No Way Know How

I was sure I wrote this stuff down the first time I fumbled through an arch uefi install. Guess not. Since this is going to be the process I use in whatever new laptop I end up getting, I thought I'd best record it as I go. A few differences from previous arch self-guide. I'm not doing the partitioning from a gui in a live CD, I'm just using the archlive installation usb to run cli programs like gdisk. I'm also not using LVM - I'll need to look at how that works with UEFI and stuff going forward. I'm using a 128G SSD, so don't need / can't have loads of other OSs. Anyway, let's go. Clear disk, create partitions and filesystems Boot into the latest arch iso then run gdisk on the disk you want to use (sda here): gdisk /dev/sda Clear the existing partition table: O Create a new EFI System partition n 1 [return] +512M ef00 Create swap partition: n 2 [return] +2G 8200 Create a partition on the rest of the disk for the OS and ...

1) Upgrade bios to A04 (Store the update binary in /boot/efi or on a USB flash drive and use the F12 key during bootup to update). 2) Download linux headers and broadcom-wl driver module tarball to another computer and transfer to the XPS by usb/flashcard. I assume I need to install these in the live arch environment to give me access to the internet, then go to step 3), continue installation, and remember to install the drivers in chroot as well... I am not going to use the broadcom-wl-dkms as I don't fancy the potential hassle and don't expect to be upgrading the kernel super-often (though maybe in Arch I'll be obliged to). See the broadcom arch wiki page for more info and troubleshooting. There's useful stuff on the article's discussion page, too. I should say *potentially* useful stuff. Tip: Broadcom users: If wifi-menu and iwlist scan fail after driver installation and reboot, try disabling "Wireless Switch" control in the BIOS. Tip...

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 ...