This is a quick post to remind myself of the stuff I do when re-installing Arch.
Installation
Set keyboard layout
loadkeys uk
Update the system clock
timedatectl set-ntp true
Partition, format and mount disks to /mnt
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 mount /dev/sda1 /mnt mkswap /dev/sda2 swapon /dev/sda2
Rearrange package manager mirrors by fastest
cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.backup rankmirrors -n 6 /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.backup > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
Install base system
pacstrap /mnt base
Configure file-system table
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
Change root into /mnt:
arch-chroot /mnt
Set the time zone
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London /etc/localtime; hwclock --systohc
Generate locale files, uncomment en_GB-UTF8 from /etc/locale.gen and run locale-gen.
Set the LANG variable:
/etc/locale.conf LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
Set the keyboard layout:
/etc/vconsole.conf KEYMAP=gb
Network configuration (dynamic IP address)
/etc/hostname lynxworks /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 localhost ::1 localhost 127.0.0.1 lynxworks.localdomain lynxworks
Enable the service
systemctl enable dhcpcd.service
Configure Grub as the bootloader on MBR
pacman -Sy grub grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Set the root password using passwd, exit arch-chroot and reboot.
Configuration
Add a user as part of the wheel group:
useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/bash dougie passwd dougie pacman -Sy sudo visudo
Un-comment the line %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL and enter :wq to save and quit.
Install MATE and enable the GDM service.
sudo pacman -Sy xorg-server xorg-xinit xf86-input-keyboard xorg-xkbcomp mate mate-extra gdm systemctl enable gdm.service
Change the monospace font in Mate to Noto Sans Monospace, otherwise the terminal is displayed incorrectly.
Enable Arch User Repository
pacman -Sy base-devel git
Keep a hidden folder and git clone the relevant package from AUR, for example caja-dropbox:
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/caja-dropbox.git makepkg -si
