My Arch Linux Installation Notes

Just some notes for installing Arch Linux.

see the Arch Linux Install Guide wiki for way better information.

Formatting HD:

fdisk /dev/sdx
o
n
p
1 # create partition 1
t
83 # Linux fs type
n
p
2
t
82 # swap type
a
1 # make partition 1 bootable (forgot to set on home PC)
w # write and exit

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx1 mkswp /dev/sdx2 swapon /dev/sdx2 There is such a thing as a swapfile! use this for macbook to avoid creating additional partitions.

zsh config: cp .zshrc to /mnt/root/ I kind of like zsh, but it needs heavy modification to be usable. (Recently found oh-my-zsh, love it!)

pacman -S xorg-server
pacman -S xfce4

some weird issues. Nothing major, just super annoying.

x11’s startx config “requires” xterm. This was not evident when attempting to startx with a full console window. Once executed in a window with some room, the messages sprawled across the screen. Installed xterm and later found that I could remove it form the .xinitrc

.xinitrc (and/or /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ) Adjust to:

#twm &
#xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 &
#xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 &
#xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 &
#exec xterm -geometry 80x66+0+0 -name login

exec startkde or exec startxfce4 etc.

.profile or .zprofile add or #remove:

exec startx

systemd (is pretty awesome)

follows the sshd log, change -u for different log types

$ journalctl -fu sshd

Lists all of the units on the system:

$ systemctl list-unit-files --all

$ journalctl -f --no-hostname -u sshd -u kernel

$ systemctl list-unit-files --all |grep enabled

autovt@.service                                                        enabled
dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service                            enabled
dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service                             enabled
dhcpcd.service                                                         enabled
getty@.service                                                         enabled
NetworkManager-dispatcher.service                                      enabled
NetworkManager.service                                                 enabled
sav-protect.service                                                    enabled
sshd.service                                                           enabled
remote-fs.target                                                       enabled

$ journalctl -f --no-hostname -u autovt@.service -u dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service -u

dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service                             enabled
dhcpcd.service                                                         enabled
getty@.service                                                         enabled
NetworkManager-dispatcher.service                                      enabled
NetworkManager.service                                                 enabled
sav-protect.service                                                    enabled
sshd.service                                                           enabled
remote-fs.target

Trying to install Dropbox on Arch (without using aur…)

Installing dropbox on Arch Linux using systemctl –user so that dropbox can be installed without using aur. It starts and runs fine, however the service was not starting at boot, still debugging.

Macbook install Notes

Mount the EFI partition as /boot