Laptop setup with arch

Posted on Wed 17 September 2014 in posts

  • configure internet connection
  • set up partitions
  • create filesystems (ext4 ...)

Mount partitions:

(mount root) mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
(mount home) mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/home
  • select a mirror from /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Install base and base-develop

 pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel

Generate fstab

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

Chroot into new arch environment

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Set locale

/etc/locale.gen
---------------
#en_SG ISO-8859-1
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 (uncomment this line)
#en_US ISO-8859-1

Set keymap

/etc/vconsole.conf
------------------
KEYMAP=dvorak

Set timezone by symlinking zoneinfo to localtime

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Mountain /etc/localtime

Set hardware clock mode

hwclock --systohc --utc

Set hostname

echo myhostname > /etc/hostname


# vim /etc/hosts
#
# /etc/hosts: static lookup table for host names
#

#<ip-address>   <hostname.domain.org>   <hostname>
127.0.0.1   localhost.localdomain   localhost   *myhostname*
::1     localhost.localdomain   localhost

# End of file

Setup network

#use ip link to get interface name
ip link
# connect to wireless
wifi-menu wlp3s0

Set root password

passwd

Install syslinux

pacman -S syslinux
syslinux-install_update -iam

# configure /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
# change /dev/sda3 to reflect root partition (sda1 most likely)
LABEL arch
    ...
    APPEND root=/dev/sda1 rw
    ...
LABEL archfallback
    ...
    APPEND root=/dev/sda1 rw

Exit chroot

exit

Reboot

reboot

Login as root

Configure network to autoconnect

#set to connect to networks automatically
systemctl enable netctl-auto@wlp3s0.service

Create new user

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash archie
#add to additional groups
usermod -aG vboxusers,vboxsf ma

Setup sudo

Install zsh

Install necessary video drivers

xf86-video-intel

Install xorg-server and xorg-xinit

Install rxvt-unicode and i3

At this point…. Install git.. Pull down dotfile repo.

Install xf86-input-synaptics (for trackpad)

sudo pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics

Install cower

mkdir ~/builds
cd ~/builds
curl -L -O https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/co/cower/cower.tar.gz
tar -xvf cower.tar.gz
cd cower
makepkg -s
sudo pacman -U cower-*.pkg.tar.xz

Install dropbox

cowerd -d dropbox

Install google-chrome

cowerd -d google-chrome

install keepassx, alsa-utils copy keepassx config (set's autohotkey + timeouts)

install vundle and vim plugins

git clone https://github.com/gmarik/Vundle.vim.git ~/.vim/bundle/Vundle.vim
vim +PluginInstall +qall

# for vim instant markdown
gem install pygments.rb
sudo pacman -S nodejs
gem install redcarpet
npm -g install instant-markdown-d

remap caps lock to control

sudo pacman -S xorg-xmodmap

install virtual env wrapper

sudo pacman -S python-virtualenvwrapper

install mosh

sudo pacman -S mosh

create ssh key

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "email"

copy ssh key to clipboard for paste into github

xclip -sel clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub