Archlinux installation notes

This page is my personal notes on installing ArchLinux. I made it to be shorter and more to the point then the main wikipages, but all of the information can be found on the wiki in various other places.

Encrypting the hard drive

Load modules

modprobe dm-crypt
modprobe aes-x86_64

start encryption (choose a good passphrase)

cryptsetup -c aes-xts-plain -y -s 512 luksFormat /dev/sda2

unlock newly encrypted partition

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 root

run archlinux installer as normal until configure system menu.

edit rc.conf change these lines:

HOSTNAME="pickaname"
...
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng @network @sshd @crond @netfs @hal @alsa @openntp)

edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, add encrypt to HOOKS

HOOKS="... encrypt ... filesystems ..."

Install grub, modify menu.lst entry to look like this:

# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 cryptdevice=/dev/sda1:root root=/dev/mapper/root ro
initrd /kernel26.img

optinally add vga=773 (or whatever) to kernel line.

Reboot into new install

Post installation

Get internets!

dhcpcd eth0

Upgrade everything (if we didnt do a netinstall)

pacman -Syu

(reboot if needed)

Install the basics: openssh, xorg, window maker (or any window manager), hal, alsa-utils, openntpd and elinks (in case we need it)

pacman -S openssh xorg windowmaker hal alsa-utils openntpd mrxvt elinks

Create a new user for yourself

adduser evilgold
Initial group [ users ]: 
Additional groups (comma separated) []: wheel,audio,video,storage,disks,optical,adm

uncomment %wheel from sudoers file

nano /etc/sudoers

# Uncomment to allow people in group wheel to run all commands
%wheel        ALL=(ALL) ALL

log out of root

exit

Graphical

Install a desktop environment

Gnome

sudo pacman -S gnome gnome-extra gdm

sudo nano /etc/rc.conf

add @gdm to DAEMONS=

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng @network @sshd @crond @netfs @hal @alsa @openntp @gdm)

Or..The simple way (no D.E.)

log in as user

setup ~/.xinitrc

nano .xinitrc

with the line

exec wmaker

startx

Bonus Section

Remove xterm and replace it with mrxvt (or your choice)

pacman -S mrxvt
pacman -R xterm
ln -s /usr/bin/mrxvt /usr/bin/xterm

If you want to use a broadcom wireless card

pacman -S b43-fwcutter
wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2
cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver
b43-fwcutter -w "/lib/firmware/" wl_apsta_mimo.o

nvidia graphics

pacman -S nvidia
nvidia-xconfig

OR keep it open source...

pacman -S xf86-video-nouveau