arch 2015

I've installed Arch again, and it was a bit of a slog, making me realise I ought to have kept notes the last time I did it. Here's a bullet point list geared specifically for the hp probook I'm currently using. I had a false start with this install and had to start again and I was amazed how quick it goes when you know what you're doing! I reckon I could blast through another install in 20 mins or so (probably not including the actual download and install steps I have to wait for the computer to do).

 Steps I'm ignoring

- Partitioning: I assume I've set up LVM volumes beforehand
- Format partions and create filesystems (as above)
- Select Mirrors: the defaults work fine for me
- Configuring locale: en_GB.UTF-8 doesn't seem to work. leave it as the US map
- setting the hardware clock. I don't really understand this and won't do it until I know it's necessary
- fancy connection options. The laptop will connect to the wireless connection it knows on startup, that's good enough
- bootloader: I'm assuming arch is not my main distro (or at least not my only distro) and I can log into another and run sudo update-grub when the install is complete

Prep
- Burn latest arch iso
- Set up partitions/LVM vols/filesystems via os/live os
- Use tablet to access Arch wiki (or use lynx later)

Install base system

- Boot Arch from the live disc/usb
- loadkeys uk
- wifi-menu
- Select network and enter passcode
- ping -c 3 www.google.com to test connection
- lsblk and confirm / and /home paths
- mount  /dev/mapper/other_distros-arch /mnt
- mkdir /mnt/home
- mount /dev/mapper/other_distros-arch_home /mnt/home
- pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
- genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
- check the file with nano /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot into base system to configure

- arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
- uncomment en_US.UTF-8 in /etc/locale.gen and save
- locale-gen
- echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
- export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
- nano /etc/vconsole.conf
- Enter KEYMAP=uk to the blank file and save
- ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/GB /etc/localtime
- echo desired_hostname > /etc/hostname
- add the same hostname after localhost on the 2 lines in /etc/hosts
- pacman -S iw wpa_supplicant dialog wpa_actiond
- systemctl enable netctl-auto@interface_name.service
- Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and add lvm2 between block and filesystem in the uncommented HOOKs line
- mkinitcpio -p linux
- passwd and create the root password
- exit chroot environment with exit
- umount -R /mnt to unmount everything on /mnt
- reboot

Post install

- Boot the existing OS and run sudo update-grub
- Boot back into arch, create user:
# useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash [username]
- passwd [username]
- visudo
- uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
- Install xorg-server, xorg-xinit and a windows manager
- copy /etc/skel/.xinitrc to ~ and edit it for the wm
- install video drivers (e.g xf86-video-intel)
- install xf86-synaptics for touchpad
-