How to create a Arch linux system

2018-07-07

---

Introduction

After the LFS system was functional I did many tests to build a X11 and desktop environment (DE) to add functionality to the LFS system. By end of month I ended pursuit of this, as I found far too many packages required to run X11, let alone a DE or user programs. At some point you will forget what packages you downloaded and lose control of the software dependencies. Any small glitch will make your system unstable and will be time consuming to fix. I decided to go forward with Arch Linux. This distribution has a LFS feel to it and is designed to allow user to maintain control of all software the OS is running, and has a pacakage manager "pacman" to install, remove and update. Pacman uses signing verification for all package databases. I found pacman to be simple to use and effective. I was able to test many DE included gnome3, cinnamon, budgie, lxde, and more.

For further information: Arch Linux - Wikipedia.

This project is a procedural to show steps I used to create an Arch Linux system. This system will manually boot into DE using xinit. This is my preference as it provides greater control of the DE. I will be using the grub boot loader. It assumes you already have a bootable iso image USB card. It is based on the Arch Linux instructions: Arch Linux Installation.

Also, the Arch Linux Recommendations is helpful: Arch Linux Recommendations.

Procedure

1. Using US keyboard which is Arch default.

2. Check that you have an internet connection.

• ping ltimas.com

3. Update system clock, if you want to synchronize with network time.

• timedatectl set-ntp true

To check:

• timedatectl status

4. Set-up partitions as desired using fdisk.

• Use mkfs to format drives

mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

**** For boot partition, size 250 MB is sufficient****

mkswap /dev/sda2

**** For swap partition size as large as the onboard RAM****

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

**** For root partition, to be safe keep minimum size 20 GB ****

5. Make directories and mount drives.

• Make boot directory

mkdir /mnt/boot

• Mount boot:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

• Mount swap:

swapon /dev/sda2

• Mount root:

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt

6. Install base package.

• pacstrap /mnt base

7. Create a fstab file.

• genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

8. Chroot into the new system.

• arch-chroot /mnt

9. Set time zone.

• ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/region/city /etc/localtime
• hwclock --systohc

10. Set up langauge localization.

• Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF8 in config file /etc/locale.gen

then create config file..

• /etc/locale.conf

then add following line ..

• LANG=en_US.UTF-8

**** NOTE: do not set-up a keyboard, use default ****

11. Set up networking.

• Modify config file /etc/hostname, and add hostname in first line

hostname

• Modify config file /etc/hosts, and add following lines

127.0.0.1 localhost

::1

127.0.1.1 hostname

12. Set up root passwd.

• passwd

13. Install and configure grub.

• pacman -S grub
• grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda
• grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

14. Exit and reboot.

15. Create new user.

• useradd -m -s /usr/bin/bash user
• groupadd user
• su user
• passwd
• shutdown -r now

**** NOTE: Reboot and make sure new user can log in.****

16. Install additional utilities using pacman.

• sudo

**** NOTE: You must configure sudo to give users access.****

• rsync
• openssh

17. Install graphics card driver, and then Xorg suite.

• lspci | grep -e VGA -3D
• pacman -S xf86-video-XXXX
• pacman -S xorg

18. Install additional Xorg applications.

• xorg-xinit
• xterm
• xorg-xclock
• lxterminal

19. Verify .xinitrc configuration file.

• Make sure user has a .xinitrc user file, copy one from root if not in user home dir.
• Verify that the X11 programs are executable
• Test X11 by issuing command "startx".

20. Install cinnamon DE.

• pacman -S cinnamon
• Open .xinitrc and modify:

comment out all X11 executables...

add line ".exec cinnamon-session".

• Test cinnamon by issuing command "startx".

21. Install maria database (Arch does not use Oracle-Mysql due to commercial concerns).

• pacman -S mariadb
• mysql_install_db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr --datadir=/mysql
• Set password:

cd /usr

cd /usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root password enterpassword

• Test database by:

cd /usr

/usr/bin/mysqld_safe

mysql -u root -p

now test database

• Test database by restarting and testing :

sudo systemctl status mariadb

sudo systemctl stop mariadb

sudo systemctl start mariadb

mysql -u root -p

now test database

22. Install additional optional software.

• dbeaver - GUI for mariadb
• gnucash - accounting software
• libreoffice - office suite
• firefox - web browser
• thunderbird - email manager
• libreoffice - office suite
• evince - pdf viewer
• eog - graphic viewer
• gimp - bitmap graphic manipulator
• imagemagick - displaying, converting, and editing raster image and vector image files.
• nfsutils - network drives
• gnuplot - command line program to generate charts
• cronie - time based job schedulers