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ArchLinux Notes

Useful packages

  • archey3 - say no more

  • i3/i3status/i3lock - personal preference, I like the window tiling

  • feh - image viewer

  • gnome-screenshot - basic screenshot (no gnome dependencies)

  • foxitreader - only use it for annotating pdf files, should use an alternative

  • screen - switch between terminal screens, like tabbing but better. Stop using haha.

  • bash-completion - attempts to complete bash commands!

  • pkgfile - attempts to find the command/package if Command not found - combine with the bashrc to be useful

Many more but sometimes I forget about these packages so I listed them here.

Miscellaneous:

Fonts

  • Arch Linux gives me so much pain with fonts - especially with your configuration changes due to 'something'.

  • User config is in ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf

  • System wide is elsewhere and is usually overwritten.

GTK

  • If you're using GTK themes for Chromium/Firefox for example, they have their own default fonts - you need to change below!.

  • You may have versions 2.0 and 3.0 installed, edit files:

    • /usr/share/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

    • /usr/share/gtk-3.0/settings.ini

GTK+ 2

# ~/.gtkrc-2.0

gtk-icon-theme-name = "Adwaita"
gtk-theme-name = "Adwaita"
gtk-font-name = "DejaVu Sans 11"

GTK+ 3

# $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gtk-3.0/settings.ini

[Settings]
gtk-icon-theme-name = Adwaita
gtk-theme-name = Adwaita
gtk-font-name = DejaVu Sans 11

Look out for

  • So it took me a while why Chromium didn't default to DejaVu Sans despite what I had set:

    • fontconfig matched the correct family names.

      • I later attempted to default to DejaVu Sans without font family matching, this caused monospace fonts to not render e.g. code blocks were in Sans font...

    • Chromium Settings had DejaVu Sans set by default.

  • Make sure to check if you're using a GTK or GNOME theme and what its font defaults are.

Installing on a VM

For VMware workstation, some has documented the steps well.

  • Change the boot options on the VM to EFI before booting Follow this guide - installing ArchLinux on VMware workstation

  • Pay close attention when making the partition types: Microsoft Basic Data and Linux Filesystem

  • Before executing pacstrap - remember to update your mirrorlist with a pacman mirrorlist generator

VMware Tools

Useful for input peripherals and having the screen resolution auto adjust.

Windows resizing

# install open-vm-tools and not the official tools
pacman -S open-vm-tools

# some reports necessary
pacman -S gtkmm3

# potentially others
pacman -S gtk2 gtkmm

# check status vmtoolsd is enabled and running
systemctl enable vmtoolsd
systemctl start vmtoolsd

Last resort

Edit the mkinitcpio.conf file:

/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
MODULES="vsock vmw_vsock_vmci_transport vmw_balloon vmw_vmci vmwgfx"

And then run:

mkinitcpio -p linux
reboot

Installation tips

  • A few issues I had when installing Arch Linux for the ASUS Zenbook UX303LB-C4028H

  • Sorry for those thinking this was an installation guide - I didn't doc my steps before when I had so many issues with the official guide.

Partitioning

  • When partitioning with fdisk -l

    • fdisk /dev/sda/

    • Don't include the number!

  • When partitioning with cfdisk

    • Pay attention to the partition types as well

  • When partitioning an EFI type, use:

    • mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdb1

Getting some GUI

Don't we all want this...

pacman -S xorg-server

# to use startx
pacman -S xorg-xinit

# if you have command not found errors
pacman -S xterm
pacman -S i3-wm i3status dmenu

# if you don't have any fonts installed - i3 might look weird
pacman -S ttf-dejavu

# start xorg server
startx /usr/bin/i3

Configuring X11

# if it doesn't exist
cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc

Autologin

  • Create a new service file similar to getty@.service by copying it to /etc/systemd/system/

    • cp /usr/lib/systemd/system/getty@.service /etc/systemd/system/autologin@.service

  • You will then have to symlink that autologin@.service to the getty service for the tty on which you want to autologin, for example for tty1:

    • ln -s /etc/systemd/system/autologin@.service /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/getty@tty1.service

  • Modify autologin@.service and reload daemon files, start service

ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin gcho300 --noclear -s %I 115200,38400,9600 $TERM
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start getty@tty1.service

  • Somewhere an argument isn't happy

  • Auto startx for tty1 in ~/.bash_profile

if [[ -z $DISPLAY ]] && [[ $(tty) = /dev/tty1 ]]; then
  exec startx /usr/bin/i3
fi

Hotkey issues for laptops

  • Install acpilight from AUR

  • Not all the steps, it you're using i3 as a WM, use its bindsym features to adjust sys/proc

    • Using i3, you can use their bindsym

  • Actually the latest updates seems to have fixed the brightness keys!!

  • xbacklight can be used to adjust them manually

Basics

sudo wifi-menu -o
# generate profile to /etc/netctl
# and hash the password

xrandr

Set the resolutions

xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1920x1080_60.00
xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1920x1080 --rate 60
# don't attempt to turn off a laptop screen...

dotfiles

  • /etc/bash.bashrc initializes variables for interactive shells only. It also runs scripts but (as its name implies) is Bash specific.

  • /etc/environment is used by the PAM-env module and is agnostic to login/non-login, interactive/non-interactive and also Bash/non-Bash, so scripting or glob expansion cannot be used. The file only accepts variable=value pairs.

.bash_profile

  • Bash is invoked as a login shell, it reads /etc/profile first, then others like .bash_profile, .bash_login

  • Now .bash_profile is useful for:

    • If you want specific programs to run at the login shell and not every time you run bash

    • Transient settings and aliases/functions which are not inherited are put in .bashrc so that they can be re-read by every new interactive shell.

    • Place env variables here, they will be inherited by child processes of fork() from the initial BASH

UNSW

netctl

  • Problems connecting to uniwide and eduroam with their auth methods - this is when I wished I still ran Linux Mint!

Description='UNSW WIFI Uniwide'
Interface=wlp2s0
Connection=wireless
Security=wpa-configsection
ESSID=uniwide
IP=dhcp
WPAConfigSection=(
  'ssid="uniwide"'
  'key_mgmt=WPA-EAP'
  'eap=PEAP'
  'pairwise=TKIP CCMP'
  'phase2="auth=MSCHAPV2"'
  'identity="z1234567"'
  'password="pass"'
  )
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