Weeks ago i've switched from Ubuntu to Arch Linux. Why? I don't want to depend from some commercialized way of Ubuntu, also close to me Arch principles "... elegance, code correctness, minimalism, and simplicity ..." (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Linux and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle). Why not gentoo? ha,ha, it is to hardcore for me. Arch has a very useful wiki. You could start from this guide.
Let's try to install Arch with Awesome window manager.
WARN: Please try it on Virtual machine first.
Installing base system
1. Create bootable USB (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_Installation_Media)
wget http://mirror.yandex.ru/archlinux/iso/2013.06.01/archlinux-2013.06.01-dual.iso
dd bs=4M if=archlinux-2013.06.01-dual.iso of=/dev/sdx
2. Boot from this stick. It prompts you into root console.
3. Partitioning with LVM.
Use "lsblk" to find target block device (i.e. /dev/sda). I prefer fdisk for partitioning. Command below will create two partitions (200M and all remain space).echo -e "o\nn\n\n\n\n+200M\nn\n\n\n\n\nw\n"|fdisk /dev/sda
mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1
pvcreate /dev/sda2
vgcreate vgroot /dev/sda2
lvcreate -n root -L 10G vgroot
lvcreate -n swap -L 1G vgroot
lvcreate -n home -L 5G vgroot
mkfs.ext4 /dev/vgroot/root
mkfs.ext4 /dev/vgroot/home
mkswap /dev/vgroot/swap
mount /dev/vgroot/root /mnt
mkdir /mnt/{boot,home}
mount /dev/vgroot/home /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/vgroot/swap
4. Connect to the Internet.
By default DHCP service is enabled, but if you need some other network settings (i.e. static or wireless) read this. To check Internet:ping -c 3 www.google.com
5. Install base system.
Enable preferred mirror in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist andpacstrap /mnt base base-devel
6. Configure system.
genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstabarch-chroot /mnt
echo "myhostname" > /etc/hostname
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Moscow /etc/localtime
sed -i -e 's/#ru_RU.UTF-8/ru_RU.UTF-8/' -e 's/#en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/' /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
echo 'LANG="en_US.UTF-8"' > /etc/locale.conf
Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. Add "lvm2" hook between "block" and "filesystems".
...
HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block lvm2 filesystems keyboard fsck"
...
mkinitcpio -p linux
Set root password with "passwd" and create regular user:
useradd -m -s /bin/bash user1
passwd user1
Enable DHCP service:
systemctl enable dhcpcd.service
7. Installing GRUB.
See also https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUBgrub-install --recheck /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
8. Umount and reboot
exitumount /mnt/{boot,home,}
Installing Awesome wm
This is cool tiling window manager. Official page http://awesome.naquadah.org/.
Execute commands below from root.
1. Install video driver.
Detailed instruction here.
pacman -S xf86-video-vesa
For nvidia "xf86-video-nv", ATI "xf86-video-ati"
2. Install X server, awesome wm and slim dm.
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-server-utils xorg-xinit xterm awesome slim
systemctl enable slim.service
3. Configure xinitrc.
su - user1
echo "exec awesome" > .xinitrc
mkdir -p .config/awesome
cp /etc/xdg/awesome/rc.lua .config/awesome/
reboot
reboot
4. Using awesome.
For advanced usage should read official wiki
Keys:
win+{1, 2, 3,.., left, right} - switch between tags (like screens in gnome)
win+r - execute command (i.e. "firefox")
win+enter - open terminal
win+{j, k} - switch between windows
win+tab - switch to prev. window
win+w - open awesome menu
rc.lua:
In internet a lot of info about customizing rc.lua. Here is only simple example. This will set capslock key to switch keyboard layout.
echo 'awful.util.spawn_with_shell("setxkbmap -layout 'us,ru' -option 'grp:caps_toggle,grp_led:scroll'")' >> .config/awesome/rc.lua
Check syntax:
awesome -k .config/awesome/rc.lua
Then type "ctrl+win+r" to restart awesome.
Now you are free to install necessary software with "pacman", customize awesome with "rc.lua", etc. ,etc. ,etc.
