />
<br />
=====A few brief words about '''filesystems''' and "file systems":=====<br />
<br />
Technically, and for accuracy, a '''filesystem''' is a data '''format''', for information throughput, whereas a "file system" (notice the space) is a term referring to the layout of all files and directories on a given system. Therefore, when you are asked if you want to create a '''filesystem''', you are being asked if you want to '''format''' the particular partition... but when you are asked for mount points, you are providing where the given partition will reside in your Arch Linux "file system".<br />
<br />
=====Filesystem Types=====<br />
First you will be asked for your swap partition. Choose the appropriate partition (sda3 in this example). You will be asked if you want to create a swap filesystem; select yes. Next, choose where to mount the / (root) directory (sda1 in the example). You will be asked what kind of filesystem you want.<br />
<br />
Again, a filesystem type is a very subjective matter which comes down to personal preference. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. Here is a very brief overview of supported filesystems:<br />
<br />
1. '''ext2''' - Old, reliable GNU/Linux filesystem. Very stable, but ''without journaling support''. May be inconvenient due to very long fsck's. ''An ext2 filesystem can easily be converted to ext3.''<br />
<br />
2. '''ext3''' - Essentially the ext2 system, but with journaling support. Generally perceived as ''slightly'' slower than other filesystems, but ''extremely'' stable and by far the most widely used, supported and developed GNU/Linux FS.<br />
<br />
3. '''ReiserFS''' - Hans Reiser's high-performance journaling FS uses a very interesting method of data throughput. ReiserFS is very fast, especially when dealing with many small files. ReiserFS is very slow at mounting. Quite well established and stable. ReiserFS isn't actively developed at this time (Reiser4 is the new Reiser filesystem).<br />
<br />
4. '''JFS''' - IBM's '''J'''ournaled '''F'''ile'''S'''ystem. JFS is very fast and uses the least CPU resources of any filesystem. Very fast at mounting and fsck's, and very good all-around performance, especially in conjunction with the deadline scheduler. (See [[JFS]].) Not as widely supported as ext or ReiserFS. <br />
<br />
5. '''XFS''' - Very fast journaling filesystem which is best suited for large files. Slower with small files. Very fast at mounting. May not be an ideal choice for the /var partition, since pacman deals with many small files. The only available GNU/Linux FS with online defragmentation ability. Not as widely supported as ext or ReiserFS. <br />
<br />
A major difference is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system journaling] (something similar to transaction logs in database environments). All filesystems except ext2 use journaling. ext3 is completely compatible with ext2, so you can mount it even with very-old rescue CDs. A safe choice for the root partition is ext3. ReiserFS, XFS, and JFS are also OK to use because GRUB (the boot manager which we will install later) can boot from them too. Create the filesystem (format the partition) by selecting yes. You will now be prompted to add any additional partitions. In our example, only sda2 is remaining. Choose a filesystem type and mount it as /home. Again, create the filesystem and choose Done. Return to main menu.<br />
<br />
===Select Packages===<br />
Now we shall select packages to install in our system. Choose CD as source and select the appropriate CD drive if you have more than one.<br />
<br />
Package selection is split into two stages. First, you will select package categories, then you will be presented will the full lists of packages in the selected categories, allowing you to fine-tune your selections. The space bar selects and unselects the categories.<br />
<br />
*'''BASE:''' Contains the minimal package set; just enough for a barebones system.<br />
*'''SUPPORT:''' Additional packages for networking and filesystems, etc, such as gpm, fuse, dnsutils, wireless drivers, ndiswrapper, ntfs-3g, and so forth.<br />
*'''DEVEL:''' Software building tools such as GCC, autoconf, automake and make.<br />
*'''LIB:''' Various libraries such as gmp, lebelf, libevent, etc. <br />
<br />
Choose 'yes' for 'Select all packages by default', for now.<br />
<br />
The next screen will present you with the selected packages within your selected categories. Leaving all selected is a safe choice for beginners, while more experienced users will wish to trim a few unnecessary packages. (For instance, an unneeded filesystem type utility, unneeded drivers, etc.)<br />
<br />
===Install Packages===<br />
Next, choose 'Install Packages'. You will be asked if you wish to keep the packages in pacman cache. If you choose 'yes', you will have the flexability to downgrade to the corresponding package versions in the future, so this is recommended. (You may always clear the cache in the future.) The installer script will now install the selected packages to your system. The packages are binary i686-optimized and total only ~100MB, so they install quite expediently.<br />
<br />
===Configure The System===<br />
You will be asked if you want to choose [[Hwdetect|hwdetect]] to gather information for your configuration. Beginners should choose 'yes'. <br />
<br />
Advanced users who are thoroughly familiar with their hardware, required modules, and who are able to manually configure /etc/mkinitcpio and /etc/fstab from scratch may wish to choose 'no'. (Needless to say, this option is very involved, beyond the scope of this guide, and therefore is not covered.)<br />
<br />
Next, you will be asked if you need support for booting from USB devices, FireWire devices, PCMCIA devices, NFS shares, software RAID arrays, LVM2 volumes, and encrypted volumes. Choose yes if you need it; in our example nothing is needed. <br />
<br />
Beginners should also choose to use the [[Hwdetect|hwdetect]] results for /etc/mkinitcpio/kernel26-fallback.conf. This ensures consistent ordering of your hard disk controllers.<br />
<br />
Now you will be asked which text editor you want to use; choose [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano_%28text_editor%29 nano] if you are not familiar with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_%28text_editor%29 vi/vim]. You will be presented with a menu including the most important config files for your system. If you want to look up the available options as stated in /etc/rc.conf just press Alt+F2 to get a shell, look it up, and switch back to the installer with Alt+F1. <br />
<br />
====='''/etc/rc.conf'''=====<br />
Arch Linux follows in the FreeBSD tradition of utilizing '''/etc/rc.conf''' as the principal location for system configuration. This one file contains a wide range of configuration information, principally used at system startup. As its name directly implies, it also contains settings ''for'' the /etc/rc* files, and is, of course, sourced ''by'' these files. /etc/rc.conf offers a simple, elegant method of streamlining system resource configuration by encompassing a wide range of control, readily accessible for the Arch user. <br />
* '''LOCALIZATION''' section<br />
** '''LOCALE'''=: This sets your system locale, which will be used by all i18n-aware applications and utilities. You can get a list of the available locales by running locale -a from the command line. This setting's default is fine for US English users. (This locale must coincide with /etc/locale.gen, '''[[#/etc/locale.gen|see below]]'''.)<br />
** '''HARDWARECLOCK'''=: Specifies whether the hardware clock, which is synchronized on bootup and on shutdown, stores '''UTC''' time, or the '''localtime'''. UTC makes sense because it greatly simplifies changing timezones and daylight savings time. localtime is necessary if you dual boot with an operating system such as Windows, that only stores localtime to the hardware clock.<br />
** '''TIMEZONE'''=: Specify your TIMEZONE. (All available zones are under /usr/share/zoneinfo/).<br />
** '''KEYMAP'''=: The available keymaps are in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps. Please note that this setting is only valid for your TTYs, not any graphical window managers or X!<br />
** '''CONSOLEFONT'''=: Available console fonts reside under /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ if you must change.<br />
** '''CONSOLEMAP'''=: Defines the console map to load with the setfont program on bootup. Possible maps are found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans, if needed. <br />
** '''USECOLOR'''=: Select "yes" if you have a color monitor.<br />
<br />
LOCALE="en_US.utf8"<br />
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"<br />
TIMEZONE="US/Eastern"<br />
KEYMAP="us"<br />
CONSOLEFONT=<br />
CONSOLEMAP=<br />
USECOLOR="yes"<br />
* '''HARDWARE''' section<br />
** '''MOD_AUTOLOAD'''=: Setting this to "yes" will utilize '''udev''' to automatically probe hardware and load the appropriate modules at boot-up, (convenient with the default modular kernel). Setting this to "no" will rely on the user's ability to specify this information.<br />
** '''MOD_BLACKLIST'''=:Specify any blacklisted modules. In the following example, the IPv6 module as well as the pcspeaker are blacklisted.<br />
** '''MODULES'''=:Specify additional MODULES if you know that an important module is missing, ('''hwdetect''' should have filled in the most important modules): <br />
# Scan hardware and load required modules at bootup<br />
MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"<br />
# Module Blacklist - modules in this list will never be loaded by '''udev'''<br />
MOD_BLACKLIST=(net-pf-10 pcspkr)<br />
#<br />
MODULES=(e100 eepro100 mii slhc snd-ac97-codec snd-intel8x0 soundcore)<br />
* '''NETWORKING''' section<br />
** '''HOSTNAME'''=:Set your HOSTNAME to your liking.<br />
** '''eth0'''=: Adjust the interface IP address, netmask and broadcast address ''if'' you are using '''static IP'''. Set eth0="dhcp" if you want to use '''DHCP'''<br />
** '''INTERFACES'''=: Specify any/all interfaces here. If you do not use DHCP to configure a device, just keep in mind that the value of the variable (whose name must be equal to the name of the device which is supposed to be configured) equals the line which would be appended to the ifconfig command if you were to configure the device manually in the shell.<br />
** '''gateway'''=: If you are using '''static IP''', set the gateway address to your router's IP. If you are using DHCP, comment this line out with a hash (#).<br />
** '''ROUTES'''=: If you are using static '''IP''', remove the ! in front of 'gateway'. Leave this entry alone if using '''DHCP'''.<br />
<br />
<br />
Example, using '''DHCP''':<br />
HOSTNAME="arch"<br />
#eth0="eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255" <br />
eth0="dhcp"<br />
INTERFACES=(eth0)<br />
#gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"<br />
ROUTES=(!gateway)<br />
* '''DAEMONS''' section<br />
This array simply lists the names of those scripts contained in /etc/rc.d/ which are to be started during the boot process, and the order in which they start. <br />
<br />
*If a script name is prefixed with a bang (!), it is not executed. <br />
*If a script is prefixed with an "at" symbol (@), then it will be executed in the background; the startup sequence will not wait for successful completion of each daemon before continuing to the next. <br />
*Edit this array whenever new system services are installed, if starting them automatically during bootup is desired. <br />
<br />
This 'BSD-style' init, (one simple file vs an entire directory), is the Arch way of handling what others handle with various symlinks to an init.d directory.<br />
<br />
=====About DAEMONS=====<br />
You don't have to change the [[daemons]] line at this time, but it is useful to explain what daemons are, because we need them later in this guide. <br />
<br />
Analogous to a Windows service, a daemon is a program that runs in the background, waiting for events to occur and offering services. A good example is a webserver that waits for a request to deliver a page or an SSH server waiting for someone trying to log in. While these are full-featured applications, there are daemons whose work is not that visible. Examples are a daemon which writes messages into a log file (e.g. syslog, metalog), a daemon which lowers your CPU's frequency if your system has nothing to do (e.g.:cpufreq), and a daemon which offers you a graphical login (e.g.: gdm, kdm). All these programs can be added to the daemons line and will be started when the system boots. Useful daemons will be presented during this guide.<br />
Use Ctrl+X to leave the editor.<br />
<br />
=====/etc/fstab=====<br />
The '''fstab''' (for '''f'''ile '''s'''ystems '''tab'''le) is part of the system configuration listing all available disks and disk partitions, and indicating how they are to be initialized or otherwise integrated into the overall system's file system. The '''/etc/fstab''' file is most commonly used by the '''mount''' command, which reads /etc/fstab file to determine which options should be used when mounting the specified device.<br />
<br />
<br />
An example '''/etc/fstab''':<br />
<br />
#<br />
# /etc/fstab: static file system information<br />
#<br />
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass><br />
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0<br />
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0<br />
#/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0<br />
#/dev/dvd /mnt/dvd udf ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0<br />
#/dev/fd0 /mnt/fd0 vfat user,noauto 0 0<br />
/dev/sda1 / jfs defaults,noatime,nodiratime 0 1 <br />
/dev/sda2 /home jfs defaults,noatime,nodiratime 0 2<br />
/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0<br />
Hwdetect should have effectively configured a usable '''fstab''', but briefly checking it is recommended.<br />
*If you plan on using '''hal''' to automount media such as DVD's, you may wish to comment out the cdrom and dvd entries in preparation for '''hal''', which will be installed later in this guide.<br />
<br />
''The 'noatime' and 'nodiratime' options may safely be appended to / and /home regardless of your specified filesystem type for increased speed, performance, and power efficiency, for laptops as well as desktops.''<br />
<br />
Expanded information available in the [[Fstab]] wiki entry.<br />
<br />
====='''mkinitcpio.conf, modprobe.conf and kernel26-fallback.conf'''=====<br />
We shouldn't need to edit these configurations at this point. '''mkinitcpio.conf''' configures the ramdisk (e.g. booting from RAID, encrypted volumes) '''modprobe.conf''' can be used to set special configuration options for the kernel modules and '''kernel26-fallback.conf''' is for the initramfs fallback configuration).<br />
<br />
=====/etc/resolv.conf (for Static IP)=====<br />
*''If you are using DHCP, you may safely ignore this file, as by default, it will be dynamically created and destroyed by the dhcpcd daemon.''<br />
<br />
If you use a static IP, set your DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf (nameserver <ip-address>). You may have as many as you wish.<br />
<br />
If you are using a router, you will probably want to specify your DNS servers in the router itself, and merely point to it from your '''resolv.conf''', using your router's IP (which is also your gateway from '''/etc/rc.conf'''), e.g.:<br />
nameserver 192.168.1.1<br />
Alternatively, add your preferred servers one by one, e.g.:<br />
nameserver 4.2.2.1<br />
nameserver 4.2.2.2<br />
<br />
If using '''DHCP''', you may also specify your DNS servers in the router, or allow automatic assignment from your ISP, if your ISP is so equipped.<br />
<br />
=====/etc/hosts=====<br />
Add the desired ''hostname'', coinciding with the one specified in /etc/rc.conf, so that it looks like this:<br />
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost '''''yourhostname'''''<br />
''This format, '''including the 'localhost' entries''', is required for program compatibility! Errors in this syntax may cause poor network performance and/or certain programs to open very slowly, or not work at all. This is a very common error for beginners.''<br />
<br />
For most users, simply adding the ''yourhostname'' entry to the end of the default line will work, however, some users recommend using the following syntax:<br />
127.0.0.1 '''''yourhostname'''''.domain.org localhost.localdomain localhost '''''yourhostname'''''<br />
If you use a static IP, add another line using the syntax: <static-ip> hostname.domainname.org hostname, <br />
e.g.:<br />
192.168.1.100 '''''yourhostname'''''.domain.org '''''yourhostname'''''<br />
<br />
=====/etc/hosts.deny and /etc/hosts.allow=====<br />
Modify these configurations according to your needs if you plan on using [[SSH|ssh]]. The default configuration will reject all incoming connections, not only ssh connections. Edit your '''/etc/hosts.allow '''file and add: <br />
sshd:all <br />
This will allow all incoming ssh connections.<br />
<br />
If you do not plan on using [[SSH|ssh]], leave this file at the default, (empty), for added security.<br />
<br />
=====/etc/locale.gen=====<br />
<br />
The '''locale-gen''' command reads from '''/etc/locale.gen''' to generate specific locales. They can then be used by '''glibc''' and any other locale-aware program or library for rendering "peculiar" text, correctly displaying regional monetary values, time and date formats, alphabetic idiosyncrasies, and other locale-specific standards. The ability to setup a default locale is a great built-in privilege of using a <code>UNIX</code>-like operating system.<br />
<br />
By default /etc/locale.gen is an empty file with commented documentation. Once edited, the file won't get touched again. '''locale-gen''' runs on every '''glibc''' upgrade, generating all the locales specified in /etc/locale.gen.<br />
<br />
Choose the locale(s) you need (remove the # in front of the lines you want), e.g.:<br />
en_US ISO-8859-1<br />
en_US.UTF-8 <br />
('''Your locale(s) must coincide with the one specified in /etc/rc.conf above.''')<br />
<br />
The installer will now run the locale-gen script, which will generate the locales you specified. You may change your locale in the future by editing /etc/locale.gen and subsequently running 'locale-gen' as root.<br />
<br />
''Note that if you do not choose your locale, this will lead to a "The current locale is invalid..." error. This is perhaps the most common mistake by new Arch users, and also leads to the most commonly asked questions on the forum.''<br />
<br />
=====Root password=====<br />
Finally, set a root password and make sure that you remember it later. Return to the main menu and continue with installing bootloader.<br />
<br />
=====Pacman-Mirror=====<br />
Choose a mirror repository for '''pacman'''. <br />
*''archlinux.org is throttled, limiting downloads to 50KB/s'' <br />
<br />
*''If you are unfamiliar with the presented mirrors and their respective locations in relation to your location, choose any mirror. You will have the opportunity to run the '''rankmirrors''' script later in this guide, to automatically configure the closest mirrors.''<br />
<br />
Return to the main menu.<br />
<br />
===Install Bootloader===<br />
Because we have no secondary operating system in our example, we will need a bootloader. [http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ GNU GRUB] is the recommended bootloader. Alternatively, you may choose [http://lilo.go.dyndns.org/ LILO]. The shown '''GRUB''' configuration ('''/boot/grub/menu.lst''') should be sufficient. The only thing you may want to alter is the resolution of the console. Add<br />
a vga=<number> to the first kernel line. (A table of resolutions and the corresponding numbers is printed in the menu.lst.) <br />
title Arch Linux (Main)<br />
root (hd0,0)<br />
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=773<br />
initrd /boot/kernel26.img<br />
The "vga=773" argument will give a 1024x768 framebuffer with 256 color depth.<br />
<br />
Install the '''GRUB''' bootloader to the master boot record, (sda in our example).<br />
<br />
Exit the install, eject the installer CD, and type the magic word:<br />
<br />
reboot<br />
<br />
Your new Arch Linux system will boot up and finish with a login prompt (you may want to change the boot order in your '''BIOS''' back to booting from hard disk).<br />
<br />
'''Congratulations, and welcome to your shiny, new Arch Linux base system!'''<br />
<br />
==Configuring the Base System ==<br />
Your new Arch Linux base system is now a functional GNU/Linux environment ready for customization. From here, you may build this elegant set of tools into whatever you wish or require for your purposes.<br />
<br />
Let's begin.<br />
-----<br />
Login with your root account. We will configure pacman and update the system as root, then add a normal user. <br />
<br />
<br />
===Configuring the network (if necessary)===<br />
*''This section will assist you in configuring most types of networks, if the installer script auto-configurations are not working for you.''<br />
-----<br />
If everything went fine, you should have a working network. Try to ping www.google.com to verify this.<br />
ping -c 3 www.google.com<br />
<br />
''If you have successfully established a network connection, continue with '''[[#Update, Sync and Upgrade the system with pacman|Update, Sync and Upgrade the system with pacman]]'''.''<br />
<br />
If, after trying to ping www.google.com, you get an "unknown host" error, you may conclude that your network is not properly configured. You may choose to double-check the following files for integrity and proper settings:<br />
<br />
'''/etc/rc.conf''' # Specifically, check your HOSTNAME= and NETWORKING section for typos and errors.<br />
<br />
'''/etc/hosts''' # Double-check your format. (See above.)<br />
<br />
'''/etc/resolv.conf''' # If you are using a static IP. If you are using DHCP, this file will be dynamically created and destroyed by default, but can be changed to your preference. (See [[Network]].)<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for configuring the network can be found in the [[Network]] article.<br />
<br />
====Wired LAN====<br />
<br />
Check your Ethernet with<br />
ifconfig<br />
where you should see an entry for eth0. If required, you can set a new static IP with<br />
ifconfig eth0 <ip address> netmask <netmask> up <br />
and the default gateway with<br />
route add default gw <ip address of the gateway><br />
Check to see if /etc/resolv.conf contains your DNS server and add it if it is missing. <br />
Check your network again with ping www.google.de. If everything is working now, adjust /etc/rc.conf as described above for static IP. If you have a DHCP server/router in your network try<br />
dhcpcd eth0<br />
If this is working, adjust /etc/rc.conf as described above, for dynamic IP.<br />
<br />
====Wireless LAN====<br />
Detailed setup guide: [[Wireless Setup]]<br />
<br />
====Analog Modem====<br />
To be able to use a Hayes-compatible, external, analog modem, you need to at least have the ppp package installed. Modify the file /etc/ppp/options to suit your needs and according to man pppd. You will need to define a chat script to supply your username and password to the ISP after the initial connection has been established. The manpages for pppd and chat have examples in them that should suffice to get a connection up and running if you're either experienced or stubborn enough. With udev, your serial ports usually are /dev/tts/0 and /dev/tts/1.<br />
Tip: Read [[Dialup without a dialer HOWTO]].<br />
<br />
Instead of fighting a glorious battle with the plain pppd, you may opt to install wvdial or a similar tool to ease the setup process considerably. In case you're using a so-called WinModem, which is basically a PCI plugin card working as an internal analog modem, you should indulge in the vast information found on the [http://www.linmodems.org/ LinModem] homepage.<br />
<br />
====ISDN====<br />
<br />
Setting up ISDN is done in three steps:<br />
# Install and configure hardware<br />
# Install and configure the ISDN utilities<br />
# Add settings for your ISP <br />
<br />
The current Arch stock kernels include the necessary ISDN modules, meaning that you won't need to recompile your kernel unless you're about to use rather odd ISDN hardware. After physically installing your ISDN card in your machine or plugging in your USB ISDN-Box, you can try loading the modules with modprobe. Nearly all passive ISDN PCI cards are handled by the hisax module, which needs two parameters: type and protocol. You must set protocol to '1' if your country uses the 1TR6 standard, '2' if it uses EuroISDN (EDSS1), '3' if you're hooked to a so-called leased-line without D-channel, and '4' for US NI1.<br />
<br />
Details on all those settings and how to set them is included in the kernel documentation, more specifically in the isdn subdirectory, and available online. The type parameter depends on your card; a list of all possible types can be found in the README.HiSax kernel documentation. Choose your card and load the module with the appropriate options like this:<br />
<br />
modprobe hisax type=18 protocol=2<br />
<br />
This will load the hisax module for my ELSA Quickstep 1000PCI, being used in Germany with the EDSS1 protocol. You should find helpful debugging output in your /var/log/everything.log file, in which you should see your card being prepared for action. Please note that you will probably need to load some USB modules before you can work with an external USB ISDN Adapter.<br />
<br />
Once you have confirmed that your card works with certain settings, you can add the module options to your /etc/modprobe.conf:<br />
<br />
alias ippp0 hisax<br />
options hisax type=18 protocol=2<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can add only the options line here, and add hisax to your MODULES array in the rc.conf. It's your choice, really, but this example has the advantage that the module will not be loaded until it's really needed.<br />
<br />
That being done, you should have working, supported hardware. Now you need the basic utilities to actually use it!<br />
<br />
Install the isdn4k-utils package, and read the manpage to isdnctrl; it'll get you started. Further down in the manpage you will find explanations on how to create a configuration file that can be parsed by isdnctrl, as well as some helpful setup examples. Please note that you have to add your SPID to your MSN setting separated by a colon if you use US NI1.<br />
<br />
After you have configured your ISDN card with the isdnctrl utility, you should be able to dial into the machine you specified with the PHONE_OUT parameter, but fail the username and password authentication. To make this work add your username and password to /etc/ppp/pap-secrets or /etc/ppp/chap-secrets as if you were configuring a normal analogous PPP link, depending on which protocol your ISP uses for authentication. If in doubt, put your data into both files.<br />
<br />
If you set up everything correctly, you should now be able to establish a dial-up connection with<br />
isdnctrl dial ippp0<br />
as root. If you have any problems, remember to check the logfiles!<br />
<br />
====DSL (PPPoE)====<br />
<br />
These instructions are relevant to you only if your PC itself is supposed to manage the connection to your ISP. You do not need to do anything but define a correct default gateway if you are using a separate router of some sort to do the grunt work.<br />
<br />
Before you can use your DSL online connection, you will have to physically install the network card that is supposed to be connected to the DSL-Modem into your computer. After adding your newly installed network card to the modules.conf/modprobe.conf or the MODULES array, you should install the rp-pppoe package and run the pppoe-setup script to configure your connection. After you have entered all the data, you can connect and disconnect your line with<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/adsl start<br />
<br />
and<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/adsl stop<br />
<br />
respectively. The setup usually is rather easy and straightforward, but feel free to read the manpages for hints. If you want to automatically dial in on boot-up, add adsl to your DAEMONS array.<br />
<br />
==Update, Sync and Upgrade the system with [[pacman]]==<br />
Now we will update the system using [[pacman]]. <br />
<br />
=====What is pacman ?=====<br />
[[Pacman]] is the '''pac'''kage '''man'''ager of Arch Linux. Pacman is written in C and is fast, simple, and extremely powerful. It manages your entire package system and handles installation, removal, package downgrade (through cache), custom compiled package handling, automatic dependency resolution, remote and local searches and much more. We will use pacman to download software packages from remote repositories and install them onto your system.<br />
<br />
Pacman is the most important tool in your Arch Linux toolbox for building the core system into whatsoever you please.<br />
<br />
=====Update Pacman=====<br />
<br />
Initially, you may be prompted to update pacman itself, depending on how old the installation media is:<br />
pacman -Syu<br />
Allow pacman to update. <br />
<br />
'''''Occasionally, configuration changes may take place requiring user action; read the upgrade output for any pertinent information.'''''<br />
<br />
===Configuring pacman===<br />
=====/etc/pacman.conf=====<br />
pacman will attempt to read /etc/pacman.conf each time it is invoked. This configuration file is divided into sections, or repositories. Each section defines a package repository that pacman can use when searching for packages. The exception to this is the options section, which defines global options.<br />
nano -w /etc/pacman.conf<br />
Example:<br />
[core]<br />
# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first<br />
#Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/core/os/i686<br />
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
[extra]<br />
# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first<br />
#Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/extra/os/i686<br />
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
#[unstable]<br />
# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first<br />
#Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/unstable/os/i686<br />
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
[community]<br />
# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first<br />
#Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/community/os/i686<br />
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
Enable all desired repositories (remove the # in front of the 'Include =' and '[repository]' lines).<br />
<br />
*The "Server =" lines, if uncommented, will force the specified server to be searched first and foremost. Further configuration for repos are under /etc/pacman.d/<br />
<br />
*'''TIP:''' You may safely include the [Unstable] repository, as packages on your system from all other repositories can peacefully co-exist with [Unstable] packages.<br />
'''* ''Note: When choosing repos, be sure to uncomment both the repository header lines in [brackets] as well as the 'Include =' lines. Failure to do so will result in the selected repository being omitted! This is a very common error.'' '''<br />
<br />
====/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist====<br />
Faster mirrors will dramatically improve pacman performance, and your overall Arch Linux experience.<br />
<br />
The '''rankmirrors''' script will rank the mirrors automatically by latency. <br />
Edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist:<br />
nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
Remove all mirrors which are not on your continent, or are extremely distant. (Using nano, you may use CTRL-K to cut each unneeded line.) Save the file and exit.<br />
<br />
'''Rankmirrors''' is a python script. Install python:<br />
<br />
pacman -S python<br />
<br />
Then, use the '''rankmirrors''' script to rank the mirrors in order of latency:<br />
rankmirrors -v /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
The output will list all mirrors and their corresponding latency, (ping) e.g.:<br />
<br />
# United States<br />
# http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 0.96<br />
# ftp://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/ArchLinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 0.86<br />
# ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 1.39<br />
# ftp://ftp.nethat.com/pub/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... unreachable<br />
# ftp://locke.suu.edu/linux/dist/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 2.43<br />
# ftp://mirrors.unixheads.org/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 1.96<br />
# ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 5.05<br />
# http://holmes.umflint.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 0.53<br />
# ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/$repo/os/i686 ... 4.06<br />
<br />
<br />
The script will then order the mirrors from lowest latency to highest and print the output:<br />
Server = http://holmes.umflint.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/ArchLinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://mirrors.unixheads.org/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://locke.suu.edu/linux/dist/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://ftp.nethat.com/pub/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
<br />
Note that this should serve as a loose guide for you to arrange the file; mirrors closest to you, or with the lowest latency may not necessarily be the best choice. (You gain nothing with a quick-responding, but out-of-date mirror, or a mirror with low latency but poor bandwidth). <br />
<br />
Edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist by placing the best mirror at the top of the list. You may want to return to this configuration file to experiment with various mirrors. Choose wisely.<br />
<br />
==Update System==<br />
Update, sync, and '''upgrade''' your entire new system with:<br />
pacman -Syu<br />
pacman will now fetch the latest information about available packages and perform all available upgrades. (You may be prompted to upgrade pacman itself at this point. If so, say yes, and then reissue the pacman -Syu command when finished.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=====The beauty of the rolling release=====<br />
Keep in mind that Arch is a '''rolling release''' distribution. This means there is never a reason to reinstall or perform elaborate system rebuilds to upgrade to the newest version. Simply issuing '''pacman -Syu''' periodically keeps your entire system up-to-date and on the bleeding edge. At the end of this upgrade, your system is completely current.<br />
<br />
=====Get familiar with pacman=====<br />
Pacman is the Arch user's best friend. It is highly recommended to study and learn how to use the pacman tool. Try:<br />
man pacman<br />
Check out the bottom of this article, and look up the [[pacman]] wiki entries at your leisure.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Add a user and setup groups===<br />
You should not do your everyday work using the root account. It is more than poor practice; it is dangerous. Root is for administrative tasks. Instead, add a normal user account using:<br />
adduser<br />
While most default options are safe to use, you may want to add storage, audio, video, optical, and wheel to your additional groups- especially if you are planning on having a full-featured desktop environment. <br />
<br />
Groups and users thereof are defined in /etc/group. <br />
<br />
They include:<br />
<br />
*'''audio''' - for tasks involving sound card and related software<br />
<br />
*'''wheel''' - for using sudo<br />
<br />
*'''storage''' - for managing storage devices<br />
<br />
*'''video''' - for video tasks and 3d acceleration<br />
<br />
*'''optical''' - for managing tasks pertaining to the optical drive(s)<br />
<br />
*'''floppy''' - for access to a floppy if applicable<br />
<br />
*'''lp''' - for managing printing tasks<br />
<br />
See the [[Groups]] article to understand what groups you need to be a member of. <br />
You may also add your user to the desired groups like so, (as root):<br />
usermod -aG audio,video,floppy,lp,optical,network,storage,wheel,dbus,hal USERNAME<br />
Check the man pages for usermod and gpasswd for more information.<br />
<br />
==Part II: Install X and configure ALSA==<br />
<br />
<br />
===Configure the audio card with alsamixer===<br />
The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (known by the acronym '''ALSA''') is a Linux kernel component intended to replace the original Open Sound System (OSS) for providing device drivers for sound cards. Besides the sound device drivers, '''ALSA''' also bundles a user space library for application developers who want to use driver features with a higher level API than direct interaction with the kernel drivers. <br />
-----<br />
*''udev will automatically probe your hardware on boot-up, loading the corresponding module for your audio card. Your sound should already be working, but you can't hear anything because it is muted by default.'' <br />
The alsa-utils package contains alsamixer, which will allow us to configure the sound device from the console. (You may also run alsamixer from an '''X''' environment later.)<br />
<br />
Install the alsa-utils package:<br />
pacman -S alsa-utils<br />
Did you add your normal user to the audio group? If not, now would be a good time. As root do:<br />
gpasswd -a yourusername audio<br />
As normal user, do: <br />
alsamixer<br />
Unmute the Master and PCM channels by scrolling to them with cursor left/right and pressing '''M'''. Increase the volume levels with the cursor-up key. (70-90 Should be a safe range.) Leave alsamixer by pressing ESC. <br />
==== Sound Test ====<br />
Test your sound configuration as normal user using aplay:<br />
aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav<br />
You should hear a very eloquent woman say, "Front, center."<br />
<br />
Then run alsactl as root:<br />
alsactl store<br />
This will create '/etc/asound.state', saving the alsamixer settings. <br />
<br />
Also, add the alsa ''daemon'' to your DAEMONS section in /etc/rc.conf to automatically restore the mixer settings on boot-up.<br />
nano /etc/rc.conf<br />
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network crond '''alsa''')<br />
''Note that the alsa daemon merely restores your volume mixer levels on boot up. It is separate from the alsa audio library (and kernel level API).''<br />
<br />
Expanded information available in the [[ALSA]] wiki entry.<br />
<br />
===Installing and configuring X===<br />
The '''X''' Window System (commonly '''X11''', or just simply '''X''') is a networking and display protocol which provides windowing on bitmap displays. It provides the standard toolkit and protocol to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs) on <code>UNIX</code>-like operating systems.<br />
<br />
'''X''' provides the basic framework, or primitives, for building GUI environments: drawing and moving windows on the screen and interacting with a mouse and/or keyboard. '''X''' does not mandate the user interface — individual client programs handle this. <br />
<br />
'''X''' is so named because it was preceded by the '''W''' Window System, originally developed at Stanford University. <br />
-----<br />
<br />
*''Note: If you plan on using an '''open-source''' video driver, and need 3d acceleration, it is recommended to install the libgl library before installing Xorg:''<br />
pacman -S libgl<br />
''(Proprietary video drivers provide their own gl library implementations.)''<br />
----- <br />
Now we will install the base Xorg packages using pacman. This is the first step in building a GUI.<br />
<br />
pacman -S xorg<br />
3d utilities such as glxgears are included in the '''mesa''' package:<br />
pacman -S mesa<br />
<br />
Now we have the base packages we need for running the '''X''' Server. You should add the driver for your graphics card now (e.g. xf86-video-<name>). The easiest way to configure X.org is by installing the correct driver packages first, and then generating /etc/X11/xorg.conf using an autoconfiguration script, like Xorg -configure.<br />
<br />
If you need a list of all '''open-source''' video drivers, do: <br />
pacman -Ss xf86-video | less<br />
If you don't know what graphics card you are using, do:<br />
lspci | grep VGA<br />
Here is a list of '''open source''' drivers, and corresponding video chipsets.<br />
*'''xf86-video-apm''' Alliance ProMotion video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-ark''' ark video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-ati''' ati video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-chips''' Chips and Technologies video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-cirrus''' Cirrus Logic video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-dummy''' dummy video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-fbdev''' framebuffer video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-glint''' GLINT/Permedia video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-i128''' Number 0 i128 video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-i740''' Intel i740 video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-i810''' Intel i810/i830/i9xx video drivers (deprecated - use -intel)<br />
*'''xf86-video-intel''' Newer Version of Intel i810/i830/i9xx video drivers<br />
*'''xf86-video-imstt''' Integrated Micro Solutions Twin Turbo vidoe driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-mga''' mga video driver (Matrox Graphics Adapter)<br />
*'''xf86-video-neomagic''' neomagic video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-nv''' nvidia nv video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-rendition''' Rendition video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-s3''' S3 video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-s3virge''' S3 Virge video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-savage''' savage video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-siliconmotion''' siliconmotion video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-sis''' SiS video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-sisusb''' SiS USB video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-tdfx''' tdfx video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-trident''' Trident video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-tseng''' tseng video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-unichrome''' Unichrome video drivers<br />
*'''xf86-video-v4l''' v4l video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-vesa''' vesa video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-vga''' VGA 16 color video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-via''' via video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-vmware ''' vmware video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-voodoo ''' voodoo video driver<br />
<br />
* Note that the '''vesa''' driver is the most generic, and should work with almost any modern video chipset. If you cannot find a suitable driver for your video chipset, vesa '''should''' work.<br />
<br />
*If you have an nVIDIA or ATI video adapter, you may wish to install the proprietary nVIDIA or ATI drivers. '''Installing proprietary video drivers is covered [[#Using proprietary Graphics Driver (nVIDIA, ATI)|below]].'''<br />
<br />
Use pacman to install the appropriate video driver for your video card/onboard video. e.g.:<br />
pacman -S xf86-video-savage<br />
(for the Savage driver.)<br />
<br />
* If you still don't know which video driver to install, you may install the whole video driver group package, and allow the Xorg -configure script to specify the driver in xorg.xonf:<br />
pacman -S xorg-video-drivers<br />
<br />
==Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf==<br />
=====What is /etc/X11/xorg.conf?=====<br />
/etc/X11/xorg.conf is the main configuration file for your '''X''' Window System, the foundation of your '''G'''raphical '''U'''ser '''I'''nterface. It is a plain text file ordered into sections and subsections. Important sections are ''Files, InputDevice, Module, Monitor, Modes, Screen, Device, and ServerLayout''. Sections can appear in any order and there may be more than one section of each kind, for example, if you have more than one monitor, or if your laptop has a trackpoint as well as a mouse. <br />
------<br />
By default, you will not have an Xorg config file, and with the newest versions of Xorg, you don't need one ''if'' the autodetection ''works satisfactorily'' and you don't need to turn on features such as aiglx and so on. <br />
<br />
''Most people will still find that they need to generate a config file, however.''<br />
<br />
<br />
Use the Xorg -configure script to make a basic config file. As root, do:<br />
Xorg -configure<br />
This will create a config file at /root/xorg.conf.new <br />
<br />
To test the server, run:<br />
X -config /root/xorg.conf.new<br />
'''X''' should start with the white hollow vector '''X''' in the center of the screen, which should respond to mouse, trackpoint or touchpad movement. Use CTRL-Alt-Backspace to exit '''X'''.<br />
<br />
Inspect your config file in case of errors:<br />
<br />
nano /root/xorg.conf.new<br />
<br />
Ensure the Xorg -configure script has correctly specified your video driver. e.g.:<br />
Section "Device"<br />
Driver "savage"<br />
<br />
Ensure there are horizontal sync and vertical refresh specs under section "Monitor". If not, add them:<br />
Section "Monitor"<br />
Identifier "Monitor0"<br />
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"<br />
ModelName "Monitor Model"<br />
HorizSync 30.0 - 130.0 # Safe for LCD's<br />
VertRefresh 50.0 - 100.0 # Safe for LCD's and most CRT's.<br />
EndSection<br />
(If you do not know these specs, consult your monitor's documentation.)<br />
<br />
Specify your default color depth under section "Screen":<br />
Section "Screen"<br />
Identifier "Screen0"<br />
Device "Card0"<br />
Monitor "Monitor0"<br />
DefaultDepth 24<br />
(Typically, this will be set to 24 for true color.)<br />
<br />
Also add your desired Modes to your "Display" subsection, at least under the Depth 24 header, e.g.:<br />
SubSection "Display"<br />
Viewport 0 0<br />
Depth 24<br />
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"<br />
Try your config again, after modifying:<br />
X -config /root/xorg.conf.new<br />
Ensure an '''X''' session opens, without errors, and move the generated config file to /etc/X11:<br />
mv /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf<br />
Detailed instructions in the [[Xorg]] article.<br />
<br />
Continue with '''[[#Simple baseline X test|Simple baseline X test]]'''<br />
<br />
===Using proprietary Graphics Driver (NVIDIA, ATI)===<br />
You may choose to use the proprietary video drivers from NVIDIA or ATI. <br />
====NVIDIA Graphic Cards====<br />
The NVIDIA proprietary drivers are generally considered to be of excellent quality, and offer superior 3D performance.<br />
<br />
Before you configure your Graphics Card you will need to know which driver fits. Arch currently has 3 different driver packages that each match a certain subset of Cards: <br />
<br />
'''1. nvidia-71xx''' ''for very old Cards like TNT and TNT2''<br />
<br />
'''2. nvidia-96xx''' ''slightly newer cards up to the GF 4''<br />
<br />
'''3. nvidia''' ''newest GPUs after the GF 4''<br />
<br />
Consult the NVIDIA-Homepage to see which one is for you. The difference is only for the installation; Configuration works the same with every driver.<br />
<br />
Select and install the appropriate NVIDIA driver ''for your card'', e.g.: <br />
pacman -S nvidia-96xx<br />
<br />
The NVIDIA package has a utility for updating your existing /etc/X11/xorg.conf for use with the NVIDIA driver:<br />
nvidia-xconfig<br />
<br />
It also has several options which will further specify the contents and options of the xorg.conf file.<br />
For example,<br />
nvidia-xconfig --composite --add-argb-glx-visuals<br />
<br />
For more detailed information, see nvidia-xconfig(1).<br />
<br />
Some useful tweaking options in the device section are (beware that these may not work on your system):<br />
Option "RenderAccel" "true"<br />
Option "NoLogo" "true"<br />
Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"<br />
Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"<br />
Make sure all instances of DRI are commented out:<br />
# Load "dri"<br />
Double check your /etc/X11/xorg.conf to make sure your default depth, horizontal sync, vertical refresh, and resolutions are acceptable.<br />
<br />
Update kernel module dependencies:<br />
depmod -a<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for nvidia configuration can be found in the [[NVIDIA]] article.<br />
<br />
Continue with '''[[#Simple baseline X test|Simple baseline X test]]'''<br />
<br />
====ATI Graphic Cards====<br />
ATI owners have two options for drivers. If you are unsure which driver to use, please try the open-source one first. The open-source driver will suit most needs along with being generally less problematic.<br />
<br />
Install the '''proprietary''' ATI Driver with<br />
pacman -S catalyst<br />
Use the aticonfig tool to modify the xorg.conf. Note: The proprietary driver does not support [[AIGLX]]. To use [[Compiz]] or [[Beryl]] with this driver you would need to use [[XGL]].<br />
<br />
Install the '''open-source''' ATI Driver with<br />
pacman -S xf86-video-ati<br />
Currently, the performance of the open-source driver is not on par with that of the proprietary one. It also lacks TV-out, dual-link DVI support, and possibly other features. On the other hand, it supports Aiglx and has better dual-head support.<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for ATI configuration can be found in the [[ATI | ATI wiki]].<br />
<br />
===Simple baseline X test===<br />
<br />
At this point, you should have xorg installed, with a suitable video driver and an /etc/X11/xorg.conf configuration file. If you want to test your configuration quickly, before installing a complete desktop environment, do so by invoking '''xterm'''. Xterm is a very simple terminal emulator which runs in the '''X '''Server environment; it is installed as part of the base xorg packages. Xterm will allow us to effectively test if your video driver and /etc/X11/xorg.conf are properly configured. (Alternatively, you may wish to test if the '''X''' autodetection works satisfactorily, in the absence of /etc/X11/xorg.conf.)<br />
<br />
===== ~/.xinitrc =====<br />
This file dictates what X Server event is invoked with the 'startx' command:<br />
<br />
su yourusername<br />
<br />
nano ~/.xinitrc<br />
<br />
and add:<br />
<br />
exec xterm<br />
<br />
So that it looks like this:<br />
<br />
#!/bin/sh<br />
#<br />
# ~/.xinitrc<br />
#<br />
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)<br />
#<br />
exec xterm<br />
# exec wmaker<br />
# exec startkde<br />
# exec icewm<br />
# exec blackbox<br />
# exec fluxbox<br />
<br />
''Be sure to have only one uncommented '''exec''' line in your ~/.xinitrc'' Below, we shall edit this file again to specify the appropriate desktop environment of your choice.<br />
<br />
If you do not have ~/.xinitrc, simply create one with the above information, or copy the sample file from /etc/skel/ to your home directory:<br />
cp /etc/skel/.xinitrc ~/<br />
*NOTE: ''In the absence of file ~/.xinitrc, /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc will be used as a fallback, which defaults to using TWM and Xterm.''<br />
<br />
Start '''X''' Server as normal user, with:<br />
<br />
startx<br />
You should have an '''xterm''' session open up. You can exit the '''X''' Server with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, or by typing "exit". If you have problems starting '''X''', you can look for errors in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and on the console output of the console you started '''X''' from.<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for Xorg configuration can be found in the [[Xorg]] article.<br />
<br />
==Part III: Installing and configuring a Desktop Environment ==<br />
While The '''X''' Window System provides the basic framework for building a ''graphical user interface'' (GUI), a '''Desktop Environment''' (DE), works atop and in conjunction with '''X''', to provide a completely functional and dynamic GUI. A DE typically provides icons, applets, windows, toolbars, folders, wallpapers, applications and abilities like drag and drop. The particular functionalities and designs of each DE will uniquely affect your overall environment and experience. Therefore, choosing a DE is a very subjective and personal decision. Choose the best environment for ''your'' needs.<br />
<br />
* If you want something full-featured and similar to Windows and Mac OSX, '''[[#KDE|KDE]]''' is a good choice<br />
* If you want something slightly more minimalist, which follows the K.I.S.S. principle more closely, '''[[#GNOME|GNOME]]''' is a good choice<br />
* '''[[#Xfce|Xfce]]''' is generally perceived as similar to GNOME, but lighter and less demanding on system resources, yet still visually pleasing and providing a very complete environment.<br />
<br />
If you have an older machine, or desire a lighter, less demanding GUI, you may choose to simply install a '''Window Manager''', or WM. A WM controls the placement and appearance of application windows in conjunction with the X Window System but does NOT provide such additions as panels, applets, icons, etc.<br />
* Lightweight WM's include: '''openbox, fluxbox, fvwm2''', '''windowmaker and twm'''.<br />
* If you need something completely different, try '''ion, wmii, or dwm'''.<br />
<br />
===Install Fonts===<br />
At this point, you may want to install some good-looking fonts, '''before''' installing a desktop environment/window manager. Dejavu and bitstream-vera are nice font sets. For websites, you may want to have the Microsoft fonts too. Install with:<br />
pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts ttf-dejavu ttf-bitstream-vera<br />
===~/.xinitrc (again)===<br />
<br />
As normal user, edit your /home/username/.xinitrc to utilize the DE you wish to use:<br />
<br />
nano ~/.xinitrc<br />
<br />
Uncomment or add the ''''exec''' ..' line of the appropriate desktop environment/window manager. For example:<br />
<br />
<br />
exec startxfce4 <br />
<br />
(For the Xfce4 desktop environment.)<br />
<br />
Remember to have only one uncommented '''exec''' line in your ~/.xinitrc.<br />
<br />
Continue below, installing the DE/WM of your choice.<br />
<br />
===GNOME===<br />
====About GNOME====<br />
The '''G'''NU '''N'''etwork '''O'''bject '''M'''odel '''E'''nvironment. The GNOME project provides two things: The GNOME desktop environment, an intuitive and attractive desktop for end-users, and the GNOME development platform, an extensive framework for building applications that integrate into the rest of the desktop.<br />
<br />
====Installation====<br />
Install the complete GNOME environment with:<br />
pacman -S gnome gnome-extra<br />
It's safe to choose all packages shown. <br />
Alternatively, you may wish to install a more basic, stripped-down GNOME:<br />
pacman -S gnome<br />
<br />
=====Useful DAEMONS for GNOME=====<br />
Recall from above that a daemon is a program that runs in the background, waiting for events to occur and offering services. The '''hal''' daemon, among other things, will automate the mounting of disks, optical drives, and USB drives/thumbdrives for use in the GUI. The '''fam''' daemon will allow real-time representation of file alterations in the GUI, allowing instant access to recently installed programs, or changes in the file system. Both '''hal''' and '''fam''' make life easier for the GNOME user. The hal and fam packages are installed when you install GNOME, but must be invoked to become useful.<br />
<br />
You may want to install a graphical login manager. For GNOME, the '''gdm''' daemon is a good choice. <br />
<br />
As root:<br />
pacman -S gdm<br />
You will almost certainly want the '''hal''' and '''fam''' daemons.<br />
<br />
Start hal and fam:<br />
/etc/rc.d/hal start<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/fam start<br />
<br />
Add them to your /etc/rc.conf DAEMONS section, so they will be invoked on bootup:<br />
nano /etc/rc.conf<br />
<br />
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network crond alsa '''hal fam gdm''')<br />
(If you prefer to log into the console and manually start X in the 'Slackware tradition', leave out gdm.)<br />
<br />
<br />
As normal user, start X:<br />
startx<br />
<br />
You may want to install a terminal and an editor. I would recommend gnome-terminal (part of the group gnome-extra) and geany:<br />
pacman -S geany gnome-terminal<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for installing and configuring GNOME can be found in the [[Gnome]] article.<br />
<br />
Congratulations! Welcome to your GNOME desktop environment on your new Arch Linux system! You may wish to continue by viewing '''[[#Tweaks/Finishing touches|Tweaks and finishing touches]]''', or the rest of the information below. You may also be interested in the [[Post Installation Tips]] wiki article.<br />
<br />
====Eye Candy====<br />
You may find the default GNOME theme and icons not very attractive. A nice gtk theme is murrine. Install it with<br />
pacman -S gtk-engine-murrine<br />
and select it with System->Preferences->Theme. You can find more themes, icons, and wallpaper at [http://www.gnome-look.org Gnome Look].<br />
<br />
===KDE===<br />
====About KDE====<br />
The '''K''' '''D'''esktop '''E'''nvironment. KDE is a powerful Free Software graphical desktop environment for GNU/Linux and <code>UNIX</code> workstations. It combines ease of use, contemporary functionality, and outstanding graphical design with the technological superiority of <code>UNIX</code>-like operating systems.<br />
<br />
====Installation====<br />
Arch offers several versions of kde: '''kde, kdebase, and KDEmod'''. Choose '''one''' of the following, and continue below with '''[[#Useful KDE DAEMONS|Useful KDE DAEMONS]]''': <br />
<br />
'''1.)''' Package '''kde''' is the complete, vanilla KDE, ~300MB.<br />
pacman -S kde<br />
'''2.)''' Package '''kdebase''' is a slimmed-down version with less applications, ~80MB.<br />
pacman -S kdebase<br />
'''3.)''' Lastly, '''KDEmod''' is an Arch Linux exclusive, community-driven system which is modified for extreme performance and modularity. The KDEmod project website can be found at [http://kdemod.ath.cx/ http://kdemod.ath.cx/]. KDEmod is extremely fast, lightweight and responsive, with a pleasing, customized theme.<br />
<br />
====Useful KDE DAEMONS====<br />
<br />
KDE will require the '''hal''' ('''H'''ardware '''A'''bstraction '''L'''ayer) and '''fam''' ('''F'''ile '''A'''lteration '''M'''onitor) daemons. The '''kdm''' daemon is the '''K''' '''D'''isplay '''M'''anager, which provides a '''graphical login''', if desired.<br />
<br />
Recall from above that a daemon is a program that runs in the background, waiting for events to occur and offering services. The hal daemon, among other things, will automate the mounting of disks, optical drives, and USB drives/thumbdrives for use in the GUI. The fam daemon will allow real-time representation of file alterations in the GUI, allowing instant access to recently installed programs, or changes in the file system.. Both '''hal''' and '''fam''' make life easier for the KDE user. The hal, fam and kdm packages are installed when you install KDE, but must be invoked to become useful.<br />
-----<br />
Start hal and fam:<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/hal start<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/fam start<br />
*'''NOTE:''' ''The hal daemon relies on, and will automatically start, the dbus daemon.''<br />
Edit your DAEMONS section in /etc/rc.conf:<br />
nano /etc/rc.conf<br />
Add '''hal''' and '''fam''' to your DAEMONS section, to invoke them on bootup. If you prefer a graphical login, add '''kdm''' as well: <br />
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network crond alsa '''hal fam kdm''')<br />
*This method will start the system at runlevel 3, (/etc/inittab default, multiuser mode), and then start KDM as a daemon. <br />
<br />
*Some users prefer an alternative method of starting a display manager like KDM on bootup by utilizing the /etc/inittab method and starting the system at runlevel 5. See [[Adding a login manager (KDM, GDM, or XDM) to automatically boot on startup]] for more.<br />
<br />
*If you prefer to log into the '''console''' at runlevel 3, and manually start X in the 'Slackware tradition', leave out kdm, or comment it out with an exclamation. ( ! )<br />
<br />
Now try starting your X Server as normal user:<br />
startx<br />
Advanced instructions for installing and configuring KDE can be found in the [[KDE]] article.<br />
<br />
Congratulations! Welcome to your KDE desktop environment on your new Arch Linux system! You may wish to continue by viewing '''[[#Tweaks/Finishing touches|Tweaks and finishing touches]]''', or the rest of the information below. You may also be interested in the [[Post Installation Tips]] wiki article.<br />
<br />
===Xfce===<br />
====About Xfce====<br />
The cholesterol-free environment. Xfce is a Desktop Environment, like GNOME or KDE, that aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and easy to use. It contains a suite of apps like a root window app, window manager, file manager, panel, etc. Xfce is written using the GTK2 toolkit (like GNOME) and contains its own development environment (libraries, daemons, etc) similar to other big DEs. Unlike GNOME or KDE, Xfce is lightweight and designed more around CDE than Windows or Mac. It has a much slower development cycle, but is very stable and extremely fast. Xfce is great for older hardware, and will fly with especially great speed on newer machines as well.<br />
<br />
====Installation====<br />
Install a complete xfce environment with themes and extras:<br />
pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies gtk2-themes-collection <br />
<br />
If you use kdm or gdm a new xfce session should have appeared. Alternatively, you can use<br />
startxfce4<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for installing and configuring Xfce can be found in the [[Xfce]] article.<br />
<br />
Congratulations! Welcome to your Xfce desktop environment on your new Arch Linux system! You may wish to continue by viewing '''[[#Tweaks/Finishing touches|Tweaks and finishing touches]]''', or the rest of the information below. You may also be interested in the [[Post Installation Tips]] wiki article.<br />
<br />
===*box===<br />
====Fluxbox====<br />
Fluxbox © is yet another windowmanager for X.<br />
It's based on the Blackbox 0.61.1 code. Fluxbox looks like blackbox and handles styles, colors, window placement and similar things exactly like blackbox (100% theme/style compability).<br />
<br />
Install Fluxbox using <br />
pacman -S fluxbox fluxconf<br />
<br />
If you use gdm/kdm a new fluxbox session will be automatically added. Otherwise, you should modify your user's .xinitrc and add this to it:<br />
exec startfluxbox <br />
<br />
More information is available in the [[Fluxbox]] article.<br />
<br />
====Openbox====<br />
Openbox is a standards compliant, fast, light-weight, extensible window manager.<br />
<br />
Openbox works with your applications, and makes your desktop easier to manage. This is because the approach to its development was the opposite of what seems to be the general case for window managers. Openbox was written first to comply with standards and to work properly. Only when that was in place did the team turn to the visual interface.<br />
<br />
Openbox is fully functional as a stand-alone working environment, or can be used as a drop-in replacement for the default window manager in the GNOME or KDE desktop environments. <br />
<br />
Install openbox using<br />
pacman -S openbox obconf obmenu<br />
<br />
Once openbox is installed you will get a message to move menu.xml & rc.xml to ~/.config/openbox/ in your home directory:<br />
<br />
mkdir -p ~/.config/openbox/<br />
cp /etc/xdg/openbox/rc.xml ~/.config/openbox/<br />
cp /etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml ~/.config/openbox/<br />
<br />
In the file "rc.xml" you can change various settings for Openbox (or you can use OBconf). In "menu.xml" you can change your right-click menu.<br />
<br />
To be able to log into openbox you can either go via graphical login using KDM/GDM or startx, in which case you will need to edit your ~/.xinitrc (as user) and add the following:<br />
<br />
exec openbox<br />
<br />
For KDM there is nothing left to do; openbox is listed in the sessions menu in KDM.<br />
<br />
Useful programs for openbox are:<br />
* PyPanel or LXpanel if you want a panel<br />
* feh if you want to set the background<br />
* ROX if you want a simple file manager and desktop icons<br />
<br />
More information is available in the [[Openbox]] article.<br />
<br />
===fvwm2===<br />
FVWM is an extremely powerful ICCCM-compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager for the X Window system. Development is active, and support is excellent. <br />
<br />
Install fvwm2 with<br />
pacman -S fvwm <br />
<br />
fvwm will automatically be listed in kdm/gdm in the sessions menu. Otherwise, add <br />
exec fvwm <br />
<br />
to your user's .xinitrc.<br />
<br />
Note that this stable version of fvwm is a few years old. If you want a more recent version of fvwm, there is a fvwm-devel package in the unstable repo.<br />
<br />
==Tweaks/Finishing touches==<br />
===HAL===<br />
Since you have now installed a desktop environment, and if you did not do so earlier, now would be a good time to also install HAL. HAL allows plug-and-play for your mobile phone, your iPod, your external HD's, etc. It will mount the device and make a nice visual icon on your desktop and/or in 'My Computer', allowing you to access the device after you have plugged it in instead of having to manually configure the /etc/fstab file or udev rules for each and every new device.<br />
<br />
KDE, GNOME and XFCE all use HAL.<br />
<br />
The installation procedure is described in the [[HAL]] article. Some information can also be found at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_(software) Wikipedia].<br />
<br />
===Backgrounding DAEMONS on startup===<br />
<br />
To speed up system start up procedure, background your DAEMONS in /etc/rc.conf by prefixing them with a '@' e.g.:<br />
<br />
DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng @network crond @alsa @hal @fam @kdm)<br />
This will enable daemons to load in the background, without waiting for the preceding daemon to load first.<br />
<br />
Prefix any daemons which you do not need with a bang (!) e.g.:<br />
<br />
DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng @network !crond @alsa @hal @fam @kdm)<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you may also simply remove unneeded daemons.<br />
<br />
===Beautifying Fonts for LCD's===<br />
See [[Fonts]]<br />
<br />
===Adjusting Mouse for scroll wheel===<br />
While your mouse should be working out of the box, you may want to use your scroll wheel. Add this to your Input Section (mouse0):<br />
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"<br />
<br />
===Get All Mouse Buttons Working===<br />
See [[Get All Mouse Buttons Working]]<br />
<br />
===Adjusting Keyboard Layout===<br />
You may want to change your keyboard layout. To do this edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add these lines in the Input Section (keyboard0) (the example shows a German keyboard layout with no dead keys; alter this to fit your needs).<br />
Option "XkbLayout" "de"<br />
Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"<br />
===Additional tweaks for laptops===<br />
ACPI support is needed if you want to use some special functions on your notebook (e.g. sleep, sleep when lid is closed, special keys...). Install acpid <br />
pacman -S acpid<br />
and add it to the daemons in /etc/rc.conf (acpid). Start it with<br />
/etc/rc.d/acpid start<br />
<br />
More-specific information about Arch Linux on various Laptops can be found at [[:Category:Laptops (English)]]<br />
===Configuring CPU frequency scaling===<br />
Modern processors can decrease their frequency and voltage to reduce heat and power consumption. Less heat leads to a quieter system; Laptop users will definitely want this, but even a desktop system will benefit from it. Install cpufrequtils with<br />
pacman -S cpufrequtils<br />
and add cpufreq to your daemons in /etc/rc.conf. Edit the config file /etc/conf.d/cpufreq and change <br />
governor="conservative"<br />
which dynamically increases the CPU frequency if needed (which is a safe choice on desktop systems too). Alter min_freq and max_freq to match your system's CPU spec. If you don't know the frequencies, run ''cpufreq-info'' after loading one of the frequency scaling modules. You can also comment out or delete the min_freq and max_freq lines: things will work automatically. Add the frequency scaling modules to your /etc/rc.conf modules line. Most modern notebooks and desktops can simply use the ''acpi-cpufreq'' driver, however other options include the ''p4-clockmod, powernow-k6, powernow-k7, powernow-k8, and speedstep-centrino'' drivers. Load the module with<br />
modprobe <modulname> <br />
and start cpufreq with<br />
/etc/rc.d/cpufreq start<br />
For more details, see [[Cpufrequtils]]<br />
<br />
==Useful Applications==<br />
This section will never be complete. It just shows some good applications for the everyday user. <br />
<br />
'''KDE users NOTE''': Since KDE resides in /opt, you will most likely have to log out and in after initial installation to update your PATH before these programs can be used.<br />
===Internet===<br />
<br />
=====Firefox=====<br />
The ever-popular Firefox web browser is available through pacman, although it doesnt have its official branding, so the program appears when opened as Bon Echo. Install with:<br />
<br />
pacman -S firefox<br />
Be sure and install 'flashplugin', 'mplayer', 'mplayer-plugin', and the 'codecs' packages for a complete web experience:<br />
pacman -S flashplugin mplayer mplayer-plugin codecs<br />
(The codecs package contains codecs for Quicktime and Realplayer content.)<br />
<br />
Thunderbird is useful for managing your emails. If you are using GNOME you may want to take a look at Epiphany and Evolution; if you are using KDE Konqueror and KMail could be your choice. If you want something completely different you can still use Opera. Finally, if you are working on the system console - or in a terminal session - you could use various text-based browsers like ELinks, Links and Lynx, and manage your emails with [[Mutt]]. Pidgin (previously known as Gaim) and Kopete are good instant messengers for GNOME and KDE, respectively. PSI and Gajim are perfect if you are using only Jabber or Google Talk.<br />
<br />
===Office===<br />
OpenOffice is a complete office suite (similar to Microsoft Office). Abiword is a good, small alternative word processor, and Gnumeric an Excel replacement for the GNOME desktop. KOffice is a complete office suite for the KDE Desktop. GIMP (or GIMPShop) is a pixel-based graphics program (similar to Adobe Photoshop), while Inkscape is a vector-based graphics program (like Adobe Illustrator). And, of course, Arch comes with a full set of LaTeX Programs: tetex has been popular for many years and still works, and its successor [[Texlive]] is available from the [[AUR]] repository.<br />
<br />
==Multimedia ==<br />
<br />
<br />
===Video Player===<br />
====VLC====<br />
VLC Player is a multimedia player for Linux. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S vlc<br />
<br />
(TODO) Instructions for VLC mozilla plug-in<br />
<br />
====Mplayer====<br />
MPlayer is a multimedia player for Linux. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S mplayer<br />
<br />
It also has a Mozilla plug-in for videos and streams embedded in web pages. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S mplayer-plugin<br />
<br />
If you use KDE, KMplayer is a better choice. It comes with a plug-in for videos and streams embedded in web pages, which works with Konqueror. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S kmplayer<br />
<br />
(TODO) GMPlayer instructions<br />
<br />
====Xine====<br />
<br />
Xine is an excellent player, especially for DVD's.<br />
<br />
pacman -S xine-ui<br />
The libdvdcss library provides DVD decoding for encrypted DVD's. ''Ensure the legality of using libdvdcss in your country before installing!''<br />
pacman -S libdvdcss<br />
<br />
====GNOME====<br />
=====Totem=====<br />
[http://www.gnome.org/projects/totem/ Totem] is the official movie player of the GNOME desktop environment based on xine-lib or GStreamer (gstreamer is the default which installs with the arch totem package). It features a playlist, a full-screen mode, seek and volume controls, as well as keyboard navigation.<br />
It comes with added functionality such as:<br />
<br />
* Video thumbnailer for the file manager<br />
* Nautilus properties tab<br />
* Epiphany / Mozilla (Firefox) plugin to view movies inside your browser <br />
* Webcam utility (in development)<br />
<br />
Totem-xine is still the better choice if you want to watch DVDs.<br />
<br />
Totem is part of the gnome-extra group; the Totem webbrowser plugin isn't.<br />
<br />
To install separately:<br />
pacman -S totem<br />
<br />
To install the Totem webbrowser plugin:<br />
pacman -S totem-plugin<br />
<br />
====KDE====<br />
=====Kaffeine=====<br />
Kaffeine is a good option for KDE users. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S kaffeine<br />
<br />
===Audio Player===<br />
====Gnome/Xfce====<br />
=====Exaile=====<br />
[[Exaile]] is a music player written in Python that makes use of the GTK+ toolkit. It tries to be close to the popular Amarok, but in GTK. It is in [community], so install with:<br />
pacman -S exaile<br />
<br />
=====Rhythmbox=====<br />
[http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ Rhythmbox] is an integrated music management application, originally inspired by Apple's iTunes. It is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop, and based on the powerful GStreamer media framework.<br />
<br />
Rhythmbox has a number of features, including:<br />
<br />
* Easy-to-use music browser<br />
* Searching and sorting<br />
* Comprehensive audio format support through GStreamer<br />
* Internet radio support<br />
* Playlists<br />
<br />
To install rhythmbox:<br />
pacman -S rhythmbox<br />
<br />
=====Quod Libet=====<br />
[http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet Quod Libet] is a music manager that uses the GStreamer media framework to play audio files. This allows it to play all the file-types that Rhythmbox (which uses GStreamer too) can play. Quod Libet is more suited to non-Gnome desktops since it has a smaller footprint and fewer dependencies than Rhythmbox (Rhythmbox depends on nautilus, which requires a lot of GNOME to be installed).<br />
<br />
In addition to the music player/manager, Quod Libet also includes Ex Falso, a tag editor.<br />
<br />
Quod Libet's features include:<br />
<br />
* Easy-to-use music browser<br />
* Searching<br />
* Comprehensive audio format support through GStreamer<br />
* Easy Playlist management<br />
<br />
To install Quod Libet:<br />
pacman -S quodlibet<br />
<br />
Other good audio players are Banshee and Listen. See [http://gnomefiles.org/ Gnomefiles] to compare them.<br />
<br />
====KDE====<br />
=====Amarok=====<br />
[http://amarok.kde.org/ Amarok] is one of the best audio players and music library systems available for KDE. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S amarok-base<br />
<br />
====Console====<br />
[http://moc.daper.net/ Moc] is a ncurses-based audio player for the console; another good choice is [http://musicpd.org/ mpd].<br />
<br />
Another excellent choice is [http://freshmeat.net/projects/cmus/ cmus].<br />
<br />
====Other X-based====<br />
(TODO) Xmms, audacious, bmpx.<br />
<br />
===Codecs and other multimedia content types (i686 only) ===<br />
====DVD====<br />
You can use xine-ui, totem-xine, mplayer or kaffeine (just to name three of the big ones) to watch DVDs. The only thing you may miss is libdvdcss. Beware that using it may be illegal in some countries.<br />
<br />
====Flash====<br />
Install the flash plugin using<br />
pacman -S flashplugin<br />
to enable Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash in your browser, if you run KDE you should see this after installing flash. http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Flash_and_Adobe_Acrobat_browser_plugins#Fixing_Flash_in_Konqueror<br />
<br />
====Quicktime====<br />
Quicktime codecs are contained in the codecs package. Just type<br />
pacman -S codecs<br />
to install them.<br />
====Realplayer====<br />
The codec for Realplayer 9 is contained in the codecs package. Just type<br />
pacman -S codecs<br />
to install them. Realplayer 10 is available as a binary package for Linux. You can get it from AUR [http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=1590&O=0&L=0&C=0&K=realplay&SB=&SO=&PP=25&do_MyPackages=0&do_Orphans=0&SeB=nd here].<br />
<br />
===CD and DVD Burning===<br />
====GNOME====<br />
=====Brasero=====<br />
[http://www.gnome.org/projects/brasero/ Brasero] is an application that burns CDs/DVDs for the GNOME Desktop. It is designed to be as simple as possible and has some unique features to enable users to create their discs easily and quickly.<br />
<br />
To install:<br />
pacman -S brasero<br />
<br />
====KDE====<br />
=====K3b=====<br />
K3b (from '''K'''DE '''B'''urn '''B'''aby '''B'''urn) is a free software CD and DVD authoring application for GNU/Linux and other <code>UNIX</code>-like operating systems designed for KDE. As is the case with most KDE applications, K3b is written in the C++ programming language and uses the Qt GUI toolkit. K3b provides a graphical user interface to perform most CD/DVD burning tasks like creating an Audio CD from a set of audio files or copying a CD/DVD, as well as more advanced tasks such as burning eMoviX CD/DVDs. It can also perform direct disc-to-disc copies. The program has many default settings which can be customized by more experienced users. The actual disc recording in K3b is done by the command line utilities cdrecord or wodim, cdrdao, and growisofs. As of version 1.0, K3b features a built-in DVD ripper.- licensed under the GPL.<br />
<br />
K3b was voted LinuxQuestions.org's Multimedia Utility of the Year (2006) by the majority (70%) of voters. <br />
-----<br />
To install:<br />
pacman -S k3b<br />
<br />
=====(Todo) cdrecord, graveman...=====<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Most CD burners are wrappers for cdrecord:<br />
<br />
pacman -S cdrkit<br />
<br />
If you install packages for CD/DVD burning applications like Brasero or K3B it also installs the CD/DVD burning library for it, like libburn or cdrkit.<br />
<br />
A good command-line DVD-burning tool is growisofs:<br />
<br />
pacman -S dvd+rw-tools<br />
<br />
===TV-Cards===<br />
<br />
There are several things to do if you want to watch TV under (Arch) Linux. The most important task is to find out which chip your tuner is using. However, quite a lot are supported. Be sure to check at a Hardware Database to be sure (see [http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/TV_Cards this list], for example). Once you know your Model, there are just a few steps ahead to get you going.<br />
<br />
In most cases, you will need to use the bttv-drivers (other drivers exist, like [http://linux.bytesex.org/v4l2/drivers.html V4L]) together with the I2C-modules. Configuring those is the hardest task. If you are lucky, a<br />
modprobe bttv<br />
will autodetect the card (check dmesg for results). In that case, you need only to install an application to watch TV. We will look at that later, though.<br />
If the autodetection did not work, you will need to check the file CARDLIST, which is included in the tarball of [http://dl.bytesex.org/releases/video4linux/ bttv] to find out the right parameters for your card. A PV951 without radio support would need this line:<br />
modprobe bttv card=42 radio=0<br />
Some cards need the following line to produce sound:<br />
modprobe tvaudio<br />
However, that varies. So just try it out. Some other cards demand the following line:<br />
modprobe tuner<br />
This is subject to trial-and-error, too.<br />
<br />
TODO: clarify the installation-procedure<br />
<br />
To actually watch TV, install the xawtv-package with<br />
pacman -S xawtv <br />
and read its manpage.<br />
<br />
TODO: clarify some possible problems and procedures. Introduction to XAWTV on another page?<br />
<br />
===Digital Cameras===<br />
Most newer digital cameras are supported as USB mass storage devices, which means that you can simply plug it in and copy the images. Older cameras may use the PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) which requires a "special driver". gPhoto2 provides this driver and allows a shell-based transfer of the images; digikam (for KDE) and gthumb (for GNOME, gtkam would be another choice) use this driver and offer a nice GUI.<br />
<br />
===USB Memory Sticks / Hard Disks===<br />
USB Memory Sticks and hard disks are supported out of the box with the USB mass storage device driver and will appear as a new SCSI device (/dev/sdX). If you are using KDE or GNOME you should use dbus and hal (add them to your daemons in /etc/rc.conf), and they will be automatically mounted. If you use a different Desktop Environment you may have a look at ivman.<br />
<br />
==Maintaining the system==<br />
===Pacman===<br />
[[Pacman]] is both a binary and source package manager which is able to download, install, and upgrade packages from both remote and local repositories with full dependency handling, and has easy-to-understand tools for crafting your own packages too.<br />
<br />
A more-detailed description of Pacman can be found in [[Pacman|its article]].<br />
<br />
==== Useful commands ====<br />
<br />
To synchronize and update the local packages database with the remote repositories (it is a good idea to do this before installing and upgrading packages):<br />
pacman -Sy<br />
<br />
To '''upgrade''' all packages on the system:<br />
pacman -Su<br />
<br />
To sync, update, and '''upgrade''' all the packages on the system with one command:<br />
pacman -Syu<br />
<br />
To install or upgrade a single package or list of packages (including dependencies):<br />
pacman -S packageA packageB<br />
<br />
You can also sync, update the package database, and install packages in one command:<br />
pacman -Sy packageA packageB<br />
<br />
To remove a single package, leaving all of its dependencies installed:<br />
pacman -R package<br />
<br />
To remove a package and all of the package's dependencies which aren't used by any other installed package:<br />
pacman -Rs package<br />
<br />
To remove all of the package's now unneeded dependencies and also delete config files:<br />
pacman -Rsn package<br />
<br />
To search the remote (repo) package database for a list of packages matching a given keyword:<br />
pacman -Ss keyword<br />
<br />
To list all packages on your system<br />
pacman -Q<br />
<br />
To search (query) the local (your machine) package database for a given package:<br />
pacman -Q package <br />
<br />
To search (query) the local (your machine) package database for a given package and list all pertinent information:<br />
pacman -Qi package<br />
<br />
To defragment pacman's cache database and optimize for speed:<br />
pacman-optimize<br />
<br />
To count how many packages are currently on your system:<br />
pacman -Q | wc -l<br />
<br />
To install a package compiled from source using ABS and makepkg:<br />
pacman -U packagename.pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
Note: There are countless additional pacman functions and commands. Try man pacman and consult the [[pacman]] wiki entries.<br />
<br />
==Polishing & Further information==<br />
For further information and support you can go to the [http://www.archlinux.org/ homepage], [[Special:Search|search the wiki]], the [http://bbs.archlinux.org/ forums], the [[ArchChannel|IRC channel]], and the [http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/ mailing lists].<br />
=====FAQs=====<br />
See [[Arch FAQs for newbies]]<br />
<br />
There is also an [http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=29055 Arch forum thread] devoted to beginners.<br />
<br />
=====Terminology=====<br />
For more information on the jargon used in Arch, look at [[Arch Terminology/Jargon for newbies|this article]].<br />
<br />
=====Where to go from here?=====<br />
<br />
You may also be interested in:<br />
<br />
[[Post Installation Tips]]<br />
<br />
[[ArchLinux User-community Repository (AUR)]]<br />
<br />
[[Get All Mouse Buttons Working]]<br />
<br />
[[Improve Pacman Performance]]<br />
<br />
[[Kernel Compilation]]<br />
<br />
[[Pm-utils]]<br />
<br />
[[Cpufrequtils]]<br />
<br />
[[:Category:Eye candy (English)| Eye Candy]]</div>
MethodOne
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Newcomers_Guide&diff=36751
Newcomers Guide
2008-02-06T03:25:43Z
<p>MethodOne: /* nVIDIA Graphic Cards */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Category:Getting and installing Arch (English)]]<br />
[[Category:About Arch (English)]]<br />
[[Category:HOWTOs (English)]]<br />
{{i18n_links_start}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Dansk|Dansk_Begynderguide}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Deutsch|Beginners Guide (Deutsch)}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|English|Beginners Guide}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Česky|Průvodce začátečníka (Česky)}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Italiano|Beginners Guide (Italiano)}}<br />
{{i18n_entry|Lietuviškai|Pradedančiųjų gidas (Lietuviškai)}}<br />
{{i18n_links_end}}<br />
==Preface==<br />
<br />
=====Everything you ever wanted to know about installing Arch, but were afraid to ask=====<br />
This document will guide you through the process of installing and configuring [[ArchLinux|Arch Linux]]; a simple, lightweight GNU/Linux distribution, <code>UNIX</code>-like operating system. It is aimed at new Arch users, but strives to serve as a strong reference and informative base for all. While this guide intends to show how to gain a fully configured Arch Linux system (a graphical desktop environment, the ability to view DVDs, browse the internet, work with emails, and listen to music), it is impossible to show (or even anticipate) all possibilities and options. By design, this guide must focus on some critically useful steps; you may want to dig deeper using the [[Main Page|Arch Linux Wiki]] or the [http://bbs.archlinux.org/ Arch Linux Forums]. You may also be interested in reading [[The Arch Way]], which outlines the underlying principles of the Arch Linux distribution.<br />
<br />
The article is broken up into 3 main parts:<br />
<br />
'''[[#Part I: Install the Base System|Part I: Installing the Base system]]'''<br />
<br />
'''[[#Part II: Install X and configure ALSA|Part II: Installing X and configuring ALSA]]'''<br />
<br />
'''[[#Part III: Installing and configuring a Desktop Environment|Part III: Installing a Desktop Environment]]'''<br />
<br />
=====DON'T PANIC!=====<br />
Please realize that the Arch Linux installation procedure may be very different from other GNU/Linux distributions you have tried, especially if you are a beginner. The Arch Linux system is built '''by the user''' from the ncurses installer and base system with nothing more than a bash shell and basic system tools. Unlike most other distributions, there are no default environments nor configurations forced upon the user. From the command line, you will add packages from the Arch repositories using the [[pacman]] tool via your internet connection, until your system is customized to your requirements. This allows for maximum flexibility, choice, and system resource control. Because '''you''' build it, you will invariably know the nuts and bolts of your system, and become familiar with what is under the hood. <br />
<br />
The Arch Linux system is configured by editing text files. It offers no GUI tools and will not hold your hand during setup and customization, but nor will it get in your way by design. <br />
Remember also, that Arch Linux is aimed at competent GNU/Linux users as well as users who are willing to invest the time to learn about the mechanics of the system. <br />
<br />
''The design principles behind Arch are aimed at keeping it simple.'' <br />
<br />
Note that 'simple' does not mean 'easy' nor 'user-friendly' in this context, but rather; 'without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications'. In short; an elegant, minimalist approach.<br />
<br />
'''Following this guide closely is essential in order to successfully install a properly configured Arch Linux system.'''<br />
* You may wish to print out this guide as a 42 page book which will serve as a useful Arch Linux user reference. <br />
*''If you would like to add to this wiki, please include the "Why" as well as the "How", where appropriate. The best documentation teaches us how, as well as why!''<br />
----<br />
Welcome to Arch! Now, let's get started.<br />
<br />
==Part I: Install the Base System==<br />
===Obtain the latest Core ISO ===<br />
<br />
You can obtain Arch's latest official snapshot from [http://www.archlinux.org/download/ www.archlinux.org/download/].<br />
<br />
It is recommended to choose the '''core-iso''' since this guide is geared toward the core installation process. <br />
<br />
The core-iso contains only the necessary packages to create a minimal GNU/Linux base system. ''Note that a minimal Base System does not include a GUI.'' The rest of the Arch Linux system, including a Graphical User interface is built from the command line using i686-binary packages and configuration files. The process is covered in detail below.<br />
<br />
Burn the ISO to CD. Generally, using a maximum speed of no more than 16x is recommended for reliable burns.<br />
<br />
===Boot Arch Linux CD===<br />
As you follow these directions, you may find the [[Official Arch Linux Install Guide]] helpful as well. In addition, [http://www.archlinux.org/static/docs/arch-install-guide.html a printable copy] is available.<br />
<br />
Insert the CD into your CD-ROM drive and boot from it. You may have to <br />
change the boot order in your computer BIOS or press a key (usually F11 or F12) <br />
during the BIOS phase.<br />
<br />
Some useful options when booting off the Arch Linux CD:<br />
* '''ide-legacy''' if you have trouble with IDE drives<br />
* '''noapic acpi=off pci=routeirq nosmp''' if your system hangs during the boot process<br />
* '''memtest86+''' if you want to check your memory for errors<br />
* '''lowmem''' is useful for older machines with limited RAM.<br />
<br />
'lowmem' requirements:<br />
<br />
96 MB RAM x86_64 (all packages selected)<br />
<br />
85 MB RAM i686 (all packages selected)<br />
<br />
64 MB RAM i686 (only base packages selected)<br />
<br />
Choose "Arch Linux Installation / Rescue System". If you need to change the boot options press e for editing the boot lines.<br />
The system will now boot and present a welcome text with some explanations when ready.<br />
<br />
===Changing the keymap===<br />
Press enter at the welcome screen. If you have a non-US keyboard layout type<br />
km<br />
at the prompt and choose the appropriate keymap.<br />
<br />
''Example''(norwegian) for illustrative purposes:<br />
<br />
In console keymap screen select<br />
no-latin1<br />
In console font screen select<br />
lat0-16<br />
<br />
Choosing "default8x16.psfu.gz" for console font is a safe choice.<br />
<br />
===Start the Installation===<br />
Enter<br />
/arch/setup <br />
to start the installation. <br />
<br />
<br />
====Select an installation source====<br />
You will be prompted for an installation source. Choose CD if you are using a core ISO, or choose FTP if you are using the FTP ISO.<br />
<br />
====Prepare Hard Drive====<br />
Select the first menu entry "Prepare Hard Drive". Beware that "Auto-Prepare" may not be a safe choice because it will erase the entire hard drive.<br />
Here we will manually partition the hard drive. Choose "2. Partition Hard Drives", select the hard drive you want (/dev/sdx), and edit the partition table to your needs.<br />
<br />
''The Arch Linux installer uses the cfdisk utility to partition the hard drive.''<br />
<br />
''At this point, more advanced GNU/Linux users who are familiar and comfortable with manually partitioning may wish to skip down to '''[[#Select Packages|Select Packages]]''' below.''<br />
<br />
=====Partition Info=====<br />
<br />
Partitioning a hard disk drive defines specific areas (the partitions) within the disk, that will each appear and behave as a separate disk and upon which a filesystem may be created (formatted). Partitions are broken up into "Primary", "Extended", and "Logical". <br />
<br />
Primary partitions can be bootable, and are limited to 4. Beyond 4 partitions, we are forced to use an extended partition which will contain logical partitions.<br />
<br />
Extended partitions are not usable by themselves; they are merely a "container" for logical partitions. A hard disk may contain only one extended partition; which can then be sub-divided into logical partitions. <br />
<br />
When partitioning a disk, one can see this numbering scheme by creating primary partitions sda1-3 followed by creating an extended partition, sda4, and subsequently creating logical partition(s) within the extended partition; sda5, sda6, and so on.<br />
<br />
=====Swap Partition=====<br />
A swap partition is a place on your hard drive where "virtual ram" resides, allowing the kernel to easily use disk storage for data that does not fit into physical RAM. <br />
<br />
Historically, the general rule for swap partition size was 2x the amount of physical RAM. Over time, as computers have gained ever larger memory capacities, this rule has become increasingly deprecated. Generally, on machines with up to 512MB RAM, the 2x rule is usually sufficient. On machines with 1GB RAM, generally a 1x rule is adequate. If you have gratuitous amounts of RAM (more than 1024 MB) it may be possible to completely forgo a swap partition altogether, though this is not recommended. We will create a 1 GB swap partition in this example.<br />
* ''If you plan on using suspend-to-disk, (hibernate) you must have a swap partition at least '''equal''' in size to the amount of physical RAM, and some users even recommend oversizing it beyond the amount of physical RAM by 15%.''<br />
<br />
=====Partition Scheme=====<br />
A disk partitioning scheme is a very personalized preference. Each user's choices will be unique to their own computing habits and requirements. What you need at the least is one primary partition which contains the root [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system Filesystem] ( / ) and one for swap. Other candidates for separate partitions include /boot (which mainly contains the kernel) /var, and /home (which contains the user data). It is good practice to have / and /home on separate partitions. This makes it possible to reinstall Arch Linux (or even another distro) for any reason, while keeping your data, music, pictures, and desktop environment preferences.<br />
<br />
In this example, we will stick with one partition for /, one partition for /home, and a swap partition.<br />
<br />
=====cfdisk===== <br />
Let's start creating the primary partition that will contain the '''root''', (/) filesystem. <br />
<br />
Choose '''N'''ew -> Primary and enter the size you want (something between 4 and 8 GB is a good choice for a full-featured Linux system). Put the partition at the beginning of the disk. Select the newly created partition and choose '''B'''ootable to make this partition bootable. <br />
<br />
Also choose the '''T'''ype by designating it as '83 Linux'. <br />
<br />
Add another partition for your /home directory. Choose another primary partition and set the size to a value you like. The size really depends on what your users store in their home directories, so I cannot make any suggestions. The size may vary between a few hundred megabytes for some office documents up to hundreds of gigabytes for videos and MP3s. If you want to use the entire remaining space on your hard disc, remember to reserve a quantity for the swap partition. (1 GB, or 1024MB, in our example)<br />
<br />
Likewise, select the '''T'''ype as 83 Linux. <br />
<br />
At last we create a third partition for swap. Select a size between 512 MB and 1 GB and change the '''T'''ype to 82 (Linux swap / Solaris).<br />
<br />
This is what your Layout should look like (size may vary depending on your decisions):<br />
<br />
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)<br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
sda1 Boot Primary Linux (4096 - 8192)<br />
sda2 Primary Linux (> 100)<br />
sda3 Primary Linux swap / Solaris (512 - 1024)<br />
<br />
Choose '''W'''rite and type ''''yes''''. Beware that this operation may destroy data on your disk if you deleted partitions. Choose '''Q'''uit to leave the partitioner. <br />
Choose Done to leave this menu and continue with "Set Filesystem Mountpoints".<br />
<br />
=====I have IDE devices, why do they look like SCSI devices?=====<br />
Since the latest developments of the Linux kernel which include the libata and PATA modules, all IDE, SATA and SCSI drives have adopted the sd''x'' naming scheme. This is perfectly normal and should not be a concern.<br />
<br />
====Set File system Mountpoints====<br />
<br />
=====A few brief words about '''filesystems''' and "file systems":=====<br />
<br />
Technically, and for accuracy, a '''filesystem''' is a data '''format''', for information throughput, whereas a "file system" (notice the space) is a term referring to the layout of all files and directories on a given system. Therefore, when you are asked if you want to create a '''filesystem''', you are being asked if you want to '''format''' the particular partition... but when you are asked for mount points, you are providing where the given partition will reside in your Arch Linux "file system".<br />
<br />
=====Filesystem Types=====<br />
First you will be asked for your swap partition. Choose the appropriate partition (sda3 in this example). You will be asked if you want to create a swap filesystem; select yes. Next, choose where to mount the / (root) directory (sda1 in the example). You will be asked what kind of filesystem you want.<br />
<br />
Again, a filesystem type is a very subjective matter which comes down to personal preference. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. Here is a very brief overview of supported filesystems:<br />
<br />
1. '''ext2''' - Old, reliable GNU/Linux filesystem. Very stable, but ''without journaling support''. May be inconvenient due to very long fsck's. ''An ext2 filesystem can easily be converted to ext3.''<br />
<br />
2. '''ext3''' - Essentially the ext2 system, but with journaling support. Generally perceived as ''slightly'' slower than other filesystems, but ''extremely'' stable and by far the most widely used, supported and developed GNU/Linux FS.<br />
<br />
3. '''ReiserFS''' - Hans Reiser's high-performance journaling FS uses a very interesting method of data throughput. ReiserFS is very fast, especially when dealing with many small files. ReiserFS is very slow at mounting. Quite well established and stable. ReiserFS isn't actively developed at this time (Reiser4 is the new Reiser filesystem).<br />
<br />
4. '''JFS''' - IBM's '''J'''ournaled '''F'''ile'''S'''ystem. JFS is very fast and uses the least CPU resources of any filesystem. Very fast at mounting and fsck's, and very good all-around performance, especially in conjunction with the deadline scheduler. (See [[JFS]].) Not as widely supported as ext or ReiserFS. <br />
<br />
5. '''XFS''' - Very fast journaling filesystem which is best suited for large files. Slower with small files. Very fast at mounting. May not be an ideal choice for the /var partition, since pacman deals with many small files. The only available GNU/Linux FS with online defragmentation ability. Not as widely supported as ext or ReiserFS. <br />
<br />
A major difference is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system journaling] (something similar to transaction logs in database environments). All filesystems except ext2 use journaling. ext3 is completely compatible with ext2, so you can mount it even with very-old rescue CDs. A safe choice for the root partition is ext3. ReiserFS, XFS, and JFS are also OK to use because GRUB (the boot manager which we will install later) can boot from them too. Create the filesystem (format the partition) by selecting yes. You will now be prompted to add any additional partitions. In our example, only sda2 is remaining. Choose a filesystem type and mount it as /home. Again, create the filesystem and choose Done. Return to main menu.<br />
<br />
===Select Packages===<br />
Now we shall select packages to install in our system. Choose CD as source and select the appropriate CD drive if you have more than one.<br />
<br />
Package selection is split into two stages. First, you will select package categories, then you will be presented will the full lists of packages in the selected categories, allowing you to fine-tune your selections. The space bar selects and unselects the categories.<br />
<br />
*'''BASE:''' Contains the minimal package set; just enough for a barebones system.<br />
*'''SUPPORT:''' Additional packages for networking and filesystems, etc, such as gpm, fuse, dnsutils, wireless drivers, ndiswrapper, ntfs-3g, and so forth.<br />
*'''DEVEL:''' Software building tools such as GCC, autoconf, automake and make.<br />
*'''LIB:''' Various libraries such as gmp, lebelf, libevent, etc. <br />
<br />
Choose 'yes' for 'Select all packages by default', for now.<br />
<br />
The next screen will present you with the selected packages within your selected categories. Leaving all selected is a safe choice for beginners, while more experienced users will wish to trim a few unnecessary packages. (For instance, an unneeded filesystem type utility, unneeded drivers, etc.)<br />
<br />
===Install Packages===<br />
Next, choose 'Install Packages'. You will be asked if you wish to keep the packages in pacman cache. If you choose 'yes', you will have the flexability to downgrade to the corresponding package versions in the future, so this is recommended. (You may always clear the cache in the future.) The installer script will now install the selected packages to your system. The packages are binary i686-optimized and total only ~100MB, so they install quite expediently.<br />
<br />
===Configure The System===<br />
You will be asked if you want to choose [[Hwdetect|hwdetect]] to gather information for your configuration. Beginners should choose 'yes'. <br />
<br />
Advanced users who are thoroughly familiar with their hardware, required modules, and who are able to manually configure /etc/mkinitcpio and /etc/fstab from scratch may wish to choose 'no'. (Needless to say, this option is very involved, beyond the scope of this guide, and therefore is not covered.)<br />
<br />
Next, you will be asked if you need support for booting from USB devices, FireWire devices, PCMCIA devices, NFS shares, software RAID arrays, LVM2 volumes, and encrypted volumes. Choose yes if you need it; in our example nothing is needed. <br />
<br />
Beginners should also choose to use the [[Hwdetect|hwdetect]] results for /etc/mkinitcpio/kernel26-fallback.conf. This ensures consistent ordering of your hard disk controllers.<br />
<br />
Now you will be asked which text editor you want to use; choose [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano_%28text_editor%29 nano] if you are not familiar with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_%28text_editor%29 vi/vim]. You will be presented with a menu including the most important config files for your system. If you want to look up the available options as stated in /etc/rc.conf just press Alt+F2 to get a shell, look it up, and switch back to the installer with Alt+F1. <br />
<br />
====='''/etc/rc.conf'''=====<br />
Arch Linux follows in the FreeBSD tradition of utilizing '''/etc/rc.conf''' as the principal location for system configuration. This one file contains a wide range of configuration information, principally used at system startup. As its name directly implies, it also contains settings ''for'' the /etc/rc* files, and is, of course, sourced ''by'' these files. /etc/rc.conf offers a simple, elegant method of streamlining system resource configuration by encompassing a wide range of control, readily accessible for the Arch user. <br />
* '''LOCALIZATION''' section<br />
** '''LOCALE'''=: This sets your system locale, which will be used by all i18n-aware applications and utilities. You can get a list of the available locales by running locale -a from the command line. This setting's default is fine for US English users. (This locale must coincide with /etc/locale.gen, '''[[#/etc/locale.gen|see below]]'''.)<br />
** '''HARDWARECLOCK'''=: Specifies whether the hardware clock, which is synchronized on bootup and on shutdown, stores '''UTC''' time, or the '''localtime'''. UTC makes sense because it greatly simplifies changing timezones and daylight savings time. localtime is necessary if you dual boot with an operating system such as Windows, that only stores localtime to the hardware clock.<br />
** '''TIMEZONE'''=: Specify your TIMEZONE. (All available zones are under /usr/share/zoneinfo/).<br />
** '''KEYMAP'''=: The available keymaps are in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps. Please note that this setting is only valid for your TTYs, not any graphical window managers or X!<br />
** '''CONSOLEFONT'''=: Available console fonts reside under /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ if you must change.<br />
** '''CONSOLEMAP'''=: Defines the console map to load with the setfont program on bootup. Possible maps are found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans, if needed. <br />
** '''USECOLOR'''=: Select "yes" if you have a color monitor.<br />
<br />
LOCALE="en_US.utf8"<br />
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"<br />
TIMEZONE="US/Eastern"<br />
KEYMAP="us"<br />
CONSOLEFONT=<br />
CONSOLEMAP=<br />
USECOLOR="yes"<br />
* '''HARDWARE''' section<br />
** '''MOD_AUTOLOAD'''=: Setting this to "yes" will utilize '''udev''' to automatically probe hardware and load the appropriate modules at boot-up, (convenient with the default modular kernel). Setting this to "no" will rely on the user's ability to specify this information.<br />
** '''MOD_BLACKLIST'''=:Specify any blacklisted modules. In the following example, the IPv6 module as well as the pcspeaker are blacklisted.<br />
** '''MODULES'''=:Specify additional MODULES if you know that an important module is missing, ('''hwdetect''' should have filled in the most important modules): <br />
# Scan hardware and load required modules at bootup<br />
MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"<br />
# Module Blacklist - modules in this list will never be loaded by '''udev'''<br />
MOD_BLACKLIST=(net-pf-10 pcspkr)<br />
#<br />
MODULES=(e100 eepro100 mii slhc snd-ac97-codec snd-intel8x0 soundcore)<br />
* '''NETWORKING''' section<br />
** '''HOSTNAME'''=:Set your HOSTNAME to your liking.<br />
** '''eth0'''=: Adjust the interface IP address, netmask and broadcast address ''if'' you are using '''static IP'''. Set eth0="dhcp" if you want to use '''DHCP'''<br />
** '''INTERFACES'''=: Specify any/all interfaces here. If you do not use DHCP to configure a device, just keep in mind that the value of the variable (whose name must be equal to the name of the device which is supposed to be configured) equals the line which would be appended to the ifconfig command if you were to configure the device manually in the shell.<br />
** '''gateway'''=: If you are using '''static IP''', set the gateway address to your router's IP. If you are using DHCP, comment this line out with a hash (#).<br />
** '''ROUTES'''=: If you are using static '''IP''', remove the ! in front of 'gateway'. Leave this entry alone if using '''DHCP'''.<br />
<br />
<br />
Example, using '''DHCP''':<br />
HOSTNAME="arch"<br />
#eth0="eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255" <br />
eth0="dhcp"<br />
INTERFACES=(eth0)<br />
#gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"<br />
ROUTES=(!gateway)<br />
* '''DAEMONS''' section<br />
This array simply lists the names of those scripts contained in /etc/rc.d/ which are to be started during the boot process, and the order in which they start. <br />
<br />
*If a script name is prefixed with a bang (!), it is not executed. <br />
*If a script is prefixed with an "at" symbol (@), then it will be executed in the background; the startup sequence will not wait for successful completion of each daemon before continuing to the next. <br />
*Edit this array whenever new system services are installed, if starting them automatically during bootup is desired. <br />
<br />
This 'BSD-style' init, (one simple file vs an entire directory), is the Arch way of handling what others handle with various symlinks to an init.d directory.<br />
<br />
=====About DAEMONS=====<br />
You don't have to change the [[daemons]] line at this time, but it is useful to explain what daemons are, because we need them later in this guide. <br />
<br />
Analogous to a Windows service, a daemon is a program that runs in the background, waiting for events to occur and offering services. A good example is a webserver that waits for a request to deliver a page or an SSH server waiting for someone trying to log in. While these are full-featured applications, there are daemons whose work is not that visible. Examples are a daemon which writes messages into a log file (e.g. syslog, metalog), a daemon which lowers your CPU's frequency if your system has nothing to do (e.g.:cpufreq), and a daemon which offers you a graphical login (e.g.: gdm, kdm). All these programs can be added to the daemons line and will be started when the system boots. Useful daemons will be presented during this guide.<br />
Use Ctrl+X to leave the editor.<br />
<br />
=====/etc/fstab=====<br />
The '''fstab''' (for '''f'''ile '''s'''ystems '''tab'''le) is part of the system configuration listing all available disks and disk partitions, and indicating how they are to be initialized or otherwise integrated into the overall system's file system. The '''/etc/fstab''' file is most commonly used by the '''mount''' command, which reads /etc/fstab file to determine which options should be used when mounting the specified device.<br />
<br />
<br />
An example '''/etc/fstab''':<br />
<br />
#<br />
# /etc/fstab: static file system information<br />
#<br />
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass><br />
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0<br />
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0<br />
#/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0<br />
#/dev/dvd /mnt/dvd udf ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0<br />
#/dev/fd0 /mnt/fd0 vfat user,noauto 0 0<br />
/dev/sda1 / jfs defaults,noatime,nodiratime 0 1 <br />
/dev/sda2 /home jfs defaults,noatime,nodiratime 0 2<br />
/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0<br />
Hwdetect should have effectively configured a usable '''fstab''', but briefly checking it is recommended.<br />
*If you plan on using '''hal''' to automount media such as DVD's, you may wish to comment out the cdrom and dvd entries in preparation for '''hal''', which will be installed later in this guide.<br />
<br />
''The 'noatime' and 'nodiratime' options may safely be appended to / and /home regardless of your specified filesystem type for increased speed, performance, and power efficiency, for laptops as well as desktops.''<br />
<br />
Expanded information available in the [[Fstab]] wiki entry.<br />
<br />
====='''mkinitcpio.conf, modprobe.conf and kernel26-fallback.conf'''=====<br />
We shouldn't need to edit these configurations at this point. '''mkinitcpio.conf''' configures the ramdisk (e.g. booting from RAID, encrypted volumes) '''modprobe.conf''' can be used to set special configuration options for the kernel modules and '''kernel26-fallback.conf''' is for the initramfs fallback configuration).<br />
<br />
=====/etc/resolv.conf (for Static IP)=====<br />
*''If you are using DHCP, you may safely ignore this file, as by default, it will be dynamically created and destroyed by the dhcpcd daemon.''<br />
<br />
If you use a static IP, set your DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf (nameserver <ip-address>). You may have as many as you wish.<br />
<br />
If you are using a router, you will probably want to specify your DNS servers in the router itself, and merely point to it from your '''resolv.conf''', using your router's IP (which is also your gateway from '''/etc/rc.conf'''), e.g.:<br />
nameserver 192.168.1.1<br />
Alternatively, add your preferred servers one by one, e.g.:<br />
nameserver 4.2.2.1<br />
nameserver 4.2.2.2<br />
<br />
If using '''DHCP''', you may also specify your DNS servers in the router, or allow automatic assignment from your ISP, if your ISP is so equipped.<br />
<br />
=====/etc/hosts=====<br />
Add the desired ''hostname'', coinciding with the one specified in /etc/rc.conf, so that it looks like this:<br />
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost '''''yourhostname'''''<br />
''This format, '''including the 'localhost' entries''', is required for program compatibility! Errors in this syntax may cause poor network performance and/or certain programs to open very slowly, or not work at all. This is a very common error for beginners.''<br />
<br />
For most users, simply adding the ''yourhostname'' entry to the end of the default line will work, however, some users recommend using the following syntax:<br />
127.0.0.1 '''''yourhostname'''''.domain.org localhost.localdomain localhost '''''yourhostname'''''<br />
If you use a static IP, add another line using the syntax: <static-ip> hostname.domainname.org hostname, <br />
e.g.:<br />
192.168.1.100 '''''yourhostname'''''.domain.org '''''yourhostname'''''<br />
<br />
=====/etc/hosts.deny and /etc/hosts.allow=====<br />
Modify these configurations according to your needs if you plan on using [[SSH|ssh]]. The default configuration will reject all incoming connections, not only ssh connections. Edit your '''/etc/hosts.allow '''file and add: <br />
sshd:all <br />
This will allow all incoming ssh connections.<br />
<br />
If you do not plan on using [[SSH|ssh]], leave this file at the default, (empty), for added security.<br />
<br />
=====/etc/locale.gen=====<br />
<br />
The '''locale-gen''' command reads from '''/etc/locale.gen''' to generate specific locales. They can then be used by '''glibc''' and any other locale-aware program or library for rendering "peculiar" text, correctly displaying regional monetary values, time and date formats, alphabetic idiosyncrasies, and other locale-specific standards. The ability to setup a default locale is a great built-in privilege of using a <code>UNIX</code>-like operating system.<br />
<br />
By default /etc/locale.gen is an empty file with commented documentation. Once edited, the file won't get touched again. '''locale-gen''' runs on every '''glibc''' upgrade, generating all the locales specified in /etc/locale.gen.<br />
<br />
Choose the locale(s) you need (remove the # in front of the lines you want), e.g.:<br />
en_US ISO-8859-1<br />
en_US.UTF-8 <br />
('''Your locale(s) must coincide with the one specified in /etc/rc.conf above.''')<br />
<br />
The installer will now run the locale-gen script, which will generate the locales you specified. You may change your locale in the future by editing /etc/locale.gen and subsequently running 'locale-gen' as root.<br />
<br />
''Note that if you do not choose your locale, this will lead to a "The current locale is invalid..." error. This is perhaps the most common mistake by new Arch users, and also leads to the most commonly asked questions on the forum.''<br />
<br />
=====Root password=====<br />
Finally, set a root password and make sure that you remember it later. Return to the main menu and continue with installing bootloader.<br />
<br />
=====Pacman-Mirror=====<br />
Choose a mirror repository for '''pacman'''. <br />
*''archlinux.org is throttled, limiting downloads to 50KB/s'' <br />
<br />
*''If you are unfamiliar with the presented mirrors and their respective locations in relation to your location, choose any mirror. You will have the opportunity to run the '''rankmirrors''' script later in this guide, to automatically configure the closest mirrors.''<br />
<br />
Return to the main menu.<br />
<br />
===Install Bootloader===<br />
Because we have no secondary operating system in our example, we will need a bootloader. [http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ GNU GRUB] is the recommended bootloader. Alternatively, you may choose [http://lilo.go.dyndns.org/ LILO]. The shown '''GRUB''' configuration ('''/boot/grub/menu.lst''') should be sufficient. The only thing you may want to alter is the resolution of the console. Add<br />
a vga=<number> to the first kernel line. (A table of resolutions and the corresponding numbers is printed in the menu.lst.) <br />
title Arch Linux (Main)<br />
root (hd0,0)<br />
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=773<br />
initrd /boot/kernel26.img<br />
The "vga=773" argument will give a 1024x768 framebuffer with 256 color depth.<br />
<br />
Install the '''GRUB''' bootloader to the master boot record, (sda in our example).<br />
<br />
Exit the install, eject the installer CD, and type the magic word:<br />
<br />
reboot<br />
<br />
Your new Arch Linux system will boot up and finish with a login prompt (you may want to change the boot order in your '''BIOS''' back to booting from hard disk).<br />
<br />
'''Congratulations, and welcome to your shiny, new Arch Linux base system!'''<br />
<br />
==Configuring the Base System ==<br />
Your new Arch Linux base system is now a functional GNU/Linux environment ready for customization. From here, you may build this elegant set of tools into whatever you wish or require for your purposes.<br />
<br />
Let's begin.<br />
-----<br />
Login with your root account. We will configure pacman and update the system as root, then add a normal user. <br />
<br />
<br />
===Configuring the network (if necessary)===<br />
*''This section will assist you in configuring most types of networks, if the installer script auto-configurations are not working for you.''<br />
-----<br />
If everything went fine, you should have a working network. Try to ping www.google.com to verify this.<br />
ping -c 3 www.google.com<br />
<br />
''If you have successfully established a network connection, continue with '''[[#Update, Sync and Upgrade the system with pacman|Update, Sync and Upgrade the system with pacman]]'''.''<br />
<br />
If, after trying to ping www.google.com, you get an "unknown host" error, you may conclude that your network is not properly configured. You may choose to double-check the following files for integrity and proper settings:<br />
<br />
'''/etc/rc.conf''' # Specifically, check your HOSTNAME= and NETWORKING section for typos and errors.<br />
<br />
'''/etc/hosts''' # Double-check your format. (See above.)<br />
<br />
'''/etc/resolv.conf''' # If you are using a static IP. If you are using DHCP, this file will be dynamically created and destroyed by default, but can be changed to your preference. (See [[Network]].)<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for configuring the network can be found in the [[Network]] article.<br />
<br />
====Wired LAN====<br />
<br />
Check your Ethernet with<br />
ifconfig<br />
where you should see an entry for eth0. If required, you can set a new static IP with<br />
ifconfig eth0 <ip address> netmask <netmask> up <br />
and the default gateway with<br />
route add default gw <ip address of the gateway><br />
Check to see if /etc/resolv.conf contains your DNS server and add it if it is missing. <br />
Check your network again with ping www.google.de. If everything is working now, adjust /etc/rc.conf as described above for static IP. If you have a DHCP server/router in your network try<br />
dhcpcd eth0<br />
If this is working, adjust /etc/rc.conf as described above, for dynamic IP.<br />
<br />
====Wireless LAN====<br />
Detailed setup guide: [[Wireless Setup]]<br />
<br />
====Analog Modem====<br />
To be able to use a Hayes-compatible, external, analog modem, you need to at least have the ppp package installed. Modify the file /etc/ppp/options to suit your needs and according to man pppd. You will need to define a chat script to supply your username and password to the ISP after the initial connection has been established. The manpages for pppd and chat have examples in them that should suffice to get a connection up and running if you're either experienced or stubborn enough. With udev, your serial ports usually are /dev/tts/0 and /dev/tts/1.<br />
Tip: Read [[Dialup without a dialer HOWTO]].<br />
<br />
Instead of fighting a glorious battle with the plain pppd, you may opt to install wvdial or a similar tool to ease the setup process considerably. In case you're using a so-called WinModem, which is basically a PCI plugin card working as an internal analog modem, you should indulge in the vast information found on the [http://www.linmodems.org/ LinModem] homepage.<br />
<br />
====ISDN====<br />
<br />
Setting up ISDN is done in three steps:<br />
# Install and configure hardware<br />
# Install and configure the ISDN utilities<br />
# Add settings for your ISP <br />
<br />
The current Arch stock kernels include the necessary ISDN modules, meaning that you won't need to recompile your kernel unless you're about to use rather odd ISDN hardware. After physically installing your ISDN card in your machine or plugging in your USB ISDN-Box, you can try loading the modules with modprobe. Nearly all passive ISDN PCI cards are handled by the hisax module, which needs two parameters: type and protocol. You must set protocol to '1' if your country uses the 1TR6 standard, '2' if it uses EuroISDN (EDSS1), '3' if you're hooked to a so-called leased-line without D-channel, and '4' for US NI1.<br />
<br />
Details on all those settings and how to set them is included in the kernel documentation, more specifically in the isdn subdirectory, and available online. The type parameter depends on your card; a list of all possible types can be found in the README.HiSax kernel documentation. Choose your card and load the module with the appropriate options like this:<br />
<br />
modprobe hisax type=18 protocol=2<br />
<br />
This will load the hisax module for my ELSA Quickstep 1000PCI, being used in Germany with the EDSS1 protocol. You should find helpful debugging output in your /var/log/everything.log file, in which you should see your card being prepared for action. Please note that you will probably need to load some USB modules before you can work with an external USB ISDN Adapter.<br />
<br />
Once you have confirmed that your card works with certain settings, you can add the module options to your /etc/modprobe.conf:<br />
<br />
alias ippp0 hisax<br />
options hisax type=18 protocol=2<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can add only the options line here, and add hisax to your MODULES array in the rc.conf. It's your choice, really, but this example has the advantage that the module will not be loaded until it's really needed.<br />
<br />
That being done, you should have working, supported hardware. Now you need the basic utilities to actually use it!<br />
<br />
Install the isdn4k-utils package, and read the manpage to isdnctrl; it'll get you started. Further down in the manpage you will find explanations on how to create a configuration file that can be parsed by isdnctrl, as well as some helpful setup examples. Please note that you have to add your SPID to your MSN setting separated by a colon if you use US NI1.<br />
<br />
After you have configured your ISDN card with the isdnctrl utility, you should be able to dial into the machine you specified with the PHONE_OUT parameter, but fail the username and password authentication. To make this work add your username and password to /etc/ppp/pap-secrets or /etc/ppp/chap-secrets as if you were configuring a normal analogous PPP link, depending on which protocol your ISP uses for authentication. If in doubt, put your data into both files.<br />
<br />
If you set up everything correctly, you should now be able to establish a dial-up connection with<br />
isdnctrl dial ippp0<br />
as root. If you have any problems, remember to check the logfiles!<br />
<br />
====DSL (PPPoE)====<br />
<br />
These instructions are relevant to you only if your PC itself is supposed to manage the connection to your ISP. You do not need to do anything but define a correct default gateway if you are using a separate router of some sort to do the grunt work.<br />
<br />
Before you can use your DSL online connection, you will have to physically install the network card that is supposed to be connected to the DSL-Modem into your computer. After adding your newly installed network card to the modules.conf/modprobe.conf or the MODULES array, you should install the rp-pppoe package and run the pppoe-setup script to configure your connection. After you have entered all the data, you can connect and disconnect your line with<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/adsl start<br />
<br />
and<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/adsl stop<br />
<br />
respectively. The setup usually is rather easy and straightforward, but feel free to read the manpages for hints. If you want to automatically dial in on boot-up, add adsl to your DAEMONS array.<br />
<br />
==Update, Sync and Upgrade the system with [[pacman]]==<br />
Now we will update the system using [[pacman]]. <br />
<br />
=====What is pacman ?=====<br />
[[Pacman]] is the '''pac'''kage '''man'''ager of Arch Linux. Pacman is written in C and is fast, simple, and extremely powerful. It manages your entire package system and handles installation, removal, package downgrade (through cache), custom compiled package handling, automatic dependency resolution, remote and local searches and much more. We will use pacman to download software packages from remote repositories and install them onto your system.<br />
<br />
Pacman is the most important tool in your Arch Linux toolbox for building the core system into whatsoever you please.<br />
<br />
=====Update Pacman=====<br />
<br />
Initially, you may be prompted to update pacman itself, depending on how old the installation media is:<br />
pacman -Syu<br />
Allow pacman to update. <br />
<br />
'''''Occasionally, configuration changes may take place requiring user action; read the upgrade output for any pertinent information.'''''<br />
<br />
===Configuring pacman===<br />
=====/etc/pacman.conf=====<br />
pacman will attempt to read /etc/pacman.conf each time it is invoked. This configuration file is divided into sections, or repositories. Each section defines a package repository that pacman can use when searching for packages. The exception to this is the options section, which defines global options.<br />
nano -w /etc/pacman.conf<br />
Example:<br />
[core]<br />
# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first<br />
#Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/core/os/i686<br />
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
[extra]<br />
# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first<br />
#Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/extra/os/i686<br />
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
#[unstable]<br />
# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first<br />
#Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/unstable/os/i686<br />
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
[community]<br />
# Add your preferred servers here, they will be used first<br />
#Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/community/os/i686<br />
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
Enable all desired repositories (remove the # in front of the 'Include =' and '[repository]' lines).<br />
<br />
*The "Server =" lines, if uncommented, will force the specified server to be searched first and foremost. Further configuration for repos are under /etc/pacman.d/<br />
<br />
*'''TIP:''' You may safely include the [Unstable] repository, as packages on your system from all other repositories can peacefully co-exist with [Unstable] packages.<br />
'''* ''Note: When choosing repos, be sure to uncomment both the repository header lines in [brackets] as well as the 'Include =' lines. Failure to do so will result in the selected repository being omitted! This is a very common error.'' '''<br />
<br />
====/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist====<br />
Faster mirrors will dramatically improve pacman performance, and your overall Arch Linux experience.<br />
<br />
The '''rankmirrors''' script will rank the mirrors automatically by latency. <br />
Edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist:<br />
nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
Remove all mirrors which are not on your continent, or are extremely distant. (Using nano, you may use CTRL-K to cut each unneeded line.) Save the file and exit.<br />
<br />
'''Rankmirrors''' is a python script. Install python:<br />
<br />
pacman -S python<br />
<br />
Then, use the '''rankmirrors''' script to rank the mirrors in order of latency:<br />
rankmirrors -v /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist<br />
The output will list all mirrors and their corresponding latency, (ping) e.g.:<br />
<br />
# United States<br />
# http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 0.96<br />
# ftp://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/ArchLinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 0.86<br />
# ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 1.39<br />
# ftp://ftp.nethat.com/pub/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... unreachable<br />
# ftp://locke.suu.edu/linux/dist/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 2.43<br />
# ftp://mirrors.unixheads.org/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 1.96<br />
# ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 5.05<br />
# http://holmes.umflint.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/i686 ... 0.53<br />
# ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/$repo/os/i686 ... 4.06<br />
<br />
<br />
The script will then order the mirrors from lowest latency to highest and print the output:<br />
Server = http://holmes.umflint.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/ArchLinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://mirrors.unixheads.org/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://locke.suu.edu/linux/dist/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
Server = ftp://ftp.nethat.com/pub/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/i686<br />
<br />
Note that this should serve as a loose guide for you to arrange the file; mirrors closest to you, or with the lowest latency may not necessarily be the best choice. (You gain nothing with a quick-responding, but out-of-date mirror, or a mirror with low latency but poor bandwidth). <br />
<br />
Edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist by placing the best mirror at the top of the list. You may want to return to this configuration file to experiment with various mirrors. Choose wisely.<br />
<br />
==Update System==<br />
Update, sync, and '''upgrade''' your entire new system with:<br />
pacman -Syu<br />
pacman will now fetch the latest information about available packages and perform all available upgrades. (You may be prompted to upgrade pacman itself at this point. If so, say yes, and then reissue the pacman -Syu command when finished.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=====The beauty of the rolling release=====<br />
Keep in mind that Arch is a '''rolling release''' distribution. This means there is never a reason to reinstall or perform elaborate system rebuilds to upgrade to the newest version. Simply issuing '''pacman -Syu''' periodically keeps your entire system up-to-date and on the bleeding edge. At the end of this upgrade, your system is completely current.<br />
<br />
=====Get familiar with pacman=====<br />
Pacman is the Arch user's best friend. It is highly recommended to study and learn how to use the pacman tool. Try:<br />
man pacman<br />
Check out the bottom of this article, and look up the [[pacman]] wiki entries at your leisure.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
===Add a user and setup groups===<br />
You should not do your everyday work using the root account. It is more than poor practice; it is dangerous. Root is for administrative tasks. Instead, add a normal user account using:<br />
adduser<br />
While most default options are safe to use, you may want to add storage, audio, video, optical, and wheel to your additional groups- especially if you are planning on having a full-featured desktop environment. <br />
<br />
Groups and users thereof are defined in /etc/group. <br />
<br />
They include:<br />
<br />
*'''audio''' - for tasks involving sound card and related software<br />
<br />
*'''wheel''' - for using sudo<br />
<br />
*'''storage''' - for managing storage devices<br />
<br />
*'''video''' - for video tasks and 3d acceleration<br />
<br />
*'''optical''' - for managing tasks pertaining to the optical drive(s)<br />
<br />
*'''floppy''' - for access to a floppy if applicable<br />
<br />
*'''lp''' - for managing printing tasks<br />
<br />
See the [[Groups]] article to understand what groups you need to be a member of. <br />
You may also add your user to the desired groups like so, (as root):<br />
usermod -aG audio,video,floppy,lp,optical,network,storage,wheel,dbus,hal USERNAME<br />
Check the man pages for usermod and gpasswd for more information.<br />
<br />
==Part II: Install X and configure ALSA==<br />
<br />
<br />
===Configure the audio card with alsamixer===<br />
The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (known by the acronym '''ALSA''') is a Linux kernel component intended to replace the original Open Sound System (OSS) for providing device drivers for sound cards. Besides the sound device drivers, '''ALSA''' also bundles a user space library for application developers who want to use driver features with a higher level API than direct interaction with the kernel drivers. <br />
-----<br />
*''udev will automatically probe your hardware on boot-up, loading the corresponding module for your audio card. Your sound should already be working, but you can't hear anything because it is muted by default.'' <br />
The alsa-utils package contains alsamixer, which will allow us to configure the sound device from the console. (You may also run alsamixer from an '''X''' environment later.)<br />
<br />
Install the alsa-utils package:<br />
pacman -S alsa-utils<br />
Did you add your normal user to the audio group? If not, now would be a good time. As root do:<br />
gpasswd -a yourusername audio<br />
As normal user, do: <br />
alsamixer<br />
Unmute the Master and PCM channels by scrolling to them with cursor left/right and pressing '''M'''. Increase the volume levels with the cursor-up key. (70-90 Should be a safe range.) Leave alsamixer by pressing ESC. <br />
==== Sound Test ====<br />
Test your sound configuration as normal user using aplay:<br />
aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav<br />
You should hear a very eloquent woman say, "Front, center."<br />
<br />
Then run alsactl as root:<br />
alsactl store<br />
This will create '/etc/asound.state', saving the alsamixer settings. <br />
<br />
Also, add the alsa ''daemon'' to your DAEMONS section in /etc/rc.conf to automatically restore the mixer settings on boot-up.<br />
nano /etc/rc.conf<br />
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network crond '''alsa''')<br />
''Note that the alsa daemon merely restores your volume mixer levels on boot up. It is separate from the alsa audio library (and kernel level API).''<br />
<br />
Expanded information available in the [[ALSA]] wiki entry.<br />
<br />
===Installing and configuring X===<br />
The '''X''' Window System (commonly '''X11''', or just simply '''X''') is a networking and display protocol which provides windowing on bitmap displays. It provides the standard toolkit and protocol to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs) on <code>UNIX</code>-like operating systems.<br />
<br />
'''X''' provides the basic framework, or primitives, for building GUI environments: drawing and moving windows on the screen and interacting with a mouse and/or keyboard. '''X''' does not mandate the user interface — individual client programs handle this. <br />
<br />
'''X''' is so named because it was preceded by the '''W''' Window System, originally developed at Stanford University. <br />
-----<br />
<br />
*''Note: If you plan on using an '''open-source''' video driver, and need 3d acceleration, it is recommended to install the libgl library before installing Xorg:''<br />
pacman -S libgl<br />
''(Proprietary video drivers provide their own gl library implementations.)''<br />
----- <br />
Now we will install the base Xorg packages using pacman. This is the first step in building a GUI.<br />
<br />
pacman -S xorg<br />
3d utilities such as glxgears are included in the '''mesa''' package:<br />
pacman -S mesa<br />
<br />
Now we have the base packages we need for running the '''X''' Server. You should add the driver for your graphics card now (e.g. xf86-video-<name>). The easiest way to configure X.org is by installing the correct driver packages first, and then generating /etc/X11/xorg.conf using an autoconfiguration script, like Xorg -configure.<br />
<br />
If you need a list of all '''open-source''' video drivers, do: <br />
pacman -Ss xf86-video | less<br />
If you don't know what graphics card you are using, do:<br />
lspci | grep VGA<br />
Here is a list of '''open source''' drivers, and corresponding video chipsets.<br />
*'''xf86-video-apm''' Alliance ProMotion video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-ark''' ark video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-ati''' ati video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-chips''' Chips and Technologies video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-cirrus''' Cirrus Logic video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-dummy''' dummy video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-fbdev''' framebuffer video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-glint''' GLINT/Permedia video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-i128''' Number 0 i128 video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-i740''' Intel i740 video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-i810''' Intel i810/i830/i9xx video drivers (deprecated - use -intel)<br />
*'''xf86-video-intel''' Newer Version of Intel i810/i830/i9xx video drivers<br />
*'''xf86-video-imstt''' Integrated Micro Solutions Twin Turbo vidoe driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-mga''' mga video driver (Matrox Graphics Adapter)<br />
*'''xf86-video-neomagic''' neomagic video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-nv''' nvidia nv video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-rendition''' Rendition video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-s3''' S3 video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-s3virge''' S3 Virge video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-savage''' savage video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-siliconmotion''' siliconmotion video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-sis''' SiS video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-sisusb''' SiS USB video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-tdfx''' tdfx video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-trident''' Trident video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-tseng''' tseng video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-unichrome''' Unichrome video drivers<br />
*'''xf86-video-v4l''' v4l video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-vesa''' vesa video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-vga''' VGA 16 color video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-via''' via video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-vmware ''' vmware video driver<br />
*'''xf86-video-voodoo ''' voodoo video driver<br />
<br />
* Note that the '''vesa''' driver is the most generic, and should work with almost any modern video chipset. If you cannot find a suitable driver for your video chipset, vesa '''should''' work.<br />
<br />
*If you have an nVIDIA or ATI video adapter, you may wish to install the proprietary nVIDIA or ATI drivers. '''Installing proprietary video drivers is covered [[#Using proprietary Graphics Driver (nVIDIA, ATI)|below]].'''<br />
<br />
Use pacman to install the appropriate video driver for your video card/onboard video. e.g.:<br />
pacman -S xf86-video-savage<br />
(for the Savage driver.)<br />
<br />
* If you still don't know which video driver to install, you may install the whole video driver group package, and allow the Xorg -configure script to specify the driver in xorg.xonf:<br />
pacman -S xorg-video-drivers<br />
<br />
==Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf==<br />
=====What is /etc/X11/xorg.conf?=====<br />
/etc/X11/xorg.conf is the main configuration file for your '''X''' Window System, the foundation of your '''G'''raphical '''U'''ser '''I'''nterface. It is a plain text file ordered into sections and subsections. Important sections are ''Files, InputDevice, Module, Monitor, Modes, Screen, Device, and ServerLayout''. Sections can appear in any order and there may be more than one section of each kind, for example, if you have more than one monitor, or if your laptop has a trackpoint as well as a mouse. <br />
------<br />
By default, you will not have an Xorg config file, and with the newest versions of Xorg, you don't need one ''if'' the autodetection ''works satisfactorily'' and you don't need to turn on features such as aiglx and so on. <br />
<br />
''Most people will still find that they need to generate a config file, however.''<br />
<br />
<br />
Use the Xorg -configure script to make a basic config file. As root, do:<br />
Xorg -configure<br />
This will create a config file at /root/xorg.conf.new <br />
<br />
To test the server, run:<br />
X -config /root/xorg.conf.new<br />
'''X''' should start with the white hollow vector '''X''' in the center of the screen, which should respond to mouse, trackpoint or touchpad movement. Use CTRL-Alt-Backspace to exit '''X'''.<br />
<br />
Inspect your config file in case of errors:<br />
<br />
nano /root/xorg.conf.new<br />
<br />
Ensure the Xorg -configure script has correctly specified your video driver. e.g.:<br />
Section "Device"<br />
Driver "savage"<br />
<br />
Ensure there are horizontal sync and vertical refresh specs under section "Monitor". If not, add them:<br />
Section "Monitor"<br />
Identifier "Monitor0"<br />
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"<br />
ModelName "Monitor Model"<br />
HorizSync 30.0 - 130.0 # Safe for LCD's<br />
VertRefresh 50.0 - 100.0 # Safe for LCD's and most CRT's.<br />
EndSection<br />
(If you do not know these specs, consult your monitor's documentation.)<br />
<br />
Specify your default color depth under section "Screen":<br />
Section "Screen"<br />
Identifier "Screen0"<br />
Device "Card0"<br />
Monitor "Monitor0"<br />
DefaultDepth 24<br />
(Typically, this will be set to 24 for true color.)<br />
<br />
Also add your desired Modes to your "Display" subsection, at least under the Depth 24 header, e.g.:<br />
SubSection "Display"<br />
Viewport 0 0<br />
Depth 24<br />
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"<br />
Try your config again, after modifying:<br />
X -config /root/xorg.conf.new<br />
Ensure an '''X''' session opens, without errors, and move the generated config file to /etc/X11:<br />
mv /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf<br />
Detailed instructions in the [[Xorg]] article.<br />
<br />
Continue with '''[[#Simple baseline X test|Simple baseline X test]]'''<br />
<br />
===Using proprietary Graphics Driver (nVIDIA, ATI)===<br />
You may choose to use the proprietary video drivers from nVIDIA or ATI. <br />
====NVIDIA Graphic Cards====<br />
The NVIDIA proprietary drivers are generally considered to be of excellent quality, and offer superior 3D performance.<br />
<br />
Before you configure your Graphics Card you will need to know which driver fits. Arch currently has 3 different driver packages that each match a certain subset of Cards: <br />
<br />
'''1. nvidia-71xx''' ''for very old Cards like TNT and TNT2''<br />
<br />
'''2. nvidia-96xx''' ''slightly newer cards up to the GF 4''<br />
<br />
'''3. nvidia''' ''newest GPUs after the GF 4''<br />
<br />
Consult the NVIDIA-Homepage to see which one is for you. The difference is only for the installation; Configuration works the same with every driver.<br />
<br />
Select and install the appropriate NVIDIA driver ''for your card'', e.g.: <br />
pacman -S nvidia-96xx<br />
<br />
The NVIDIA package has a utility for updating your existing /etc/X11/xorg.conf for use with the NVIDIA driver:<br />
nvidia-xconfig<br />
<br />
It also has several options which will further specify the contents and options of the xorg.conf file.<br />
For example,<br />
nvidia-xconfig --composite --add-argb-glx-visuals<br />
<br />
For more detailed information, see nvidia-xconfig(1).<br />
<br />
Some useful tweaking options in the device section are (beware that these may not work on your system):<br />
Option "RenderAccel" "true"<br />
Option "NoLogo" "true"<br />
Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"<br />
Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"<br />
Make sure all instances of DRI are commented out:<br />
# Load "dri"<br />
Double check your /etc/X11/xorg.conf to make sure your default depth, horizontal sync, vertical refresh, and resolutions are acceptable.<br />
<br />
Update kernel module dependencies:<br />
depmod -a<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for nvidia configuration can be found in the [[NVIDIA]] article.<br />
<br />
Continue with '''[[#Simple baseline X test|Simple baseline X test]]'''<br />
<br />
====ATI Graphic Cards====<br />
ATI owners have two options for drivers. If you are unsure which driver to use, please try the open-source one first. The open-source driver will suit most needs along with being generally less problematic.<br />
<br />
Install the '''proprietary''' ATI Driver with<br />
pacman -S catalyst<br />
Use the aticonfig tool to modify the xorg.conf. Note: The proprietary driver does not support [[AIGLX]]. To use [[Compiz]] or [[Beryl]] with this driver you would need to use [[XGL]].<br />
<br />
Install the '''open-source''' ATI Driver with<br />
pacman -S xf86-video-ati<br />
Currently, the performance of the open-source driver is not on par with that of the proprietary one. It also lacks TV-out, dual-link DVI support, and possibly other features. On the other hand, it supports Aiglx and has better dual-head support.<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for ATI configuration can be found in the [[ATI | ATI wiki]].<br />
<br />
===Simple baseline X test===<br />
<br />
At this point, you should have xorg installed, with a suitable video driver and an /etc/X11/xorg.conf configuration file. If you want to test your configuration quickly, before installing a complete desktop environment, do so by invoking '''xterm'''. Xterm is a very simple terminal emulator which runs in the '''X '''Server environment; it is installed as part of the base xorg packages. Xterm will allow us to effectively test if your video driver and /etc/X11/xorg.conf are properly configured. (Alternatively, you may wish to test if the '''X''' autodetection works satisfactorily, in the absence of /etc/X11/xorg.conf.)<br />
<br />
===== ~/.xinitrc =====<br />
This file dictates what X Server event is invoked with the 'startx' command:<br />
<br />
su yourusername<br />
<br />
nano ~/.xinitrc<br />
<br />
and add:<br />
<br />
exec xterm<br />
<br />
So that it looks like this:<br />
<br />
#!/bin/sh<br />
#<br />
# ~/.xinitrc<br />
#<br />
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)<br />
#<br />
exec xterm<br />
# exec wmaker<br />
# exec startkde<br />
# exec icewm<br />
# exec blackbox<br />
# exec fluxbox<br />
<br />
''Be sure to have only one uncommented '''exec''' line in your ~/.xinitrc'' Below, we shall edit this file again to specify the appropriate desktop environment of your choice.<br />
<br />
If you do not have ~/.xinitrc, simply create one with the above information, or copy the sample file from /etc/skel/ to your home directory:<br />
cp /etc/skel/.xinitrc ~/<br />
*NOTE: ''In the absence of file ~/.xinitrc, /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc will be used as a fallback, which defaults to using TWM and Xterm.''<br />
<br />
Start '''X''' Server as normal user, with:<br />
<br />
startx<br />
You should have an '''xterm''' session open up. You can exit the '''X''' Server with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, or by typing "exit". If you have problems starting '''X''', you can look for errors in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and on the console output of the console you started '''X''' from.<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for Xorg configuration can be found in the [[Xorg]] article.<br />
<br />
==Part III: Installing and configuring a Desktop Environment ==<br />
While The '''X''' Window System provides the basic framework for building a ''graphical user interface'' (GUI), a '''Desktop Environment''' (DE), works atop and in conjunction with '''X''', to provide a completely functional and dynamic GUI. A DE typically provides icons, applets, windows, toolbars, folders, wallpapers, applications and abilities like drag and drop. The particular functionalities and designs of each DE will uniquely affect your overall environment and experience. Therefore, choosing a DE is a very subjective and personal decision. Choose the best environment for ''your'' needs.<br />
<br />
* If you want something full-featured and similar to Windows and Mac OSX, '''[[#KDE|KDE]]''' is a good choice<br />
* If you want something slightly more minimalist, which follows the K.I.S.S. principle more closely, '''[[#GNOME|GNOME]]''' is a good choice<br />
* '''[[#Xfce|Xfce]]''' is generally perceived as similar to GNOME, but lighter and less demanding on system resources, yet still visually pleasing and providing a very complete environment.<br />
<br />
If you have an older machine, or desire a lighter, less demanding GUI, you may choose to simply install a '''Window Manager''', or WM. A WM controls the placement and appearance of application windows in conjunction with the X Window System but does NOT provide such additions as panels, applets, icons, etc.<br />
* Lightweight WM's include: '''openbox, fluxbox, fvwm2''', '''windowmaker and twm'''.<br />
* If you need something completely different, try '''ion, wmii, or dwm'''.<br />
<br />
===Install Fonts===<br />
At this point, you may want to install some good-looking fonts, '''before''' installing a desktop environment/window manager. Dejavu and bitstream-vera are nice font sets. For websites, you may want to have the Microsoft fonts too. Install with:<br />
pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts ttf-dejavu ttf-bitstream-vera<br />
===~/.xinitrc (again)===<br />
<br />
As normal user, edit your /home/username/.xinitrc to utilize the DE you wish to use:<br />
<br />
nano ~/.xinitrc<br />
<br />
Uncomment or add the ''''exec''' ..' line of the appropriate desktop environment/window manager. For example:<br />
<br />
<br />
exec startxfce4 <br />
<br />
(For the Xfce4 desktop environment.)<br />
<br />
Remember to have only one uncommented '''exec''' line in your ~/.xinitrc.<br />
<br />
Continue below, installing the DE/WM of your choice.<br />
<br />
===GNOME===<br />
====About GNOME====<br />
The '''G'''NU '''N'''etwork '''O'''bject '''M'''odel '''E'''nvironment. The GNOME project provides two things: The GNOME desktop environment, an intuitive and attractive desktop for end-users, and the GNOME development platform, an extensive framework for building applications that integrate into the rest of the desktop.<br />
<br />
====Installation====<br />
Install the complete GNOME environment with:<br />
pacman -S gnome gnome-extra<br />
It's safe to choose all packages shown. <br />
Alternatively, you may wish to install a more basic, stripped-down GNOME:<br />
pacman -S gnome<br />
<br />
=====Useful DAEMONS for GNOME=====<br />
Recall from above that a daemon is a program that runs in the background, waiting for events to occur and offering services. The '''hal''' daemon, among other things, will automate the mounting of disks, optical drives, and USB drives/thumbdrives for use in the GUI. The '''fam''' daemon will allow real-time representation of file alterations in the GUI, allowing instant access to recently installed programs, or changes in the file system. Both '''hal''' and '''fam''' make life easier for the GNOME user. The hal and fam packages are installed when you install GNOME, but must be invoked to become useful.<br />
<br />
You may want to install a graphical login manager. For GNOME, the '''gdm''' daemon is a good choice. <br />
<br />
As root:<br />
pacman -S gdm<br />
You will almost certainly want the '''hal''' and '''fam''' daemons.<br />
<br />
Start hal and fam:<br />
/etc/rc.d/hal start<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/fam start<br />
<br />
Add them to your /etc/rc.conf DAEMONS section, so they will be invoked on bootup:<br />
nano /etc/rc.conf<br />
<br />
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network crond alsa '''hal fam gdm''')<br />
(If you prefer to log into the console and manually start X in the 'Slackware tradition', leave out gdm.)<br />
<br />
<br />
As normal user, start X:<br />
startx<br />
<br />
You may want to install a terminal and an editor. I would recommend gnome-terminal (part of the group gnome-extra) and geany:<br />
pacman -S geany gnome-terminal<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for installing and configuring GNOME can be found in the [[Gnome]] article.<br />
<br />
Congratulations! Welcome to your GNOME desktop environment on your new Arch Linux system! You may wish to continue by viewing '''[[#Tweaks/Finishing touches|Tweaks and finishing touches]]''', or the rest of the information below. You may also be interested in the [[Post Installation Tips]] wiki article.<br />
<br />
====Eye Candy====<br />
You may find the default GNOME theme and icons not very attractive. A nice gtk theme is murrine. Install it with<br />
pacman -S gtk-engine-murrine<br />
and select it with System->Preferences->Theme. You can find more themes, icons, and wallpaper at [http://www.gnome-look.org Gnome Look].<br />
<br />
===KDE===<br />
====About KDE====<br />
The '''K''' '''D'''esktop '''E'''nvironment. KDE is a powerful Free Software graphical desktop environment for GNU/Linux and <code>UNIX</code> workstations. It combines ease of use, contemporary functionality, and outstanding graphical design with the technological superiority of <code>UNIX</code>-like operating systems.<br />
<br />
====Installation====<br />
Arch offers several versions of kde: '''kde, kdebase, and KDEmod'''. Choose '''one''' of the following, and continue below with '''[[#Useful KDE DAEMONS|Useful KDE DAEMONS]]''': <br />
<br />
'''1.)''' Package '''kde''' is the complete, vanilla KDE, ~300MB.<br />
pacman -S kde<br />
'''2.)''' Package '''kdebase''' is a slimmed-down version with less applications, ~80MB.<br />
pacman -S kdebase<br />
'''3.)''' Lastly, '''KDEmod''' is an Arch Linux exclusive, community-driven system which is modified for extreme performance and modularity. The KDEmod project website can be found at [http://kdemod.ath.cx/ http://kdemod.ath.cx/]. KDEmod is extremely fast, lightweight and responsive, with a pleasing, customized theme.<br />
<br />
====Useful KDE DAEMONS====<br />
<br />
KDE will require the '''hal''' ('''H'''ardware '''A'''bstraction '''L'''ayer) and '''fam''' ('''F'''ile '''A'''lteration '''M'''onitor) daemons. The '''kdm''' daemon is the '''K''' '''D'''isplay '''M'''anager, which provides a '''graphical login''', if desired.<br />
<br />
Recall from above that a daemon is a program that runs in the background, waiting for events to occur and offering services. The hal daemon, among other things, will automate the mounting of disks, optical drives, and USB drives/thumbdrives for use in the GUI. The fam daemon will allow real-time representation of file alterations in the GUI, allowing instant access to recently installed programs, or changes in the file system.. Both '''hal''' and '''fam''' make life easier for the KDE user. The hal, fam and kdm packages are installed when you install KDE, but must be invoked to become useful.<br />
-----<br />
Start hal and fam:<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/hal start<br />
<br />
/etc/rc.d/fam start<br />
*'''NOTE:''' ''The hal daemon relies on, and will automatically start, the dbus daemon.''<br />
Edit your DAEMONS section in /etc/rc.conf:<br />
nano /etc/rc.conf<br />
Add '''hal''' and '''fam''' to your DAEMONS section, to invoke them on bootup. If you prefer a graphical login, add '''kdm''' as well: <br />
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network crond alsa '''hal fam kdm''')<br />
*This method will start the system at runlevel 3, (/etc/inittab default, multiuser mode), and then start KDM as a daemon. <br />
<br />
*Some users prefer an alternative method of starting a display manager like KDM on bootup by utilizing the /etc/inittab method and starting the system at runlevel 5. See [[Adding a login manager (KDM, GDM, or XDM) to automatically boot on startup]] for more.<br />
<br />
*If you prefer to log into the '''console''' at runlevel 3, and manually start X in the 'Slackware tradition', leave out kdm, or comment it out with an exclamation. ( ! )<br />
<br />
Now try starting your X Server as normal user:<br />
startx<br />
Advanced instructions for installing and configuring KDE can be found in the [[KDE]] article.<br />
<br />
Congratulations! Welcome to your KDE desktop environment on your new Arch Linux system! You may wish to continue by viewing '''[[#Tweaks/Finishing touches|Tweaks and finishing touches]]''', or the rest of the information below. You may also be interested in the [[Post Installation Tips]] wiki article.<br />
<br />
===Xfce===<br />
====About Xfce====<br />
The cholesterol-free environment. Xfce is a Desktop Environment, like GNOME or KDE, that aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and easy to use. It contains a suite of apps like a root window app, window manager, file manager, panel, etc. Xfce is written using the GTK2 toolkit (like GNOME) and contains its own development environment (libraries, daemons, etc) similar to other big DEs. Unlike GNOME or KDE, Xfce is lightweight and designed more around CDE than Windows or Mac. It has a much slower development cycle, but is very stable and extremely fast. Xfce is great for older hardware, and will fly with especially great speed on newer machines as well.<br />
<br />
====Installation====<br />
Install a complete xfce environment with themes and extras:<br />
pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies gtk2-themes-collection <br />
<br />
If you use kdm or gdm a new xfce session should have appeared. Alternatively, you can use<br />
startxfce4<br />
<br />
Advanced instructions for installing and configuring Xfce can be found in the [[Xfce]] article.<br />
<br />
Congratulations! Welcome to your Xfce desktop environment on your new Arch Linux system! You may wish to continue by viewing '''[[#Tweaks/Finishing touches|Tweaks and finishing touches]]''', or the rest of the information below. You may also be interested in the [[Post Installation Tips]] wiki article.<br />
<br />
===*box===<br />
====Fluxbox====<br />
Fluxbox © is yet another windowmanager for X.<br />
It's based on the Blackbox 0.61.1 code. Fluxbox looks like blackbox and handles styles, colors, window placement and similar things exactly like blackbox (100% theme/style compability).<br />
<br />
Install Fluxbox using <br />
pacman -S fluxbox fluxconf<br />
<br />
If you use gdm/kdm a new fluxbox session will be automatically added. Otherwise, you should modify your user's .xinitrc and add this to it:<br />
exec startfluxbox <br />
<br />
More information is available in the [[Fluxbox]] article.<br />
<br />
====Openbox====<br />
Openbox is a standards compliant, fast, light-weight, extensible window manager.<br />
<br />
Openbox works with your applications, and makes your desktop easier to manage. This is because the approach to its development was the opposite of what seems to be the general case for window managers. Openbox was written first to comply with standards and to work properly. Only when that was in place did the team turn to the visual interface.<br />
<br />
Openbox is fully functional as a stand-alone working environment, or can be used as a drop-in replacement for the default window manager in the GNOME or KDE desktop environments. <br />
<br />
Install openbox using<br />
pacman -S openbox obconf obmenu<br />
<br />
Once openbox is installed you will get a message to move menu.xml & rc.xml to ~/.config/openbox/ in your home directory:<br />
<br />
mkdir -p ~/.config/openbox/<br />
cp /etc/xdg/openbox/rc.xml ~/.config/openbox/<br />
cp /etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml ~/.config/openbox/<br />
<br />
In the file "rc.xml" you can change various settings for Openbox (or you can use OBconf). In "menu.xml" you can change your right-click menu.<br />
<br />
To be able to log into openbox you can either go via graphical login using KDM/GDM or startx, in which case you will need to edit your ~/.xinitrc (as user) and add the following:<br />
<br />
exec openbox<br />
<br />
For KDM there is nothing left to do; openbox is listed in the sessions menu in KDM.<br />
<br />
Useful programs for openbox are:<br />
* PyPanel or LXpanel if you want a panel<br />
* feh if you want to set the background<br />
* ROX if you want a simple file manager and desktop icons<br />
<br />
More information is available in the [[Openbox]] article.<br />
<br />
===fvwm2===<br />
FVWM is an extremely powerful ICCCM-compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager for the X Window system. Development is active, and support is excellent. <br />
<br />
Install fvwm2 with<br />
pacman -S fvwm <br />
<br />
fvwm will automatically be listed in kdm/gdm in the sessions menu. Otherwise, add <br />
exec fvwm <br />
<br />
to your user's .xinitrc.<br />
<br />
Note that this stable version of fvwm is a few years old. If you want a more recent version of fvwm, there is a fvwm-devel package in the unstable repo.<br />
<br />
==Tweaks/Finishing touches==<br />
===HAL===<br />
Since you have now installed a desktop environment, and if you did not do so earlier, now would be a good time to also install HAL. HAL allows plug-and-play for your mobile phone, your iPod, your external HD's, etc. It will mount the device and make a nice visual icon on your desktop and/or in 'My Computer', allowing you to access the device after you have plugged it in instead of having to manually configure the /etc/fstab file or udev rules for each and every new device.<br />
<br />
KDE, GNOME and XFCE all use HAL.<br />
<br />
The installation procedure is described in the [[HAL]] article. Some information can also be found at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_(software) Wikipedia].<br />
<br />
===Backgrounding DAEMONS on startup===<br />
<br />
To speed up system start up procedure, background your DAEMONS in /etc/rc.conf by prefixing them with a '@' e.g.:<br />
<br />
DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng @network crond @alsa @hal @fam @kdm)<br />
This will enable daemons to load in the background, without waiting for the preceding daemon to load first.<br />
<br />
Prefix any daemons which you do not need with a bang (!) e.g.:<br />
<br />
DAEMONS=(@syslog-ng @network !crond @alsa @hal @fam @kdm)<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you may also simply remove unneeded daemons.<br />
<br />
===Beautifying Fonts for LCD's===<br />
See [[Fonts]]<br />
<br />
===Adjusting Mouse for scroll wheel===<br />
While your mouse should be working out of the box, you may want to use your scroll wheel. Add this to your Input Section (mouse0):<br />
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"<br />
<br />
===Get All Mouse Buttons Working===<br />
See [[Get All Mouse Buttons Working]]<br />
<br />
===Adjusting Keyboard Layout===<br />
You may want to change your keyboard layout. To do this edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add these lines in the Input Section (keyboard0) (the example shows a German keyboard layout with no dead keys; alter this to fit your needs).<br />
Option "XkbLayout" "de"<br />
Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"<br />
===Additional tweaks for laptops===<br />
ACPI support is needed if you want to use some special functions on your notebook (e.g. sleep, sleep when lid is closed, special keys...). Install acpid <br />
pacman -S acpid<br />
and add it to the daemons in /etc/rc.conf (acpid). Start it with<br />
/etc/rc.d/acpid start<br />
<br />
More-specific information about Arch Linux on various Laptops can be found at [[:Category:Laptops (English)]]<br />
===Configuring CPU frequency scaling===<br />
Modern processors can decrease their frequency and voltage to reduce heat and power consumption. Less heat leads to a quieter system; Laptop users will definitely want this, but even a desktop system will benefit from it. Install cpufrequtils with<br />
pacman -S cpufrequtils<br />
and add cpufreq to your daemons in /etc/rc.conf. Edit the config file /etc/conf.d/cpufreq and change <br />
governor="conservative"<br />
which dynamically increases the CPU frequency if needed (which is a safe choice on desktop systems too). Alter min_freq and max_freq to match your system's CPU spec. If you don't know the frequencies, run ''cpufreq-info'' after loading one of the frequency scaling modules. You can also comment out or delete the min_freq and max_freq lines: things will work automatically. Add the frequency scaling modules to your /etc/rc.conf modules line. Most modern notebooks and desktops can simply use the ''acpi-cpufreq'' driver, however other options include the ''p4-clockmod, powernow-k6, powernow-k7, powernow-k8, and speedstep-centrino'' drivers. Load the module with<br />
modprobe <modulname> <br />
and start cpufreq with<br />
/etc/rc.d/cpufreq start<br />
For more details, see [[Cpufrequtils]]<br />
<br />
==Useful Applications==<br />
This section will never be complete. It just shows some good applications for the everyday user. <br />
<br />
'''KDE users NOTE''': Since KDE resides in /opt, you will most likely have to log out and in after initial installation to update your PATH before these programs can be used.<br />
===Internet===<br />
<br />
=====Firefox=====<br />
The ever-popular Firefox web browser is available through pacman, although it doesnt have its official branding, so the program appears when opened as Bon Echo. Install with:<br />
<br />
pacman -S firefox<br />
Be sure and install 'flashplugin', 'mplayer', 'mplayer-plugin', and the 'codecs' packages for a complete web experience:<br />
pacman -S flashplugin mplayer mplayer-plugin codecs<br />
(The codecs package contains codecs for Quicktime and Realplayer content.)<br />
<br />
Thunderbird is useful for managing your emails. If you are using GNOME you may want to take a look at Epiphany and Evolution; if you are using KDE Konqueror and KMail could be your choice. If you want something completely different you can still use Opera. Finally, if you are working on the system console - or in a terminal session - you could use various text-based browsers like ELinks, Links and Lynx, and manage your emails with [[Mutt]]. Pidgin (previously known as Gaim) and Kopete are good instant messengers for GNOME and KDE, respectively. PSI and Gajim are perfect if you are using only Jabber or Google Talk.<br />
<br />
===Office===<br />
OpenOffice is a complete office suite (similar to Microsoft Office). Abiword is a good, small alternative word processor, and Gnumeric an Excel replacement for the GNOME desktop. KOffice is a complete office suite for the KDE Desktop. GIMP (or GIMPShop) is a pixel-based graphics program (similar to Adobe Photoshop), while Inkscape is a vector-based graphics program (like Adobe Illustrator). And, of course, Arch comes with a full set of LaTeX Programs: tetex has been popular for many years and still works, and its successor [[Texlive]] is available from the [[AUR]] repository.<br />
<br />
==Multimedia ==<br />
<br />
<br />
===Video Player===<br />
====VLC====<br />
VLC Player is a multimedia player for Linux. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S vlc<br />
<br />
(TODO) Instructions for VLC mozilla plug-in<br />
<br />
====Mplayer====<br />
MPlayer is a multimedia player for Linux. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S mplayer<br />
<br />
It also has a Mozilla plug-in for videos and streams embedded in web pages. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S mplayer-plugin<br />
<br />
If you use KDE, KMplayer is a better choice. It comes with a plug-in for videos and streams embedded in web pages, which works with Konqueror. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S kmplayer<br />
<br />
(TODO) GMPlayer instructions<br />
<br />
====Xine====<br />
<br />
Xine is an excellent player, especially for DVD's.<br />
<br />
pacman -S xine-ui<br />
The libdvdcss library provides DVD decoding for encrypted DVD's. ''Ensure the legality of using libdvdcss in your country before installing!''<br />
pacman -S libdvdcss<br />
<br />
====GNOME====<br />
=====Totem=====<br />
[http://www.gnome.org/projects/totem/ Totem] is the official movie player of the GNOME desktop environment based on xine-lib or GStreamer (gstreamer is the default which installs with the arch totem package). It features a playlist, a full-screen mode, seek and volume controls, as well as keyboard navigation.<br />
It comes with added functionality such as:<br />
<br />
* Video thumbnailer for the file manager<br />
* Nautilus properties tab<br />
* Epiphany / Mozilla (Firefox) plugin to view movies inside your browser <br />
* Webcam utility (in development)<br />
<br />
Totem-xine is still the better choice if you want to watch DVDs.<br />
<br />
Totem is part of the gnome-extra group; the Totem webbrowser plugin isn't.<br />
<br />
To install separately:<br />
pacman -S totem<br />
<br />
To install the Totem webbrowser plugin:<br />
pacman -S totem-plugin<br />
<br />
====KDE====<br />
=====Kaffeine=====<br />
Kaffeine is a good option for KDE users. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S kaffeine<br />
<br />
===Audio Player===<br />
====Gnome/Xfce====<br />
=====Exaile=====<br />
[[Exaile]] is a music player written in Python that makes use of the GTK+ toolkit. It tries to be close to the popular Amarok, but in GTK. It is in [community], so install with:<br />
pacman -S exaile<br />
<br />
=====Rhythmbox=====<br />
[http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ Rhythmbox] is an integrated music management application, originally inspired by Apple's iTunes. It is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop, and based on the powerful GStreamer media framework.<br />
<br />
Rhythmbox has a number of features, including:<br />
<br />
* Easy-to-use music browser<br />
* Searching and sorting<br />
* Comprehensive audio format support through GStreamer<br />
* Internet radio support<br />
* Playlists<br />
<br />
To install rhythmbox:<br />
pacman -S rhythmbox<br />
<br />
=====Quod Libet=====<br />
[http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet Quod Libet] is a music manager that uses the GStreamer media framework to play audio files. This allows it to play all the file-types that Rhythmbox (which uses GStreamer too) can play. Quod Libet is more suited to non-Gnome desktops since it has a smaller footprint and fewer dependencies than Rhythmbox (Rhythmbox depends on nautilus, which requires a lot of GNOME to be installed).<br />
<br />
In addition to the music player/manager, Quod Libet also includes Ex Falso, a tag editor.<br />
<br />
Quod Libet's features include:<br />
<br />
* Easy-to-use music browser<br />
* Searching<br />
* Comprehensive audio format support through GStreamer<br />
* Easy Playlist management<br />
<br />
To install Quod Libet:<br />
pacman -S quodlibet<br />
<br />
Other good audio players are Banshee and Listen. See [http://gnomefiles.org/ Gnomefiles] to compare them.<br />
<br />
====KDE====<br />
=====Amarok=====<br />
[http://amarok.kde.org/ Amarok] is one of the best audio players and music library systems available for KDE. To install it, simply type the code below.<br />
<br />
pacman -S amarok-base<br />
<br />
====Console====<br />
[http://moc.daper.net/ Moc] is a ncurses-based audio player for the console; another good choice is [http://musicpd.org/ mpd].<br />
<br />
Another excellent choice is [http://freshmeat.net/projects/cmus/ cmus].<br />
<br />
====Other X-based====<br />
(TODO) Xmms, audacious, bmpx.<br />
<br />
===Codecs and other multimedia content types (i686 only) ===<br />
====DVD====<br />
You can use xine-ui, totem-xine, mplayer or kaffeine (just to name three of the big ones) to watch DVDs. The only thing you may miss is libdvdcss. Beware that using it may be illegal in some countries.<br />
<br />
====Flash====<br />
Install the flash plugin using<br />
pacman -S flashplugin<br />
to enable Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash in your browser, if you run KDE you should see this after installing flash. http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Flash_and_Adobe_Acrobat_browser_plugins#Fixing_Flash_in_Konqueror<br />
<br />
====Quicktime====<br />
Quicktime codecs are contained in the codecs package. Just type<br />
pacman -S codecs<br />
to install them.<br />
====Realplayer====<br />
The codec for Realplayer 9 is contained in the codecs package. Just type<br />
pacman -S codecs<br />
to install them. Realplayer 10 is available as a binary package for Linux. You can get it from AUR [http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=1590&O=0&L=0&C=0&K=realplay&SB=&SO=&PP=25&do_MyPackages=0&do_Orphans=0&SeB=nd here].<br />
<br />
===CD and DVD Burning===<br />
====GNOME====<br />
=====Brasero=====<br />
[http://www.gnome.org/projects/brasero/ Brasero] is an application that burns CDs/DVDs for the GNOME Desktop. It is designed to be as simple as possible and has some unique features to enable users to create their discs easily and quickly.<br />
<br />
To install:<br />
pacman -S brasero<br />
<br />
====KDE====<br />
=====K3b=====<br />
K3b (from '''K'''DE '''B'''urn '''B'''aby '''B'''urn) is a free software CD and DVD authoring application for GNU/Linux and other <code>UNIX</code>-like operating systems designed for KDE. As is the case with most KDE applications, K3b is written in the C++ programming language and uses the Qt GUI toolkit. K3b provides a graphical user interface to perform most CD/DVD burning tasks like creating an Audio CD from a set of audio files or copying a CD/DVD, as well as more advanced tasks such as burning eMoviX CD/DVDs. It can also perform direct disc-to-disc copies. The program has many default settings which can be customized by more experienced users. The actual disc recording in K3b is done by the command line utilities cdrecord or wodim, cdrdao, and growisofs. As of version 1.0, K3b features a built-in DVD ripper.- licensed under the GPL.<br />
<br />
K3b was voted LinuxQuestions.org's Multimedia Utility of the Year (2006) by the majority (70%) of voters. <br />
-----<br />
To install:<br />
pacman -S k3b<br />
<br />
=====(Todo) cdrecord, graveman...=====<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Most CD burners are wrappers for cdrecord:<br />
<br />
pacman -S cdrkit<br />
<br />
If you install packages for CD/DVD burning applications like Brasero or K3B it also installs the CD/DVD burning library for it, like libburn or cdrkit.<br />
<br />
A good command-line DVD-burning tool is growisofs:<br />
<br />
pacman -S dvd+rw-tools<br />
<br />
===TV-Cards===<br />
<br />
There are several things to do if you want to watch TV under (Arch) Linux. The most important task is to find out which chip your tuner is using. However, quite a lot are supported. Be sure to check at a Hardware Database to be sure (see [http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/TV_Cards this list], for example). Once you know your Model, there are just a few steps ahead to get you going.<br />
<br />
In most cases, you will need to use the bttv-drivers (other drivers exist, like [http://linux.bytesex.org/v4l2/drivers.html V4L]) together with the I2C-modules. Configuring those is the hardest task. If you are lucky, a<br />
modprobe bttv<br />
will autodetect the card (check dmesg for results). In that case, you need only to install an application to watch TV. We will look at that later, though.<br />
If the autodetection did not work, you will need to check the file CARDLIST, which is included in the tarball of [http://dl.bytesex.org/releases/video4linux/ bttv] to find out the right parameters for your card. A PV951 without radio support would need this line:<br />
modprobe bttv card=42 radio=0<br />
Some cards need the following line to produce sound:<br />
modprobe tvaudio<br />
However, that varies. So just try it out. Some other cards demand the following line:<br />
modprobe tuner<br />
This is subject to trial-and-error, too.<br />
<br />
TODO: clarify the installation-procedure<br />
<br />
To actually watch TV, install the xawtv-package with<br />
pacman -S xawtv <br />
and read its manpage.<br />
<br />
TODO: clarify some possible problems and procedures. Introduction to XAWTV on another page?<br />
<br />
===Digital Cameras===<br />
Most newer digital cameras are supported as USB mass storage devices, which means that you can simply plug it in and copy the images. Older cameras may use the PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) which requires a "special driver". gPhoto2 provides this driver and allows a shell-based transfer of the images; digikam (for KDE) and gthumb (for GNOME, gtkam would be another choice) use this driver and offer a nice GUI.<br />
<br />
===USB Memory Sticks / Hard Disks===<br />
USB Memory Sticks and hard disks are supported out of the box with the USB mass storage device driver and will appear as a new SCSI device (/dev/sdX). If you are using KDE or GNOME you should use dbus and hal (add them to your daemons in /etc/rc.conf), and they will be automatically mounted. If you use a different Desktop Environment you may have a look at ivman.<br />
<br />
==Maintaining the system==<br />
===Pacman===<br />
[[Pacman]] is both a binary and source package manager which is able to download, install, and upgrade packages from both remote and local repositories with full dependency handling, and has easy-to-understand tools for crafting your own packages too.<br />
<br />
A more-detailed description of Pacman can be found in [[Pacman|its article]].<br />
<br />
==== Useful commands ====<br />
<br />
To synchronize and update the local packages database with the remote repositories (it is a good idea to do this before installing and upgrading packages):<br />
pacman -Sy<br />
<br />
To '''upgrade''' all packages on the system:<br />
pacman -Su<br />
<br />
To sync, update, and '''upgrade''' all the packages on the system with one command:<br />
pacman -Syu<br />
<br />
To install or upgrade a single package or list of packages (including dependencies):<br />
pacman -S packageA packageB<br />
<br />
You can also sync, update the package database, and install packages in one command:<br />
pacman -Sy packageA packageB<br />
<br />
To remove a single package, leaving all of its dependencies installed:<br />
pacman -R package<br />
<br />
To remove a package and all of the package's dependencies which aren't used by any other installed package:<br />
pacman -Rs package<br />
<br />
To remove all of the package's now unneeded dependencies and also delete config files:<br />
pacman -Rsn package<br />
<br />
To search the remote (repo) package database for a list of packages matching a given keyword:<br />
pacman -Ss keyword<br />
<br />
To list all packages on your system<br />
pacman -Q<br />
<br />
To search (query) the local (your machine) package database for a given package:<br />
pacman -Q package <br />
<br />
To search (query) the local (your machine) package database for a given package and list all pertinent information:<br />
pacman -Qi package<br />
<br />
To defragment pacman's cache database and optimize for speed:<br />
pacman-optimize<br />
<br />
To count how many packages are currently on your system:<br />
pacman -Q | wc -l<br />
<br />
To install a package compiled from source using ABS and makepkg:<br />
pacman -U packagename.pkg.tar.gz<br />
<br />
Note: There are countless additional pacman functions and commands. Try man pacman and consult the [[pacman]] wiki entries.<br />
<br />
==Polishing & Further information==<br />
For further information and support you can go to the [http://www.archlinux.org/ homepage], [[Special:Search|search the wiki]], the [http://bbs.archlinux.org/ forums], the [[ArchChannel|IRC channel]], and the [http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/ mailing lists].<br />
=====FAQs=====<br />
See [[Arch FAQs for newbies]]<br />
<br />
There is also an [http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=29055 Arch forum thread] devoted to beginners.<br />
<br />
=====Terminology=====<br />
For more information on the jargon used in Arch, look at [[Arch Terminology/Jargon for newbies|this article]].<br />
<br />
=====Where to go from here?=====<br />
<br />
You may also be interested in:<br />
<br />
[[Post Installation Tips]]<br />
<br />
[[ArchLinux User-community Repository (AUR)]]<br />
<br />
[[Get All Mouse Buttons Working]]<br />
<br />
[[Improve Pacman Performance]]<br />
<br />
[[Kernel Compilation]]<br />
<br />
[[Pm-utils]]<br />
<br />
[[Cpufrequtils]]<br />
<br />
[[:Category:Eye candy (English)| Eye Candy]]</div>
MethodOne