ArchLinux Notes Revision as of Friday, 10 March 2017 at 14:59 UTC

[TOC]

Notes from installing ArchLinux on VirtualBox to use as a development machine at work.

Installation

parted /dev/sda

# Make a GPT partition table
mklabel msdos

# Create 2GiB swap
mkpart primary linux-swap 1MiB 2GiB

# Use the rest for root
mkpart primary ext4 2GiB 100%

# Make root bootable
set 2 boot on

# Ctrl+D to quit

# Create swap
mkswap /dev/sda1
swapon /dev/sda1

# Create filesystem
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

# Mount
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

# Boostrap
pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel

# Generate fstab
genfstab -U /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab

# Switch to the new filesystem!
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Then do everything else the wiki asks you to do

Configuration

Time and Date

timedatectl set-timezone America/Chicago

Hostname

hostnamectl set-hostname nikhil.io

Add a normal user

Who will be able to sudo and do things and set a password

useradd -m -g wheel user
passwd user

Can always change the name of this user later with usermod. Then use visudo to enable the wheel group. You’ll see a lot of artifacts if you don’t set EDITOR first

EDITOR=vim visudo

Yoghurt

Edit /etc/pacman.conf and add this

[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch

Then,

pacman -Sy yaourt

Verbose Boot

Modify GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub

Framebuffer Resolution

Edit /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768x32

Then run grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg and reboot

Firewall

Adapted an old project
and things work as expected. Don’t forget to enable the service

systemctl enable iptables.service

Network

The pacman update will break networking due a
bug that may have been fixed in
systemd v228 (as of this writing). Oh well.
For the interface you see in ip link (will start with “en”)

systemctl enable dhcpcd@ens4.network

Then enable the appropriate service and restart the node

systemctl enable systemd-networkd
reboot

SSH

pacman -S openssh

Change default port in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and disable root login. Then
enable the “spawn on demand” ssh.socket service
and change the port to whatever you had earlier

# systemctl edit sshd.socket
[Socket]
ListenStream=12345

Enable the service and reboot to test if you can SSH

systemctl enable sshd.socket
reboot

VirtualBox Notes

VirtualBox Guest Additions

pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils \
          virtualbox-guest-modules \
          virtualbox-guest-dkms \
          linux-headers

This is without an LTS kernel since I couldn’t be bothered. After installation, enable the service

systemctl enable vboxservice.service

Edit /etc/modules-load.d/virtualbox.conf to add these

vboxguest
vboxsf
vboxvideo

“virtualbox kernel service is not running”

Here’s the issue. Happened after a system update. Fixed with

sudo pacman -Su linux-headers

Resizing

Can only do this with VDIs and not VMDKs. To convert a VMDK (on Windows)

cd C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox
VBoxManage.exe clonehd <path to VMDK> <path to VDI> --format vdi

Then can resize

VBoxManage.exe modifyhd <path to VDI> --resize 25600

That’s 25,000 megabytes (25 x 1,024). Now resize all snapshots with that same size!

VBoxManage.exe modifyhd <path to snapshot> --resize 25600

Then boot up VM. parted above version 2.4 doesn’t allow you to resize although its man page lists it as an option :/ I used GParted instead to fill the rest of the partition and was a happy person. fdisk works too.

X11

Installation

pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xfce4 xfce4-goodies

At this point, running startxfce4 should show you a desktop. Reboot.

Starting

cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc
echo -e "exec startxfce4" >> ~/.xinitrc

Modify ~/.xinitrc to remove all the xterm, xclock and exec lines and add this

exec startxfce4

Now, startx should work!

Install some extras

yaourt -S google-chrome numix-themes numix-circle-icon-theme-git ristretto evince2-light squeeze-git --noconfirm

Compiz (Maybe)

For Compiz,

yaourt -S compiz

To run compiz,

compiz --replace ccp

To get the Numix theme,

gsettings set org.gnome.metacity theme theme-name

Add that to “Session and Startup”. I had to kill it, not save the session, and log out. The default window manager is xfwm4.

The Trash Can

sudo pacman -S gvfs gamin

Sound

pacman -S alsa-firmware alsa-utils
alsactl init

Dock

Lots of options, but I like Docky and Plank. Went with Plank. To see preferences,

plank --preferences

Configuration is kept in ~/.config/plank.

NetworkManager

A bit ‘heavy’ compared to netctl but I was tired of fighting with the corporate network.

pacman -S networkmanager network-manager-applet xfce4-notifyd

Enable the service (else you’ll get D-Bus errors when you run nm-applet)

systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
systemctl start NetworkManager.service

Reboot and log back in. You’ll find the network manager in Applications -> Settings -> Network Connections

“AddScreen/ScreenInit failed for driver 0”

Add iomem=relaxed to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub. Then generate a new grub config and initramfs with

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Windows Fonts

From a Windows 7 system. Get them and rename so you can remove later if you’d like (for f in *; do mv $f "Win7-"$f; done)

@ECHO OFF
CLS
SET MYSHARE=%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\TTFONTS-ttf-win7-fonts
MKDIR "%MYSHARE%"
ECHO 1
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\arial.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\arial.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\arialbd.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\arialbd.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\ariali.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\ariali.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\arialbi.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\arialbi.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\comic.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\comic.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\comicbd.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\comicbd.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\cour.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\cour.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\courbd.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\courbd.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\couri.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\couri.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\courbi.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\courbi.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\gabriola.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\gabriola.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\georgia.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\georgia.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\georgiab.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\georgiab.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\georgiai.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\georgiai.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\georgiaz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\georgiaz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\impact.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\impact.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\times.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\times.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\timesbd.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\timesbd.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\timesi.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\timesi.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\timesbi.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\timesbi.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\trebuc.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\trebuc.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\trebucbd.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\trebucbd.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\trebucit.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\trebucit.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\trebucbi.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\trebucbi.ttf"
ECHO 25
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\verdana.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\verdana.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\verdanab.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\verdanab.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\verdanai.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\verdanai.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\verdanaz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\verdanaz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\webdings.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\webdings.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\wingding.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\wingding.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\sylfaen.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\sylfaen.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\symbol.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\symbol.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\calibri.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\calibri.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\calibril.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\calibril.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\calibrib.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\calibrib.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\calibrii.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\calibrii.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\calibrili.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\calibrili.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\calibriz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\calibriz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\cambria.ttc" "%MYSHARE%\cambria.ttc"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\cambriab.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\cambriab.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\cambriai.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\cambriai.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\cambriaz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\cambriaz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\candara.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\candara.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\candarab.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\candarab.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\candarai.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\candarai.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\candaraz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\candaraz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\consola.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\consola.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\consolab.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\consolab.ttf"
ECHO 49
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\consolai.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\consolai.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\consolaz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\consolaz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\constan.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\constan.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\constanb.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\constanb.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\constani.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\constani.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\constanz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\constanz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\corbel.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\corbel.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\corbelb.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\corbelb.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\corbeli.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\corbeli.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\corbelz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\corbelz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\lucon.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\lucon.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\ariblk.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\ariblk.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\l_10646.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\l_10646.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\micross.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\micross.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\pala.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\pala.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\palab.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\palab.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\palai.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\palai.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\palabi.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\palabi.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\tahoma.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\tahoma.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\tahomabd.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\tahomabd.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\framd.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\framd.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\framdit.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\framdit.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoepr.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoepr.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoeprb.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoeprb.ttf"
ECHO 73
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoesc.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoesc.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoescb.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoescb.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoeui.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoeui.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoeuib.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoeuib.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoeuii.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoeuii.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoeuil.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoeuil.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\segoeuiz.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\segoeuiz.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\seguisb.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\seguisb.ttf"
COPY "%WINDIR%\FONTS\seguisym.ttf" "%MYSHARE%\seguisym.ttf"
PAUSE

Other Stuff

Compacting VDI Images

You’ll need zerofree. It works on ext4 filesystems as well. Install it on the VM, then reboot with an Arch LiveCD. Mount the system some place (e.g. /mnt/vm) as read-only and zerofree it

mount -o ro /dev/sda2 /mnt/vm
zerofree /dev/sda2

Now shutdown the VM (and remove the LiveCD). On the VirtualBox host (mine was Windows)

cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox"
VBoxManage.exe modifyhd c:\path\to\thedisk.vdi --compact

Dropbox

Install both the dropbox and dropbox-cli packages with yaourt. Some useful commands

# Get to your folder
cd ~/Dropbox

# See the overall sync status
dropbox-cli status

# See file status
dropbox-cli filestatus

# Set a proxy
dropbox-cli proxy manual http jhproxy1.phibred.com 8080

CA Certificates

Copy certificates in PEM format and ending with a .pem extension to /etc/ssl/certs. Then, as root, run update-ca-trust.

Google Chrome didn’t seem to depend on the system store.

Emoji

Either install ttf-symbola or emojione-color-font

Adding Mirrors

reflector will fetch the latest mirrors based on some criteria you provide
it (e.g. I want HTTPS and IPv6 only.) You can do this
online as well.

/tmp size

This is set to a small, fixed size which is a good
thing. To install stuff, read the docs about
some way to set the temporary folder. For example, pyenv allows you to
export $TMPDIR before installation. I use /var/tmp

TMPDIR=/var/tmp pyenv install 3.5.1

However, this can be a little annoying. systemd is the one that creates this
mount (since I couldn’t find it in /etc/fstab… since I created it myself
with genfstab!) with this

/usr/lib/systemd/system/tmp.mount

One option would be to rename. A better one would be to simply mask it

systemctl mask tmp.mount

Setting /tmp to a fixed size is still good. But it seems to use half the
RAM; with my VPS box, this is untenable. Since I get tons of storage (and very
little memory), I resorted to creating a 5-10GiB partition just for /tmp.

Pacman and GPG Proxies

Corporate proxy blocked port 11371 (the default) that Pacman used to get
its keys. Had to modify /etc/pacman.d/gnupg/gpg.conf and modify the
keyserver to hkp://keyserver.kjsl.com:80