Arch Question


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I have been looking at Arch for awhile now, read up exactly what its hype is all about.

 

I want now to put this on my laptop. So I can run off the guide/tutorial and have a separate computer to do the installation.

 

I did install Arch before, but that was with this long guide that I found online. (can't remember the site)

 

Is this a good guide? http://lifehacker.com/5680453/build-a-killer-customized-arch-linux-installation-and-learn-all-about-linux-in-the-process

 

Have any other pointers?

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That article's two years old, Arch is pretty "fluid" and it's unlikely to be accurate anymore  -- hit the wiki's install instructions instead.. a good bit more involved than most distros, keep it up on another system during the install.. zero hand-holding during the process.   (And keep the wiki bookmarked for everything else too, they have good documentation.)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide

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I want now to put this on my laptop. So I can run off the guide/tutorial and have a separate computer to do the installation.

Alternatively, you could give it a trial run in a VM. That way you can access the host for browsing the wiki etc.

 

I did install Arch before, but that was with this long guide that I found online. (can't remember the site)

As Max said, the Wiki is the best documentation. I use it myself as a reference and it's very well written.

 

Have any other pointers?

I personally prefer the minimal/netboot installer. But the full image will work too.

Because you're going to be in a terminal for a while until you get it all set up, I'd suggest familiarising yourself with a few programs/tools like elinks, nano/vim, GNU screen (not necessary but useful for multiplexing), wpa_supplicant (if you're working with wireless only), pacman / yaourt, etc.

It's really not that difficult if you follow the wiki. Again, perhaps a trial run with in a VM might be in order if you're not wholly familiar with the terminal.

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What's the advantage of Arch Linux over Ubuntu or Mint or Slackware?

1. Being able to build a system from the ground up for your specific needs. Some other distros allow this too. Gentoo for instance.

2. The repositories and package manager. Yaourt is my personal favourite.

3. Rolling release.

4. Its clean design and elegance.

5. Great wiki documentation and forums.

Not that other distros don't share some of those characteristics, but I find Arch has just the right proportion of them in my opinion. Gentoo was my previous love before Arch. It's not quite as friendly as Arch though. Having to compile everything can lose its appeal eventually.

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Thanks, Max.

 

@Simplezz- I'm OK with terminal. I know how to use Nano. Pacman shouldn't be that hard after Apt. I might try it in VM first, though. ;)

 

Thanks for the pointers, guys. :)

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Not that other distros don't share some of those characteristics, but I find Arch has just the right proportion of them in my opinion. Gentoo was my previous love before Arch. It's not quite as friendly as Arch though. Having to compile everything can lose its appeal eventually.

 

Ditto that.  You get the hands on experience of building it from the ground up without "holy crap, it's been three days and it's still compiling?"  (Although you still got the option.)  Of course there's still a lot of work involved, but it's a lot faster to install and you get the exact setup that you're wanting versus the kitchen sink distros that are loaded with a bunch of stuff you'll probably never use anyway. 

 

Just make sure your important stuff is backed up.. mangling the first install probably isn't that uncommon, easy to miss a step somewhere.  Extra unfunny if you accidentally nuke another OS at the same time.  First few times thru I kept a tablet handy with the wiki up and followed along.

 

Also make sure to read over their news from time to time too.. doesn't happen too often but once in a while there's a curveball update that can seriously ruin your day if you don't know about it in advance.."I survived the SystemD changeover" t-shirt anyone?

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1. Being able to build a system from the ground up for your specific needs. Some other distros allow this too. Gentoo for instance.

2. The repositories and package manager. Yaourt is my personal favourite.

3. Rolling release.

4. Its clean design and elegance.

5. Great wiki documentation and forums.

Not that other distros don't share some of those characteristics, but I find Arch has just the right proportion of them in my opinion. Gentoo was my previous love before Arch. It's not quite as friendly as Arch though. Having to compile everything can lose its appeal eventually.

 

I guess it wouldn't hurt for me to try it out next time. The documentation seems to be pretty good. I've never tried yogurt before either.

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Also make sure to read over their news from time to time too.. doesn't happen too often but once in a while there's a curveball update that can seriously ruin your day if you don't know about it in advance.."I survived the SystemD changeover" t-shirt anyone?

I've experienced that a few of times :laugh:
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https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide

I'd consider myself pretty good navigating my way around Linux, but this is still the guide I use whenever I've installed Arch systems.

 

You know, you link the exact same thing as Max... :laugh:

 

But, anyway, I'll keep a close eye on it ;)

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its been a while since i have tried arch

 

last few times i have had issues with networking :(

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last few times i have had issues with networking :(

What issue in particular? Wifi can be a little more complicated to set up if that's what you're having trouble with.
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i could get networking fine throughout the install it was not until i booted into the actual system that it failed

 

i might try again tonight actually so will report back any issues :)

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i could get networking fine throughout the install it was not until i booted into the actual system that it failed

 

i might try again tonight actually so will report back any issues :)

You might need to install dhcpd and start the service:

$ pacman -S dhcp
$ systemctl enable dhcpd && systemctl start dhcpd
If there's no service file, you may have to create one:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dhcpd

Alternatively, something like wicd and wicd-curses will do the same thing.

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I couldn't find anything on this at Arch, so I was looking on another guide. For new user account (not root), they suggested:

Now it?s time to create a user for the system and also add some groups to it. So run the following command and replace ?mukt? with your user-name.

# useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/bash mukt

Then give the password for this new user (which in my case was mukt). When you run this command it will again ask you to enter new password:

# passwd mukt

Now we have to allow this use to do administrative jobs as sudo so let?s install sudo.

# pacman -S sudo

Once that is done, we will now allow the users in wheel group to be able to performance administrative tasks with sudo. Run the following command to edit the sudoers:

# EDITOR=nano visudo

It will open the sudoers file where you have to uncomment this line:

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

I will also recommend installing bash-completion so that Arch auto-complete commands of names of packages:

# pacman -S bash-completion

When I reboot the system and boot off my hard drive, I get the login, prompt, but my user I set it to "david" and password "david" it says that is incorrect

 

(everything else is installed as it should be except for X and DE, didn't get that far yet)

 

Edit: Though I can get into the root account fine.

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You might need to install dhcpd and start the service:

$ pacman -S dhcp
$ systemctl enable dhcpd && systemctl start dhcpd
If there's no service file, you may have to create one:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dhcpd

Alternatively, something like wicd and wicd-curses will do the same thing.

 

 

That's odd. Why would you want to run a DHCP daemon on a client machine?

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Yeah, that's the daemon. You don't need that if you're simply trying to get your router to assign you an IP address via DHCP.

Well it's one way of doing it if you want the system to automatically obtain an IP address for a wired connection. Pretty sure that's how the installation image does it.
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Well it's one way of doing it if you want the system to automatically obtain an IP address for a wired connection. Pretty sure that's how the installation image does it.

 

Ah, I missed the "c" in your followup post (dhcpcd).

 

(Y)

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I couldn't find anything on this at Arch, so I was looking on another guide. For new user account (not root), they suggested:

Now it?s time to create a user for the system and also add some groups to it. So run the following command and replace ?mukt? with your user-name.

# useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/bash mukt

Then give the password for this new user (which in my case was mukt). When you run this command it will again ask you to enter new password:

# passwd mukt

Now we have to allow this use to do administrative jobs as sudo so let?s install sudo.

# pacman -S sudo

Once that is done, we will now allow the users in wheel group to be able to performance administrative tasks with sudo. Run the following command to edit the sudoers:

# EDITOR=nano visudo

It will open the sudoers file where you have to uncomment this line:

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

I will also recommend installing bash-completion so that Arch auto-complete commands of names of packages:

# pacman -S bash-completion

When I reboot the system and boot off my hard drive, I get the login, prompt, but my user I set it to "david" and password "david" it says that is incorrect

 

(everything else is installed as it should be except for X and DE, didn't get that far yet)

 

Edit: Though I can get into the root account fine.

 

My question, please, guys?

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