Arch Handbook

Notice

This handbook has only just been started. It's currently a rather bare outline. Please edit it and make it better! Look at the FreeBSD Handbook as a style guide.

Most sections should be a summary, with a link to the main article on the subject.

Getting Started

Introduction

Arch linux is a lightweight and flexible linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple. There are official packages optimized for the i686 and x86-64 architectures. There is also a community-operated package repository. See the pages in this category

Installing Arch Linux

There are two types of install CD. The CORE CD holds the packages required to get a basic system running. The FTP CD pulls the latest packages from the repositories during the install. Both CDs have NCURSES installers. There are the following steps:

1. Loading a non-US Keymap
2. Running Setup
3. Configure Network (FTP Install only)
4. Prepare Hard Drive
   1. Auto-Prepare
   2. Partition Hard Drives
   3. Set Filesystem Mountpoints
5. Select Packages
6. Install Packages
7. Configure System
8. Install Kernel
9. Install Bootloader
10. Exit Install

The full install guide is here and the install CDs are available here.

Linux Basics

A few basics on the file system and command line, for people starting Unix/Linux with Arch.

Installing Software: Pacman

Some basics on Pacman options, how repositories work, etc.

Pacman is the Archlinux package management tool. It is a command line tool which provides an easy way to install and manage applications, libraries and other software. It is extremely easy to use and powerful, and will be one of the main administrative tools you will use while running Archlinux. The main operations are

pacman -S app # install package named app
pacman -Syu # update package database and upgrade any packages
pacman -R app # remove package name app

To get a full list of operations pacman can perform, open a terminal and type:

pacman --help

To get more detail on an operation, combine it with --help:

pacman --help -S

Or, for a more in-depth guide, consult the man page:

man pacman

See the wiki entry for pacman for a user-friendly guide.

X11 and Graphical Desktop Environments

Basics of X11 concepts, installation and configuration of Gnome, KDE, etc.

Common Tasks

Desktop Applications

Web browsers, office suites, etc.

Multimedia

Video players, music jukeboxes, photo management, how to get codecs.

Printing

CUPS installation and configuration, finding drivers.

System Administration

Configuration and Tuning

Details on some common configuration (init, cron).

Users and Basic Account Management

Creating and managing users with command-line utilities.

Networking

Network Configuration

How networks are set up in Arch.

Servers

Mail, web, SSH server installation and configuration.

Firewalls

Basic firewall concepts, how to use iptables.