arch-install

notes

• git clone AUR packages to ~/aur-packages
• git clone other packages to ~/git-packages, or combine the two into ~/git-packages

pacman-arch-chroot

Some basics to get started during arch-chroot.

> pacman -S vim sudo efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools iw iwd networkmanager dhcpcd base-devel git curl wget make cmake gcc ufw neofetch htop nano

Additionally, if on WiFi: > pacman -S iwd iw

pacman-current-software

Mostly all the software I’ll need, excluding anything that depends on the desktop env - e.g., calcurse is my current calendar choice on i3, but on KDE I use the default.

> pacman -S code clang clang-tidy clang-format keychain speedtest-cli ttf-fira-code flameshot go golangci-lint firefox stress strace ntfs-3g discord thunderbird dos2unix ncdu shellcheck qalculate-gtk composer nmap nmon dnsutils man-pages jq zip unzip qalculate-gtk libcdio nomacs vlc ark dbeaver redis cloc neovim ranger highlight w3m

install-core

install/setup (WIP):

• > loadkeys uk
• > ping google.com
  • > pacman -S networkmanager
  • If on WiFi:
  • > iwctl
  • > [iwd] device list
  • > [iwd] station <device> scan
  • > [iwd] station <device> get-networks
  • > [iwd] station <device> connect <network>
• > timedatectl set-ntp true
• > timedatectl status
• > fdisk -l -> fdisk (create partitions as desired)
  • Create GPT partition table
  • 550M EFI partition
  • Swap partition
  • Storage partition (Linux filesystem)
• > mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
• > mkswap /dev/sda2
• > swapon /dev/sda2
• > mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
• > mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
• > pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware
• > genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
• > arch-chrott /mnt

Everything now on /dev/sda3 root

• > ln- -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London /etc/localtime
• > hwclock --systohc
• > pacman -S vim sudo
• vim /etc/locale.gen -> uncomment en_GB UTF8
• > locale-gen
• > vim /etc/hostname
• > vim /etc/hosts

# /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1	localhost
::1			localhost
127.0.1.1	<hostname>.localdomain	<hostname>

• > passwd
• > useradd -m <username>
• > passwd <username>
• > usermod -aG wheel,audio,video,optical <username>
• > pacman -S sudo
• > EDITOR=vim visudo
  • uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL) all
• > pacman -S efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools
• > mkdir /boot/EFI
• > mount /dev/sda1 /boot/EFI
• > grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --recheck

Install required network stuff to not have to arch-chroot again

• > pacman -S networkmanager dhcpcd
  • If on WiFi
  • > pacman -S iwd iw
• > systemctl enable NetworkManager
• > exit

Reboot

• > umount /mnt
  • If fails, try
  • > umount -f /mnt
  • > umount -l /mnt

Note that after installing the core and being set up, you may want to disable iw/iwd and only keep NetworkManager enabled.

I’ve read that you can use iw as the backend for NetworkManager, and it may be faster or something, but that’s for another day to look into.

install-configure-ntfs

• > sudo pacman -S ntfs-3g

To have sane permissions:

• Get your user’s uid and gid with cat /etc/passwd | grep <username>
• > sudo vim /etc/fstab
  • Edit the options of the selected drive to include uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0022
  • Replace 1000 with your uid/gid
  • 0022 represents chmod 755
• > umount /mnt-point your drive
• > sudo systemctl daemon-reload to use the new fstab
• > mount -a /dev/drive /mnt-point
  • Without the -a it doesn’t mount using the new options for some reason.

install-ly-display-manager

• download release or clone https://github.com/fairyglade/ly
• > make
• > sudo make run to test run
• > sudo make
• > sudo systemctl disable sddm disable existing display manager, such as sddm
• > sudo systemctl enable ly.service
• > sudo systemctl disable [email protected] to allow switching ttys and not show the ly login prompt on them

Some:

• uncomment the x_cmd_setup in /etc/ly/config.ini
• I needed to comment out my exec i3 command in ~/.xinitrc because opening links from Discord was broken, I assume ly does that itself and it conflicts? idk

install-de-wayland

TBD

https://archlinux.org/groups/

install-kde-x11

• > sudo pacman -S xorg plasma

WIP list, cherry-picking from kde-applications:

• dolphin
• konsole

install-i3wm-x11

• > sudo pacman -S xorg i3 dunst rofi hsetroot redshift picom brightnessctl rofi-greenclip pasystray pavucontrol calcurse ranger highlight w3m

AUR packages:

• https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/betterlockscreen
• https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/i3lock-color

Configs and references:

• https://github.com/addy-dclxvi/i3-starterpack
• https://github.com/adi1090x/rofi
• launch pasystray for audio tray icon

TUI file managing is done with ranger, with highlight and w3m for code syntax and HTML/image preview.

GTK/KDE themes

• Some programs like Thunar are themed based on the system thingy, and I have been using KDE before I installed i3.
• - On a fresh install, I just installed plasma and selected breeze, breeze-gtk, and systemsettings

Package Groups

basic-packages

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S git curl wget neofetch zip unzip vim nano openssh

sysadmin-packages

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S htop stress speedtest-cli ntfs-3g ufw

ryzen-hardware

install/setup:

• install https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/zenpower3-dkms
• lsmod | grep k10temp
• sudo modprobe -r k10temp if the above showed it was active
• sudo modprobe zenpower to load new driver

basic-media-packages

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S nomacs vlc mpv

extra-media-packages

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S libcdio

phone-media-packages

This is for accessing your phone’s files. You may or may not need everything from this and it’ll also depend on your file manager, e.g. Thunar

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S mtpfs gfvs-mtp

AUR packages:

• https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/jmtpfs

basic-dev-packages

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S dos2unix ncdu shellcheck ttf-fira-code neovim

VSCode/Code/Codium

install/setup:

• Pick your preferred package: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Visual_Studio_Code#Installation
• sudo pacman -S code

Add Microsoft marketplace to product.json

• /usr/lib/code/product.json

{
	"extensionsGallery": {
		"serviceUrl": "https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery",
		"cacheUrl": "https://vscode.blob.core.windows.net/gallery/index",
		"itemUrl": "https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items",
		"controlUrl": "",
		"recommendationsUrl": ""
	}
}

documentation/reference:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Visual_Studio_Code

SSH auto-completion

Arch for some reason doesn’t have autocmplete of SSH hosts from within ~/.ssh/config, but Ubuntu does.

Add the following to ~/.bashrc:

_ssh() 
{
    local cur prev opts
    COMPREPLY=()
    cur="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}"
    prev="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD-1]}"
    opts=$(grep '^Host' ~/.ssh/config ~/.ssh/config.d/* 2>/dev/null | grep -v '[?*]' | cut -d ' ' -f 2-)

    COMPREPLY=( $(compgen -W "$opts" -- ${cur}) )
    return 0
}
complete -F _ssh ssh

Reference:

• https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/181603

extra-dev-packages

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S nmap nmon dnsutils man-pages jq strace keychain cloc redis

cxx-dev

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S make cmake gcc clang clang-tidy clang-format

golang-dev

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S go golangci-lint

basic-gui-packages

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S firefox ark flameshot qalculate-gtk discord thunderbird

AUR packages:

• https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/slack-desktop

Flameshot multi-monitor

Edit Exec in /usr/share/applications/org.flameshot.Flameshot.desktop to:

Exec=env QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb flameshot

server-web-basic

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S nginx mariadb php php-fpm php7 php7-fpm
• sudo systemctl enable nginx
• sudo mariadb-install-db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql
• sudo systemctl enable mysql
• sudo mysql_secure_installation
• sudo systemctl enable php-fpm7

documentation/reference:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/MariaDB

server-web-dev

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S composer
• Get and run wget or curl command for NVM here
• nvm install --lts
• nvm install v16
• nvm use --lts

postgresql

TODO: Verify and add extra necessary steps

• > sudo pacman -S postgresql
• > sudo -iu postgres
• - > [postgres] initdb -D /var/lib/postgres/data
• - > [postgres] createuser --interactive
• - > [postgres] createdb myDatabaseName

pg_ugprade

initdb

• > initdb -D /var/lib/postgres/data --locale=en_US.UTF-8 --encoding=UTF8 --data-checksums

sudo rm -rd /var/lib/postgres/olddata

• > mv /var/lib/postgres/data /var/lib/postgres/olddata
• > mkdir /var/lib/postgres/data /var/lib/postgres/tmp
• > chown postgres:postgres /var/lib/postgres/data /var/lib/postgres/tmp
• > cd /var/lib/postgres/tmp
• > sudo -su postgres
• > [postgres] initdb -D /var/lib/postgres/data --locale=en_US.UTF-8 --encoding=UTF8 --data-checksums

Replace PG_VERSION` with old version:

• > [postgres] pg_upgrade -b /opt/pgsql-PG_VERSION/bin -B /usr/bin -d /var/lib/postgres/olddata -D /var/lib/postgres/data

server-gitlab

gitlab-runner

See the following:

• https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/install/linux-manually.html
• https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/executors/#i-am-not-sure

Config file: /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml

install/setup:

• > sudo pacman -S gitlab-runner

This will create the user “gitlab-runner”, etc., but I had some issues with running gitlab-runner start or systemctl start gitlab-runner, and re-creating the user worked.

• sudo useradd --comment 'gitlab-runner' --create-home gitlab-runner --shell /bin/bash

You’ll need to configure the runners and start them.

If you’re using the SSH runner, you’ll need to:

• create an SSH key for the linux user you’re using for it
• set the identity-file in the gitlab config.tml to point to the user
• potentially set disable_strict_host_key_checking = true - see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/-/issues/29084
• for some reason to use NVM I had to move the things install.sh cats into the ~/.bashrc into ~/.bash_profile before ~/.bashrc is laoded

Here’s an example /etc/gitlab-runner/config.tml

concurrent = 1
check_interval = 0
shutdown_timeout = 0

[session_server]
  session_timeout = 1800

[[runners]]
  name = "aterlux ssh runner"
  url = "https://gitlab.com/"
  id = redacted
  token = "redacted"
  token_obtained_at = 2023-03-26T01:49:03Z
  token_expires_at = 0001-01-01T00:00:00Z
  executor = "ssh"
  [runners.cache]
    MaxUploadedArchiveSize = 0
  [runners.ssh]
    user = "gitlab-runner"
    host = "public.ip.goes.here"
    port = "22"
    disable_strict_host_key_checking = true
    identity_file = "/home/gitlab-runner/.ssh/id_ed25519"

To unregister runners, do:

• > sudo gitlab-runner unregister --url https://gitlab.com --token token

To unregister runners that were removed via GitLab web UI:

• > sudo gitlab-runner verify --delete

memes

AUR packages:

• https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/activate-linux-git

uncategorised-packages

Remmina (Remote Desktop)

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S remmina
• sudo pacman -S libvncserver for VNC support
• sudo pacman -S spice-gtk for spice-gtk support
• sudo pacman -S freerdp for RDP support
• killall remmina to refresh or whatever to get the RDP support to pop up

documentation/reference:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Remmina
• https://gitlab.com/Remmina/Remmina
• https://www.umkc.edu/is/support/services/homecomputing/remotedesktop/linux/

Vinagre (Remote Desktop)

Not currently in use.

install/setup:

• sudo pacman -S vinagre

Issues

Discord not opening in browser

Make sure xdg-utils is installed. I already had it installed and everything worked, but Discord is shit and sometimes decides to break itself.

Check default web browser and handlers for URLs:

• > xdg-settings get default-web-browser
• > xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/http
• > xdg-mime query default scheme-handler/http
• > xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/https
• > xdg-mime query default scheme-handler/https

Set defaults:

• > xdg-mime default firefox.desktop x-scheme-handler/http
• > xdg-mime default firefox.desktop scheme-handler/http
• > xdg-mime default firefox.desktop x-scheme-handler/https
• > xdg-mime default firefox.desktop scheme-handler/https

DBeaver incompatible JVM

• Error: “Incompatible JVM. Version xxx of the JVM is not suitable for this product. Version: 11 or greater is required”

For some reason I ran into this after updating packages. Curse you Java.

This seemed to fix it:

• > sudo archlinux-java set java-11-openjdk

documentation/reference:

• https://forum.manjaro.org/t/dbeaver-does-not-start-on-launch-reference-to-arch-linux-issue/51868