Installing Arch Linux

[McCordRm]

Rabbit's Awesome beginner's guide to:

Installing Arch Linux

Guide can be found here: http://www.richardmccord.com/linux

(Coming soon, along with Part II)

PART I

Let me start by making some points here. I'm not going to go into your specific BIOS options, dual-booting, or anything like that. This guide will wipe your harddrive clean. If you're experienced enough to get into the fine details of a dual-boot system, or manually configuring your network card, choosing your own filesystem and desktop environment or living in the command line... this guide probably isn't for you, anyhow. It's to help the folks curious about trying out Linux jump in feet first and be successful.

So,if you are not in the habit of backing up your system- important documents, photos, music files, video/movie files and Internet favorites/bookmarks- then you are asking for trouble. If you take nothing else from this guide, learn that right now is the perfect time to backup your system.

Secondly, this is a straight-forward, no-nonsense walkthrough of getting Arch Linux installed. I suggest you print it out right now. If you have access to another computer, Google is your bestest friend in the whole world if you have questions. I can't possibly cover every possible scenario. What I have done, however, is point out with -->[]<-- symbols issues that I came across and seem fairly common. When you see info in those brackets, pay attention just in case it pertains to you. Otherwise, feel free to ignore it.

Lastly, don't let the size of this guide scare you. There are a LOT of steps because I tried to get as specific as possible just in case you know very little about Linux. Also note that this is NOT for dial-up folks. You can still do the install, but it would take a long time on dial-up. And laptop users, you may need some extra help getting your network card initialized during setup. Refer to the official forums for walkthough of those commands.

By the time we're done, here's what will be installed:

(01) Arch Linux

(02) The X Window System

(03) The GDM login

(04) The Gnome desktop

(05) The Avant Windows Navigator dock system

(06) Internet Broswer: firefox

(07) Torrent program: rtorrent

(08) Fonts for Open Office: ttf-dejavu

(09) Fonts for Open Office: artwiz-fonts

(10) Fonts for Open Office: ttf-ms-fonts

(11) Office Suite: openoffice-base

(12) HTML Editor: bluefish

(13) Chat Program: pidgin

(14) Image Editor: gimp

(15) Image Viewer: feh

(16) Movie Player: mplayer

(17) Firefox extension: gecko-mediaplayer

(18) Music Player: ncmpcpp

(19) Email Program: thunderbird

(20) Eye Candy: compiz-decorator-gtk

Here we go.

001. Download the appropriate image for your system. I have a 64-bit system so I use the net install 64-bit image.

http://www.archlinux.org/download/

002. Burn image to CD or DVD.

003. Reboot to the CD/DVD.

004. Choose the first option: Boot Arch Linux

{At this point you'll see all the background loading going on. In brackets, you'll notice Busy and Done appearing. If at any point you see FAIL, you will want to start over. The first question to ask at this point is if your system is overclocked. You want your system running as stable as possible during the initial install so enter your BIOS and switch to your default settings until the install is completed. If that doesn't help, refer to the official forums for Arch Linux to seek assistance. If everything goes well and you see Done down the line you will find yourself at a command line.}

005. At the command line Type: root

006. Hit Enter

007. Type: /arch/setup

008. Hit ENTER

009. Choose: Select Source

010. Choose: Net.

011. Hit ENTER

012. Hit ENTER

013. "Setup Network" should be highlighted. Hit ENTER.

014. Hit ENTER

015. "Yes" should be highlighted. Hit ENTER.

016. "The network is configured" should pop up in a window. Hit ENTER.

017. "Choose Mirror" should be highlighted. Hit ENTER.

018. Hit ENTER.

019. Hit ENTER.

020. "Return to Main Menu" should be highlighted. Hit ENTER.

021. Choose: Set Clock.

022. Continue choosing options which fit your needs: Country, then closest major city to you.

023. Choose: Local Time.

024. You'll be given a small window with the current time. If it's correct, Choose: Ok. If it's not, Choose: NTP and then Choose: Ok.

025. Choose: Return to menu.

{We're going to take complete control here and prepare your system from scratch... I hope you backed up!}

026. Choose: Prepare hard drive(s).

027. Choose: Manually Partition hard drives.

028. Hit ENTER

{Linux refers to harddrives in the following manner: I have two Sata drives, my first one shows up as sda, and my second as sdb. If I had a third, it would be sdc.}

029. Select the hard drive you plan to use. On my system it's sda.

030. Hit ENTER.

031. You will be taken into a program called CFDISK. This is a hard drive partitioning utility to prepare your hard drive for Linux.

----->[

In the event that you get an error message at the bottom of your screen warning that a partition is using the end cylinder, or some such nonsense, then your current partitions are jacked up as far as Arch Linux is concerned. Fear not, you can fix this without the need for seperate tools. Simply follow these steps:

A. Return to the main menu and choose the first option: Automatically partition the drive.

B. Arch Linux will create it's "Default" setup partitions. Just go through the motions of using all the default options it gives.

C. When it's done, choose: Exit Installation.

D. At the command line type: reboot

E. Hit ENTER

F. Start over at Step 1.

It should be smooth sailing from there.

]<-----

{If you are using a brand new drive you should only see one line at the top which reads Free Space. Otherwise, your old partitions will show up. Linux refers to partitions by number. Since my drive is sda, my partitions show up as: sda1, sda2, etc. During this process it is imperative that you keep track of the name of the partitions you create. Grab something to write with and take notes where I tell you.}

032. You should have either multiple lines of partitions, or just one line which reads Free Space. At the bottom of your screen you will notice a menu which you can navigate with your left and right arrow keys. Use your up and down arrow keys to highlight the partitions. You will want to highlight each partition and select the Delete menu option. (You can't Delete the Free Space, so don't worry.) When all partitions are gone, you will have just one line left which reads Free Space. Now you can continue to step 33.

033. Free space should be highlighted. On the menu, Choose: New.

034. Choose: Primary.

035. It will ask you how much space to give it. Do NOT try to delete the numbers there with your backspace key or delete key. Make sure your NUM LOCK is on and Type: 150

036. Hit ENTER

037. Choose: Beginning

038. You should now show your first partition. In my case, it's sda1. Write down yours and put /boot next to it. We made this partition only 150 megs because it's sole purpose is to hold your /boot directory. As such, this partition doesn't need to be very large. It does, however, need to be bootable. Hightlight this partition and on your menu choose: Bootable. You should see Boot appear next to the partition in the Flags column.

{Next, we'll create our Swap file. Maybe you need one, maybe you don't. Here's my philosophy: it doesn't take up much hard drive space and it's better to have it but not use it than to have your system fail because it wasn't there the one time you did need it. A good rule of thumb for your Swap file is two times your RAM memory, but that's based on most people not having a lot. If you have at least 1gig of RAM just go with a 2gig swap file. Let's create that.}

039. Hightlight Free Space.

040. Choose: New.

041. Choose: Primary.

042. Type: 2000

043. Press ENTER

044. Choose: Beginning.

045. You should now show a second partition. Mine is sda2. Write down yours and put Swap next to it.

{The Swap partition has to be specifically designated as being used for Swap. That's what this next step is for.}

046. Make sure the Swap partition is highlighted and from the menu choose: Type

047. Type: 82

048. Hit ENTER.

049. We now have our Swap file.

{Next, we'll create our / directory. Yes, this directory is just a forward-slash.}

050. Hightlight Free Space.

051. Choose: New.

052. Choose: Primary.

053. Hit ENTER. (This will use the rest of your hard drive)

054. You should now show a third partition. Mine is sda3. Write down yours and put / next to it.

{Excellent. Now your hard drive should be devoted to your Linux install. It's just not permanent yet. To make it permanent, we have to write our setup to the harddrive.}

{It does not matter which partition is highlighted for this next part.}

055. Choose: Write.

056. Type: yes

057. Hit ENTER

058. Choose: Quit.

059. Choose: Done.

{We're back to the Menu screen. We created our partitions, but we did not tell the system how to use them. That's what the next section is for: choosing our Linux filesystem and assigning /mount points.}

060. Choose: Manually configure block devices, filesystems and mountpoints.

061. Choose: UUID {This should protect the mountpoints when the Linux kernel gets updated.)

{We only created three partitions. However, you may see more options on this menu. We will ONLY be assigning the partitions we created so ignore the rest. You have your note sheet, right?}

062. First, we'll set the /boot partition. Choose your boot partition in the menu- for me, it was sda1.

063. Choose: Yes.

064. Choose: ext4

065. Choose: /boot

066. Hit ENTER until you return to the menu.

067. Next, Choose your Swap partiton- for me, it was sda2.

068. Choose: Yes

069. Choose: ext4

070. Choose: Swap

071. Hit ENTER until you return to the menu.

072. Next comes /

073. Choose your / partition- for me, it was sda3.

074. Choose: Yes

075. Choose ext4

076. Choose / {It says Root next to it}

077. Hit ENTER until you return to the menu.

078. Choose Return to main menu.

079. Choose: Done.

080. Watch as your drive is partitioned. Choose: Ok when it's done.

081. Choose: Return to the main menu.

{Now we're going to install the initial drivers and utilities used by your system.}

082. Choose: Select Packages

083. "Base" should have an asterisk next to it. Choose: Ok.

084. Use your down arrow key to scroll down the long list of utilities until you find "pacman-mirrorlist".

085. When it's highlighted, hit your spacebar to select it. It should now have an asterisk by it.

086. Continue scrolling down until you find "sudo".

087. When it's hightlighted, hit your spacebar to select it. It should now have an asterisk by it.

088. Hit ENTER

089. Choose: Install packages.

090. Hit ENTER

{Waiting...waiting... this part takes a bit of time regardless of which mirror you choose to download from.}

091. When the downloads are done you will see "Continue" at the bottom of the screen. Hit ENTER.

{Now we start the Configure System section. You really have to pay attention here because you'll be dealing with actual system files. Like every other Linux distro, Arch Linux is pretty smart. But also like every Linux Distro, if you specifically tell it to do something wrong it will still do what you tell it. For that reason, if you don't need to make changes... don't. The defaults are pretty intuitive, overall.}

092. Choose: Configure system

093. Choose: Yes

094. Choose: nano

{The menu will list all the files you have access to. We need to open each and every one... even if we don't edit them. This forces the system to create the file, thus helping to prevent errors down the line.}

095. Hightlight rc.conf

096. Hit ENTER

097. Use the down arrow until you get to the line which reads: MODULES=()

098. Use the right arrow to move the cursor over the ) bracket symbol.

099. Type: fuse

100. The line should now looke like: MODULES=(fuse)

--->[

I have a Radeon video card. My system seems to work by adding "radeon" to my modules list. Therefore, my line looks like:

MODULES=(radeon fuse)

Your mileage may vary.

]<---

101. Use the down arrow until you see DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond).

102. Use the right arrow until the cursor covers the ) bracket symbol. Hit the space bar and then type: hal alsa gdm

103. The line should now look like this: DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond hal alsa gdm)

104. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

105. Choose: /etc/fstab

106. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

107. Choose: mkinitcpio.conf

108. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

109. Choose: /etc/modprobe.d

110. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

111. Choose: /etc/resolve.conf

112. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

113. Choose: /etc/hosts

114. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

115. Choose: /etc/hosts.deny

116. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

117. Choose: /etc/hosts.allow

118. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

119. Choose: /etc/locale.gen

120. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

121. Choose: /etc/pacman.conf

122. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

123. Choose: /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

124. Hit CTRL-O. Then hit ENTER. Then hit CTRL-X.

125. Choose: Root-Password

{At the bottom-left of your screen is a prompt. It's waiting for you to type your password. Note that you will not see anything while you type it- no asterisks, nothing. So type slowly, carefully, and make sure you can remember this password.}

126. Type your password.

127. Hit ENTER

128. Type it again.

129. Hit ENTER

130. Choose: Done

131. Choose: Install Bootloader.

132. Choose: Grub.

133. Hit ENTER.

134. Use the down arrow key until you find some variation of:

# (0) Arch Linux

title Arch Linux

root (hd0,0)

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/9859e1ce-af49-4e4d-9f57-9971368281df ro

initrd /kernel26.img

135. There will be two more that start with (1) and (2). Leave those alone! The only thing you're going to add here is the number 5 at the end of the kernal line. Like so:

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/9859e1ce-af49-4e4d-9f57-9971368281df ro

136. That section would now read:

# (0) Arch Linux

title Arch Linux

root (hd0,0)

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/9859e1ce-af49-4e4d-9f57-9971368281df ro 5

initrd /kernel26.img

137. Hit CTRL-O

138. Hit ENTER

139. Hit CTRL-X

140. Choose the option for your hard drive. If your partitions are sda1, sda2, sda2 then you will choose sda. (Look at your note sheet. The first three digits are what you're looking for here. So if your notes show hda1, hda2 and hda you would choose hda from this menu.

141. Hit Enter

142. Choose: Exit Install.

143. Hit ENTER

144. Remove the CDROM or DVD.

145. Type: reboot

146. Hit ENTER.

Congrats. Your shiny, new Arch Linux install is booting up. You'll find yourself at a command prompt when it's done loading. You can only log in at root at the moment so:

1. Type: root

2. Hit ENTER

3. Type the password you chose.

4. Hit ENTER.

Here's an extra bit to walk you through some important initial commands.

1. Type: pacman -Syy

2. Type: pacman -Syu

{Now we're going to create your account on this machine. Replace USERNAME with the name you want to go by. It must be all lowercase, no capital letters, and no spaces.}

3. Type: useradd -g users -G audio,floppy,network,optical,storage,video,wheel -m USERNAME

4. Hit ENTER

5. Type: passwrd USERNAME

6. Hit ENTER

7. Type your password

8. Hit ENTER

9. Type it again.

10. Hit ENTER

11. Now we need to give your account Root priviledge for installing software and so forth.

12. Type: export EDITOR=nano

13. Hit ENTER

14. Type: visudo

15. Hit ENTER

16. Arrow down until you see:

root ALL=(ALL) All

17. Under that line, add:

USERNAME ALL=(ALL) ALL

18. Hit CTRL-O

19. Hit ENTER

20. Hit CTRL-X

21. Time to do some installing! This extremely long line of data will install everything at once, so feel free to go take a nap, pop some popcorn and watch a movie, whatever. You won't have to sit there waiting for each thing to install to get the next one started.

{Before you being typing this all out, notice the last entry: xf86-video-ati. If you have an ATI video card, stick with that. If you have an nvidia card, change it to xf86-video-nvidia. And if you have an on-board Intel video chip change it to xf86-video-intel.}

22. Type:

pacman -S fuse hal alsa-utils gamin mesa xf86-input-mouse xf86-input-keyboard xf86-input-evdev linux-firmware xorg gnome gnome-extra gnome-system-tools gdm gksu avant-window-navigator awn-extras-applets firefox rtorrent ttf-dejavu artwiz-fonts ttf-ms-fonts openoffice-base bluefish pidgin gimp feh mplayer gecko-mediaplayer ncmpcpp thunderbird compiz-decorator-gtk xf86-video-ati

23. Hit ENTER

24. When it askes yes or no, just Type: y and Hit ENTER.

25. If you typed it all correctly, the download should begin. If you typed something wrong, you'll get an error message saying the package you mis-typed can't be found. Just hit your Up Arrow key to re-display what you typed and use the Left-Right Arrow keys to move to that section and fix it.

26. Remember to Hit ENTER once you've changed what was wrong.

27. Now go pop your popcorn. It's going to be a while.

28. Once it's (Finally!) done, Type: reboot

29. Hit ENTER.

Arch_Linux.txtFetching info...

[Farstrider]

Thanks! Something like this is always better because as with many "official guides" you get told "just do this", "just do that" and voil? everything works! Most of the time it does not, and it is good to see where other have stumbled and found ways around the problems. Cheers!

[McCordRm]

Well, in all fairness, my guide is pretty much "Do this, do that" including when to hit the "ENTER" key.

The difference is that I didn't fill it with a lot of needless bloat- like the history of Linux and such. If

you're looking for a guide to tell you HOW to do something, that is exactly what it should say.

I did add to it some pitfalls to lookout for that I ran across. One of which being a step in the official

guide that the guide didn't go into it... it just assumed you would know to do it. The benefit of the

guide, to me, is that it was written BY ME. Not to say I'm awesome, but to say that I wrote it as

I was installing, and I still pretty much being a Linux newb means that I assume nothing. Most

folks don't move into Arch until they're pretty comfortable with Linux. Therefore, when they

"give help" to others, they assume those others are either Linux experts and talk to them as such,

or decide you're an idiot and spend more time giving you an attitude than help.

When I get home, I'll see about getting it posted. Right now, I'm at work.

[sw1tch..]

I would like to see this guide :yes:

[Behemoth]

I would be interested in reading this guide as well. I've managed to get Arch installed previously, albeit on a desktop with an on-board video controller.

I may have missed it in your previous posts, but is this on a laptop or desktop? The only issue I have had with my laptop is installing the notorious bfwcutter driver for my Broadcom wireless chip.

Good luck. Sorry that you experienced the elitist subculture of the Linux users. I promise we're not all like that. ;)

[McCordRm]

No, sorry. I haven't had to deal with Wireless or laptops yet.

I don't add it to my guide unless I'm actually DOING it. I hate when folks read something someplace and

then treat it like gospel without verifying first.

It's coming shortly. I had a LONG work schedule. Right now I'm touching up some extra install stuff, then I'll be posting it.

[McCordRm]

Original post updated. File also attached for easy download/printing.

[pers3us]

I have query! I am a regular linux user (*mind you, just a user), and i have fair knowledge of whatever u wrote; tell me why on earth should i go for this distro?

I am not being sarcastic or anything but i really wanna know! What's the benefit of using Arch Linux over Ubuntu or Fedora!?

[SVG Veteran]

Thats a really nice guide. I've tried installing Arch a couple of times but always seemed to miss out on something or the other. Would love to try it again using this guide.

[Jen Smith]

  On 21/07/2010 at 14:34, pers3us said:

I have query! I am a regular linux user (*mind you, just a user), and i have fair knowledge of whatever u wrote; tell me why on earth should i go for this distro?

I am not being sarcastic or anything but i really wanna know! What's the benefit of using Arch Linux over Ubuntu or Fedora!?

Just my own opinion, I prefer it because you "build up", starting from scratch, instead of a kitchen-sink distro and "tearing down", if you get me. It's a rolling release distro, so no six-month upgrade cycles.. you're always current.. install it once and you're done. (Not always a good thing though, once in a long while there's breakage than can be a problem if you're not paying attention.. but this is fairly rare.) You get the exact setup you want, as once you're done installing, all you have is a barebones terminal. No desktop environment, no X server, nada; you build it up from the bottom. Has a system very similar to Gentoo's Portage if you're familiar with it, which is a plus for me. Their repository is very "pure"; the source is pretty much exactly as the developers made it upstream, no modifications typically. Canonical for example has some interesting additions to the various packages, but it's not always perfect.

On the downside though, it can be pretty intimidating if you're new to it. As I said, you'll be sitting at a terminal prompt once it's done installing. Their wiki is top notch though, and pretty simple to follow.. have it open on another system if its your first time. (Or install the console browser Lynx and use that in a different terminal session.) If anything, try it in a VM before you commit to an actual installation. It's really not that hard; install, install video drivers, install X, install an audio system, install your DE of choice, off you go.. but it can be messy the first time around. If you like to tinker, this is an awesome distribution; if you prefer to just "install and go", you're probably better off looking elsewhere.

Edit:I did forget to mention the Chakra Project, by the same team that does KDEMod. It's a live CD based on Arch and KDEMod, worth a look too.

[McCordRm]

Personal preference.

I'm sticking with learning it because it's a rolling distro, instead of a re-install every 6 months.

Also, because I'm learning it. Ubuntu and the like do everything for you, whereas this has been a HUGE learning experience for me.

Granted, I just wrote a step-by-step guide so that not everyone goes through what I did to get this up and running... but if you WANT to do it yourself and learn, then by all means ignore the guide and install from scratch on your own.

Speaking of which, my guide has folks installing a BUNCH of stuff in order to get the full desktop experience. But, it's MY stuff. Arch Linux on it's own doesn't install anything as you can see from the guide. You're free to install ONLY what you want instead of going with another distro that fills your system with bloat. I guess you could call the install for my guide My Distro. Don't let it put you off to Arch just because I like to install all that stuff.

[Jen Smith]

  On 21/07/2010 at 14:51, McCordRm said:

Also, because I'm learning it. Ubuntu and the like do everything for you, whereas this has been a HUGE learning experience for me.

This is another excellent point. If you're fairly new to the *Nix scene, this is another great reason to use Arch, as you're going to get a crash course into not only what to do, but why. It's very helpful to understand how the guts of the system works, so you can make intelligent decisions on changes or troubleshooting.

[Yorak]

As Jen Smith and McCordRm have already stated, the rolling release model works great for me. I like having all of my applications and services updated as soon as an update is available. Building the system up from a base installation is fun to me. Yes, indeed I am a geek. If I were to install Ubuntu or most other Linux distributions out there, I would feel it necessary to spend hours stripping down the system to get what I want, and nothing more. The idea of having full control of what is on my installation appeals to me. Often, I find that even after being an Arch user for a few months now, I come across more and more pieces of software that I am so glad my system did not pre-install for me. No, my computer is not ten years old and I am trying to squeeze everything out of it that is possible. My specs are slightly dated now, but I think they are still above average:

Phenom II x4 940 @ 3.0 (Stock)

8 GB DDR2 RAM (800 MHz)

ATI 4870x2 Graphics Card (Yes, I play some games on Linux - such as Aion)

640 GB Western Digital HD @ 7200 RPM

So please, do not use that argument with me (not aiming that towards you, pers3us - some other people like to make this argument). So to sum it up - I enjoy full control. My ex-girlfriend was correct, I am a controlling jerk. Yay!

[pers3us]

Thanks for all you replies!

I once had a bad experience with Gentoo and since then i have been scared. But i will try it again! :shifty:

Downloading Arch Linux ... ;)

[Jen Smith]

  On 21/07/2010 at 15:43, pers3us said:

I once had a bad experience with Gentoo and since then i have been scared. But i will try it again! :shifty:

Heh everybody's first time with Gentoo is typically a bad experience :D It's a great distro and all, but it's pretty high up on the difficulty level if you're unprepared for it. I'd say Arch is a healthy medium on difficulty; it's not going to hold your hand, but there's plenty of help available. Between the guide posted by the OP on the first page of this thread and the beginner's guide on the Arch wiki, you should be able to get through it pretty easily as long as you understand the basics, namely what's in your system, how your network is set up, etc etc. Again, if you're unsure, fire it up in a VM. Excellent way to try out various distros until you find the one for you.

Oh, and another reason I love Arch, it's init system/rc.conf, can't believe I forgot those. I so prefer the BSD style to the SysV style, and the single configuration of rc.conf is absurdly easy to manage. Again personal preference.

[Behemoth]

Nice job on the guide. (Y) I may finally make the jump this weekend on my laptop (even thought I'm dreading the wireless setup). Anyone with a how to for wireless on a Broadcom chip will be greatly appreciated. ;)

[Jen Smith]

  On 21/07/2010 at 22:37, Behemoth said:

Nice job on the guide. (Y) I may finally make the jump this weekend on my laptop (even thought I'm dreading the wireless setup). Anyone with a how to for wireless on a Broadcom chip will be greatly appreciated. ;)

Here's some lite reading for you. There's also a page specifically on Broadcom, depending on which one you're using.

[Behemoth]

  On 21/07/2010 at 22:42, Jen Smith said:

Here's some lite reading for you. There's also a page specifically on Broadcom, depending on which one you're using.

Thanks (Y). Although I've never found anything on the Arch wiki to be light reading. ;) Thanks for the help - I will definitely use the guide this weekend (if I get time to make the jump).

[BoneyardBrew Member]

Thanks a lot for the guide!

I'm seriously considering diving into Arch (I even have the iso downloaded) so this guide should be a great help.

Update:

I followed the guide and was able to successfully install Arch in a virtual machine! I think I'm ready to install it on my hard drive for real this time. :p

The first time around I had made a mistake, so I opted to just start over for the sake of familiarizing myself with the process further. I was able to complete about 95% of it by myself without looking at the guide the second time. :)

Thanks!

[simonlang]

respect! very detailed and long "how to".

after i was playing arround with mandriva and fedora, i now feel very tempted to ditch ubuntu again (after just one day :laugh: ) and give arch linux a try. :p

[McCordRm]

Thanks.

The biggie for me was putting "radeon" in the modules section. Arch down-right hates my system without that entry. Thus what started me on creating the guide.

Plus, like Boneyard discovered, having a helpful walk-through the first time leads to doing it on your own.

[simonlang]

@McCordRm

thanks to your guide i installed arch yesterday.

there are however some small mistakes in your guide:

  Quote

5. Type: passwrd USERNAME

has to be: passwd not passwrd

and

  Quote

14. Type: visudo

didnt work for me! it said unknown command or so.

[M4nB3arP1g]

  On 27/07/2010 at 11:34, mclaren2 said:

@McCordRm

thanks to your guide i installed arch yesterday.

there are however some small mistakes in your guide:

has to be: passwd not passwrd

and

didnt work for me! it said unknown command or so.

visudo should have worked unless you didn't have vi installed. I prefer to use nano instead to vi to edit files so you would type EDITOR=nano visudo.

More on sudo here: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide#Step_5:_Install_and_setup_Sudo_.28Optional.29

[McCordRm]

  On 27/07/2010 at 11:34, mclaren2 said:

@McCordRm

thanks to your guide i installed arch yesterday.

there are however some small mistakes in your guide:

has to be: passwd not passwrd

and

didnt work for me! it said unknown command or so.

Good catch, thanks. I'll get that fixed.

As for visudo not working... yea, that's odd. EVERY install I did it worked like a champ. I don't understand how your install missed that one.

[phend-one]

Thanks for your guide. I installed Arch yesterday. Some useful parts (got me out of some tricky spots).

I think you summarized the Arch Beginner's guide quite well. One thing I found was lacking about the great Arch documentation was post-install which you covered a little on (common programs). I hope this is the first of many guides for Arch users. I'm trying to figure out how to watch some common video formats and get music players running.

We want MOAR! :D