Installing Linux Debian, Arch

For some unfathomable reason, I have to use laptop with OS Win8. Everything breaks and life becomes even harder. I have to use a virtual OS over Win8 on very restricted hardware as 4G RAM in total and low-voltage CPU. I tried to install Ubuntu 14.10 but it seems requiring too much. So I choose to install Debian or Arch instead.

So far, I setup dual boot of win7 and Arch Linux on another laptop. I think Arch is really great with its pacman and its wiki.

Debian Linux

Although it is not declared as light-weight, I’ve heard Debian for a long time and decide to have a try. Because of the hardware not competent to run gnome3, I just install the basic Debian system first, and install xfce4 later.

In order to have easy authorization management, let’s first install sudo:

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apt-get install sudo

And then make our own account as sudoer by adding it into the sudo group:

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usermod -a -G sudo your_account

In order to show Chinese fonts:

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sudo apt-get install ttf-wqy-microhei ttf-wqy-zenhei xfonts-wqy

And now, we can install the x window xfce4:

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sudo apt-get install x-window-system
sudo apt-get install xfce4
# installing the theme
# sudo apt-get install xfce4-theme

# installing desktop manager
# sudo apt-get install xdm

And you can start X with:

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startx

Now, you can use the x-window. Sometimes, you need to install software from the testing environment or unstable environment. In that case, you may need to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file or add a new file with the “.list” extension to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. Following is an example to add the backports to the sources.list file in Debian 7:

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deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main
# deb mirror.url/debian testing main
# deb mirror.url/debian unstable main

From http://backports.debian.org/Mirrors. All backports are deactivated by default, to install something from it:

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apt-get -t wheezy-backports install "package"
aptitude -t wheezy-backports install "package"

So far, it’s the very basic using guide and configuration for Debian.

Arch Linux

In this part, I will show the way I followed to setup the dual booting of win7 and Arch Linux, with laptop already installed the Win7.

First of all, I shrink the disk space occupied by win7 and use GParted to reformat the remaining disk space for Arch Linux. And I only created one ex4 for /, one swap and one vfat for sharing files between win7 and arch.

Then, boot up from the installation media, and choose Boot Arch Linux.

After booting, check the internet connection with

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ping -c 3 www.google.com

If it fails with Network is unreachable, try following:

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ip link
dhcpcd ???{current device name}

Then we will create the disk partitions ( Since I have already created disk partitions with GParted, this step is no longer necessary here. ):

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fdisk -l # list the drivers and partitions
cgdisk /dev/sda # create partitions on /dev/sda
cfdisk /dev/sda # another tool for partition

For cgdisk, the Hex code 8300 is for Linux Filesystem, and 8200 is for swap.

I choose first partition with 512M for boot, and second one with 30G and 8300 Hex code for /, and third one with 4G and 8200 Hex code for swap, and remaining disk space with 8300 Hex code for /home.

After that, format these partitions with:

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mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4
mkswap /dev/sda3
swapon /dev/sda3

Notice: even with GParted, the above command swapon /dev/sdax is still necessary to plug swap on.

And mount them:

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mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
mkdir -p /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/home

Adjusting mirrorlist:

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nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Here is a list of nano shortcuts:

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Alt + 6 # copy line
Ctrl + K # cut line
Ctrl + U # paste line
Ctrl + W # search word
Ctrl + O # save
Ctrl + X # exit

or, you can rank mirrorlist automatically:

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cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.backup
rankmirrors -n 50 /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.backup > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

After that, install the base system:

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pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel

And generate fastab:

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genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Run chroot check in to the newly installed system

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arch-chroot /mnt
passwd # set the root password

Some configurations:

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echo arch > /etc/hostname
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Shanghai /etc/localtime
pacman -S ntp
... # edit ntp.conf
systemctl enable ntpd.service
date
nano /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
hwclock --systohc --utc

ip link # to list the interfacenames
system enable dhcpcd@interfacename.service

And for UEFI:

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pacman -S grub efibootmgr
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

and old one:

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mkinitcpio -p linux # create initial ramdisk environment
pacman -S gptfdisk # install and set syslinux
pacman -S syslinux
syslinux-install_update -i -a -m
nano /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg

Replace the line APPEND root=/dev/sda3 rw with APPEND root=/dev/sda1 rw.

After that, we will need to install grub to make the dual booting.

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pacman -S grub
grub-install --recheck /dev/sda

Notice: do not use sdax.

Then,

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pacman -S os-prober
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

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exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot

At this point, we have installed the Arch Linux with Win7. Now let’s add a new user account:

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useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash newUser

Enjoy Arch Linux.

In the version of Arch Linux I installed, it uses systemctl for system and service management, it’s great. But at the same time, I found that most online tutorial is out of date, which does not cover systemctl at all. While the ArchWiki is really marvelous, as it is always updated. You can find solutions for most problems you meet at ArchWiki.

Install yaourt & packer

edit /etc/pacman.conf by appending:

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[multilib]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll 
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch

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pacman -Syy
pacman -S yaourt customizepkg rsync
yaourt packer

Sound, X, Login screen and window manager

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yaourt -S alsa-utils
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-utils xorg-server-utils
pacman -S xorg-twm xorg-xclock xterm
yaourt -S slim slim-themes archlinux-themes-slim
yaourt -S awesome rlwrap vicious dex feh xscreensaver
systemctl enable slim.service

/etc/slim.conf and xinitrc

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useradd -m -G users,audio,lp,optical,storage,video,wheel,power -s /bin/bash username