Arch Linux Xen Image

Has anyone tries making a Xen image of Arch (as a guest OS)? I want to do it so I can run arch on a xen cluster I have access to, but i'm not sure where to start O.o

I run Arch on a Linode, not by using their premade image but rather starting from scratch myself.
Linode provide kernels outside the Xen guests, which made the whole thing quite easy.
Here's a rough summary of how I managed it:
1) Install a minimal base Arch system in a virtual machine. I used the FTP iso and Virtualbox.
As Linode provides kernels, I left out the following packages:
kernel26, kernel26-firmware, kernel26-headers, grub and all initcpio and klibc packages.
2) chroot into the new system. Modify fstab to match the Xen disk layout. Configure the network
interfaces and anything essential to boot.
3) Exit the chroot, cd into the directory where it resides and tar the entire filesystem up:
tar -zcpvf filesystem.tar.gz ./
4) Boot the Xen guest with a livecd of some sorts. Linode provide Finnix.
5) Mount the Xen disks and copy the filesystem tar to the Xen machine.
6) Untar the OS:
tar zxpvf filesystem.tar.gz ./
7) Restart your Xen guest into the Arch filesystem and configure away.
I know it's not very detailed, but I did this quite a while back and have just recalled it
all from memory ^u^
Good luck!

Similar Messages

Arch linux iso images

hello community! would like to know if the new arch linux iso images will continue to happen.Thanks!!

dolby wrote:I've been wondering whats gonna happen if AIF is brought back to a good state again. Will we revent back to using it or stick with arch-install-scripts ?
Probably fully depends on the quality of AIF. The current method is very KISS and easy.

ArchDL -- Download Latest Arch Linux ISO Image from Mirror

Hey guys, here is my ArchISO script. To download latest version of iso image from a mirror. I will add more countries/mirros ones I have time. Right now there is only "United States" mirrors. Enjoy.
EDIT: Alright scrip now know as "ArchDL", and you can find it at
https://github.com/GoTux/Bash/blob/master/archdl.sh
Last edited by TuxLyn (2012-11-08 19:42:32)

TuxLyn wrote:@Pranavg1890, I'll see what I can do. Also, I've created wiki pages at github for all the scripts I released.
Really? This script is to download the iso, right? so, maybe I'm wrong, but I think downloading the iso and install it to an usb has nothing to do.
Or are you going to create another script to do that?
Anyway, about the downloading script.
What if it parsed the download page, to get all links listed there? With something like:
curl -s 'https://www.archlinux.org/download/' |sed -n '/id="download-mirrors"/,/\/div/ {/href/ s/.*href="$[^"]*$.*/\1/p; /h5/ s/.*<h5.*> $[^<]*$.*/\1/p}'
You could get the list of links.
Also, check this: http://grulos.blogspot.mx/2007/10/find- … irror.html
Is an script to find the fastest mirror from a list of urls.
To be really useful the script, it would be better if it autoselected the fastest mirror for you, instead of waiting for you to tell it which mirror to use.
So, what you think?

It would be good to have cnetworkmanager on Arch Linux bootable images

I think that most of us use NetworkManager. I see it now as standard and most user friendly way to setup and connect to networks . Now I want to install new Archlinux and if there would be cnetworkmanager then I could setup it quicker...

You should file a feature request in the bug tracker and then the relevant people will see it. Requests made only on the forums likely never get seen.

[Solved]Arch Linux Gnome writing to usb disk destination is read only

Hi
i Have installed Arch Linux latest image 1-3-2015 not using Evolution Linux or any GUI installer
i installed Arch Linux using command line
i have gnome 3.14
each time i try to write movie to usb flash or usb external hard disk
the error says
the destination disk is read only
how to change this
Last edited by belal (2015-04-04 20:58:54)

I'm curious. Is the filesystem on the USB, ntfs ?
If yes, did you install NTFS-3G ? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NTFS-3G. Happened to me 8 days ago .
EDIT - Sorry for the repost using the same solution as my above post. Didn't see his link. Just surfed through the posts for the word "NTFS-3g" and it wasn't there.
Last edited by newguy (2015-03-31 07:51:48)

Incorporating both Arch Linux and a package repository onto one DVD.

Dear Arch Linux community,
I would like to tell you a little background information about myself before I start to talk about my actual subject. I know that this part of my message does not belong here, but it is my own ritual to do it like this in my first message in every community. I hope I can make friends with people here and try not to harm this community in any way. Thank you for reading this.
I am a 16-year-old male student from Finland and addicted to GNU/Linux and freeware / open source software. My previous experience with GNU/Linux is fairly large; from thin client Debian GNU/Linux administrator to kernel hacker and software developer. My delight is music, particularly writing and composing my own music tracks which vary from classic chiptunes to acid trance and dance beats. Arch Linux seems to be a great GNU/Linux operating system for me, because I am looking for a GNU/Linux distribution that does not focus on desktop, but rather on simplicity and lightweight solutions. I also do not fear "bleeding edge" software which is a positive point for Arch Linux compared to Debian GNU/Linux. As you can probably notice I have been using Debian GNU/Linux before I considered Arch Linux. However now I am here hoping for a totally new experience from Arch Linux.
Enough with my foreword, I would like to now go back to the actual subject. Usually I use DVD media for GNU/Linux images to have both the installer for the GNU/Linux distribution and the main package repository to make installations faster and to have the possibility for an offline installation. As I see, Arch Linux provides only CD images which are approximately 160MB in size, making me to think about incorporating Arch Linux's "Core" and "Extra" package repositories to fill up the remaining 4GB on the DVD. If the "Core" package repository is already included in the Arch Linux CD image, please forgive my lack of information as this is the first time I have ever entered to the world of Arch Linux.
My question is as follows: Is it possible to incorporate Arch Linux and a package repository onto one DVD while retaining the ability to install Arch Linux from that DVD? If positive, how should I go on to do it?
Thank you in advance!
Last edited by Amplify.EXE (2007-11-09 20:53:44)

No niin, tervetuloa arch-mailmaan.
Ok, I better stop at one sentence before someone gets mad at me :roll:.
To answer your question, yes. It is quite possible to put something like that together, heck I think someone suggested we should distribute those some time, but we decided not to (don't quote me, I'm too lazy to read the archives right now) since in most cases pacman will get the job done will job done with less bandwidth waste, and distributing huge snapshots isn't really too conducive to the whole rolling-release thing.
You might want to check out archiso [1], the install scripts [2], and one of my sample archiso configurations [3] that effectively creates an install CD. Now, keep in mind that archiso isn't the *current* way installers are created, but I think it's much more straightforward to work with than what we're using right now. That said, we currently use archboot to create the CDs, so that may be worth taking a look at as well. There is also a really old installer remastering wiki article [4], though not terribly relevant, you could still use a similar technique to pull apart one of our recent install iso's and remaster it with whatever packages you want. Anyhow, if you'd like help with this, I'd be more than happy to give you a hand (I need some more test-cases for archiso...), or if you look at it and go "gee, this is dumb", don't be afraid to send patches. Just get in touch with me through email, jabber, irc, or whatever.
Good luck
[1] http://projects.archlinux.org/git/?p=ar … a=summary)
[2] http://projects.archlinux.org/git/?p=in … ;a=summary
[3] http://code.neotuli.net/gitweb/?p=archi … stall-conf
[4] http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rem … nstall_ISO

How to setup grub2 with arch linux and xen, lvm on luks

OK, so I tried downloading this package from AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xen-git/ , but that has patching problems as noted in the comments. It looks like the packagebuild sets up all the xen stuff for you, but I can't seem to get the package to install because of the error's while patching. If anyone can point me in the right direction on what all the extra files in the PKGBUILD are for or how to debug problems with PKGBUILDs not working because of patches.
So next I just tried to compile the latest xen from git://xenbits.xen.org/xen.git (with ./configure, make, make install) and that seemed to go fine, but I'm a bit confused:
1. Do I have to do any additional configuration for xen when working with arch linux? On ubuntu I could just compile the source, update grub, and make sure to start the x services at runtime.
2. How do I set up grub to load xen with this setup? Right now this is my /boot/grub/grub.cfg:
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="Arch"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:vgStorage"
# Preload both GPT and MBR modules so that they are not missed
GRUB_PRELOAD_MODULES="part_gpt part_msdos"
# Uncomment to enable Hidden Menu, and optionally hide the timeout count
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=5
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
# Uncomment to use basic console
GRUB_TERMINAL_INPUT=console
# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal
#GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT=console
# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
GRUB_GFXMODE=auto
# Uncomment to allow the kernel use the same resolution used by grub
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
# Uncomment if you want GRUB to pass to the Linux kernel the old parameter
# format "root=/dev/xxx" instead of "root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/xxx"
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY=true
# Uncomment and set to the desired menu colors. Used by normal and wallpaper
# modes only. Entries specified as foreground/background.
#GRUB_COLOR_NORMAL="light-blue/black"
#GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="light-cyan/blue"
# Uncomment one of them for the gfx desired, a image background or a gfxtheme
#GRUB_BACKGROUND="/path/to/wallpaper"
#GRUB_THEME="/path/to/gfxtheme"
# Uncomment to get a beep at GRUB start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
#GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="true"
~
I've tried throwing in a line like: XEN_HYPERVISOR_CMDLINE="cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:vgStorage", but nothing new shows up on the grub boot menu.
First time trying to set up a non-ubuntu system, please help!

As for XEN.... well you could always try QEMU/KVM or LXC.
As for the LVM2-on-LUKS/dm-crypt
My /etc/mkinitcpio.conf looks like this...
MODULES="aesni_intel ata_generic ata_piix nls_cp437 ext4 intel_agp i915 dm-snapshot"
BINARIES=""
FILES=""
HOOKS="base udev autodetect block keymap encrypt lvm2 filesystems keyboard fsck shutdown"
/etc/defaults/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:root:allow-discards"
GRUB_PRELOAD_MODULES="part_gpt part_msdos"
GRUB_TERMINAL_INPUT=console
GRUB_GFXMODE=auto
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY=true
The running grub config looks like this
/boot/grub/grub.cfg
9 insmod part_gpt
10 insmod part_msdos
53 if loadfont unicode ; then
54 set gfxmode=auto
55 load_video
56 insmod gfxterm
57 set locale_dir=$prefix/locale
58 set lang=en_US
59 insmod gettext
60 fi
61 terminal_input console
62 terminal_output gfxterm
63 set timeout=3
84 menuentry 'Backup, Arch Linux grsec kernel' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-grsec kernel-true-12341234-8080-8080-8080-332200882255' {
85 load_video
86 set gfxpayload=keep
87 insmod gzio
88 insmod part_msdos
89 insmod ext2
90 set root='hd1,msdos2'
91 if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
92 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd1,msdos2 --hint-efi=hd1,msdos2 --hint-baremetal=ahci1,msdos2 BBAAEEAA-FFCC-CCFF-FFCC-AABBCCEEBBAA
93 else
94 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root BBAAEEAA-FFCC-CCFF-FFCC-AABBCCEEBBAA
95 fi
96 echo 'Loading Linux grsec kernel ...'
97 linux /vmlinuz-linux-grsec root=/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-lvroot rw cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:root:allow-discards quiet
98 echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
99 initrd /initramfs-linux-grsec.img
100 }
Things to note:
Numerical UUID is the UUID of the ROOT partition.
Alphabetical UUIS is the BOOT partition
hd1,msdos2 AND ahci1,msdos2 are how the Grub Bootloader numbers the drives not Linux.
I have my BOOT partition on a USB stick, and it is the Second partition.
So, that would make it, Device 2 and Partition 2
Device numbering starts at 0
Partition numbering starts at 1
Oh, and note that you don't need ":allow-discards" ... at all but certainly if you don't have an SSD. Also note that I included the line numbers so it is very clear that I didn't post the whole thing, but instead what I thought was relevant. Finally, I am loading modules that I don't even need, but what the hell... if it ain't broke, don't fix it
Last edited by hunterthomson (2013-12-04 08:31:45)

[SOLVED] (U)EFI dualboot Win7 Arch Linux - partitions gone - recovery?

Hi everybody,
I have a slight problem with my (U)EFI dualboot system (Windows 7 and Arch Linux) which used to be configured using rEFInd like it is described in my previous post:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 6#p1300356
<EFI PARTITION> is /dev/sda1 and I used to boot via <EFI PARTITION>\EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi which then successfully either loaded Windows or Linux kernel.
Thanks to my own stupidity and a recent update of refind I decided to copy the new driver, font and icon folders to the <EFI PARTITION> in order to be up-to-date.
After doing so, the rEFInd boot menu had a third icon which said "Boot via \EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi" and if I clicked on it a second rEFInd boot menu appeared with only the two icons for Windows 7 and Arch.
So I figured I could delete Bootx64.efi and ultimately did so, unfortunately. Afterwards I couldn't boot neither Windows nor Linux anymore.
Following this I went through my noumerous USB boot sticks in order to be able to recover the Bootx64.efi. Unfortunately the first USB stick was a Windows XP one which has the plop bootloader alongside:
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/thebootmanager.html
Out of couriousity I entered this bootloader and found HDA and HDB (I assume resembling my SSD and my USB stick).
To my knowledge I didn't change anything but after entering the bootloader again I just found HDA left, HDB seemed to be gone. But I didn't think of anything bad happening yet.
Then I found a working Archiso which I booted and using blkid I couldn't find the partitions of my earlier system anymore, only its device and the USB stick:
/dev/sda: PTUUID="..." PTTYPE="gpt"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="..." LABEL="ARCH_201312" TYPE="..." and so on
/dev/sdb2: SEC_TYPE="msdos" and so on
Even within the EFI shell I could not detect any internal drive anymore (only fs0: which is the USB stick)
Using Archiso onboard tool testdisk I could find the old partitions. The correct result of the GPT from testdisk is:
Fri Jul 4 08:45:25 2014
Command line: TestDisk
TestDisk 6.14, Data Recovery Utility, July 2013
Christophe GRENIER <[email protected]>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
OS: Linux, kernel 3.12.1-3-ARCH (#1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Nov 26 11:17:02 CET 2013) x86_64
Compiler: GCC 4.8
Compilation date: 2013-08-06T08:42:31
ext2fs lib: 1.42.8, ntfs lib: libntfs-3g, reiserfs lib: 0.3.0.5, ewf lib: none
/dev/sda: LBA, HPA, LBA48, DCO support
/dev/sda: size 500118192 sectors
/dev/sda: user_max 500118192 sectors
/dev/sda: native_max 500118192 sectors
/dev/sda: dco 500118192 sectors
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/mapper/control - 0 B - 1 sectors, sector size=512
Hard disk list
Disk /dev/sda - 256 GB / 238 GiB - CHS 31130 255 63, sector size=512 - Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series, S/N:S12RNEAD322171L, FW:DXM04B0Q
Disk /dev/sdb - 2013 MB / 1920 MiB - CHS 1022 62 62, sector size=512 - SMI USB DISK, FW:1100
Disk /dev/sdc - 4210 MB / 4015 MiB - CHS 1020 130 62, sector size=512 - Generic Flash Disk, FW:8.07
Disk /dev/mapper/arch_root-image - 1478 MB / 1410 MiB - 2887680 sectors, sector size=512
Disk /dev/dm-0 - 1478 MB / 1410 MiB - 2887680 sectors, sector size=512
Partition table type (auto): Intel
Disk /dev/sda - 256 GB / 238 GiB - Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series
Partition table type: EFI GPT
New options :
Dump : No
Align partition: Yes
Expert mode : Yes
Analyse Disk /dev/sda - 256 GB / 238 GiB - CHS 31130 255 63
hdr_size=92
hdr_lba_self=1
hdr_lba_alt=500118191 (expected 500118191)
hdr_lba_start=34
hdr_lba_end=500118158
hdr_lba_table=2
hdr_entries=128
hdr_entsz=128
hdr_size=92
hdr_lba_self=500118191
hdr_lba_alt=1 (expected 1)
hdr_lba_start=34
hdr_lba_end=500118158
hdr_lba_table=500118159
hdr_entries=128
hdr_entsz=128
Trying alternate GPT
Current partition structure:
Trying alternate GPT
search_part()
Disk /dev/sda - 256 GB / 238 GiB - CHS 31130 255 63
FAT32 at 0/32/33
FAT1 : 4110-6150
FAT2 : 6151-8191
start_rootdir : 8192 root cluster : 2
Data : 8192-2097151
sectors : 2097152
cluster_size : 8
no_of_cluster : 261120 (2 - 261121)
fat_length 2041 calculated 2041
set_FAT_info: name from BS used
FAT32 at 0/32/33
MS Data 2048 2099199 2097152 [NO NAME]
FAT32, blocksize=4096, 1073 MB / 1024 MiB
NTFS at 146/251/42
filesystem size 249593856
sectors_per_cluster 8
mft_lcn 786432
mftmirr_lcn 2
clusters_per_mft_record -10
clusters_per_index_record 1
NTFS part_offset=1209008128, part_size=127792054272, sector_size=512
NTFS partition cannot be added (part_offset<part_size).
NTFS at 146/251/42
filesystem size 249593856
sectors_per_cluster 8
mft_lcn 786432
mftmirr_lcn 2
clusters_per_mft_record -10
clusters_per_index_record 1
MS Data 2361344 251955199 249593856
NTFS, blocksize=4096, 127 GB / 119 GiB
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/160, s_mnt_count=1318/4294967295, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5242880
recover_EXT2: part_size 41943040
MS Data 251955200 293898239 41943040
ext4 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock, 21 GB / 20 GiB
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/80, s_mnt_count=1317/4294967295, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 2621440
recover_EXT2: part_size 20971520
MS Data 293898240 314869759 20971520
ext4 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock, 10 GB / 10 GiB
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/706, s_mnt_count=1317/4294967295, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 23156049
recover_EXT2: part_size 185248392
MS Data 314869760 500118151 185248392
ext4 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock, 94 GB / 88 GiB
Results
P MS Data 2048 2099199 2097152 [NO NAME]
FAT32, blocksize=4096, 1073 MB / 1024 MiB
P MS Data 2361344 251955199 249593856
NTFS, blocksize=4096, 127 GB / 119 GiB
P MS Data 251955200 293898239 41943040
ext4 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock, 21 GB / 20 GiB
P MS Data 293898240 314869759 20971520
ext4 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock, 10 GB / 10 GiB
P MS Data 314869760 500118151 185248392
ext4 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock, 94 GB / 88 GiB
interface_write()
1 P MS Data 2048 2099199 2097152 [NO NAME]
2 P MS Data 2361344 251955199 249593856
3 P MS Data 251955200 293898239 41943040
4 P MS Data 293898240 314869759 20971520
5 P MS Data 314869760 500118151 185248392
simulate write!
TestDisk exited normally.
ext4 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock, 94 GB / 88 GiB
Now the question is: Can I - using testdisk or any other tool - recover those partitions successfully so I will be able to boot again afterwards? I tested and I could mark them as:
P Primary
Any help will be greately appreciated.
Best regards
Last edited by blablubb1234 (2014-07-08 09:20:08)

Issue resolved If you care to know how, read on:
Looking at the disk using gdisk was doing no good. Neither of the recovery options in gdisk did the trick.
I then returned to testdisk and restored the partitions (successfully). However, afterwards I was greeted by shell telling me the root device was not found (seems like UUIDs get changed when one restores them using testdisk). Adjusting the PARTUUID for root in <EFI SYSTEM PARTIITION>/boot/refind_linux.conf did the trick and I could boot up Archlinux again.
Windows 7 still didn't boot telling me the required device was inaccessible (probably wrong UUID, too). I could however not restore/edit Windows' BCD using bcdedit, see my post Status: 0xc0000225 boot selection failed; required device inaccessible:
To make a long story short: Removing bcd and running autorecovery from withing Windows RE successfully created a new bcd. Unfortunately, Windows writes its backup bootloader at <EFI SYSTEM PARTITION>/boot/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi. This file originally was a copy of refind_x64.efi which I need to put at that location to be able to dualboot. After chrooting to my Arch system I could restore bootx64.efi, create a new fstab and everything is running fine now again.
Best regards and thanks for the help.

Installing Multiple Operating Systems with grub and Arch Linux

NOTE: Please keep in mind that there are many different ways to achieve this same result using various loop and ramdisk methods, read this with a separate window to jot down your comments and suggestions... this is ongoing for me so any help would be appreciated!
Read the full article at Install Multiple Os without cds
This is my first post and I plan on making this topic an official HOWTO with www.tldp.org.
I have been into the computer security scene since 1990, but I realized that I had very little experience with the various LInux, Unix, and alternative Operating systems out there.
I have a CD-RW drive but being a struggling computer security researcher I had no money for blank cd-recordables. What follows is how I managed to install various operating systems on my computer (1 hard drive) without having to burn to a CD the ISO and then boot from that.
I first partitioned my 120GB harddrive into 10 partitions, the 2nd partition is a small swap and the last partition is extra large because it holds all the ISO images..
I then wrote a small shell script to automatically download (I love wget!) the following.
OpenBSD
IpCOP
Libranet
Arch-Linux
Fire
Local Area Security
Packet Master
Devil-Linux
FreeBSD
Knoppix
Helix
Gentoo
Yoper-Linux
NetBSD
RedHat
Slackware
The script also downloaded Installation manuals and md5 checksums.. (let me know if I should post... its pretty unsophisticated
I installed Slackware (personal favorite) on hda1 using my last blank CD-R, note that I do not have a separate boot partitino. (Should I?). I also installed grub on the MBR. I love grub, if you read through the man pages and all info you can find about grub, you can learn a whole lot. Grub has much more features and capability than lilo, even though lilo comes installed by default with slack.
I organize my kernel situation as follows... In my /boot directory, I mkdir KERNEL, CONFIG, MAP, INITRD and that is a good way for me to keep my kernels and everything organized.. Another good way is a separate dir for each new kernel.
Since Arch-Linux is a solid distro, I'll use that as a first example.
Here is the Arch-Linux section of my shell script
goge Arch-Linux
$w http://puzzle.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/archlinux/arch-0.6.iso
$w http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/archlinux/arch-0.6.md5sum
$w http://www.archlinux.org/docs/en/guide/install/arch-install-guide.html
md55
cat arch-0.6.md5sum
md5sum arch-0.6.iso
md55
The first thing to do is to mount the downloaded ISO image so we can use it as if it were an actual CD.
mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 cdimage /mnt/cdrom
Where cdimage= the ISO image. EX. /usr/local/src/ISO/Linux/Arch-Linux/arch-0.6.iso
This mounts the iso as /mnt/cdrom.
Next you need to copy /mnt/cdrom to a separate partition for the booting process. So mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda9. ( I prefer reiserfs or even XFS to ext but if you use something other than ext2 you could run into some problems because some of the installation kernels and initrds don't include support for reiserfs and so can't recognize the files. Although you could use mkinitrd to create a new initrd with reiserfs support, that might be pushin it IMO... I use the 9th partition consistently for this. I know there is a "right" way to copy the /mnt/cdrom files so everything stays the way it is supposed too, using tar or cpio, but I'm lazy so I just do cp -rp.
(What is the tar or cpio commands to copy with correct permissions etc??)
So you mount the 9th partition as whatever, say /mnt/hd and then copy the files. Now what?
Now edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to include the specific options to boot arch-linux installation.
A good idea is to find the isolinux.cfg file somewhere on the distro cd, this will tell you what to include in the menu.lst.
Here is the section in my menu.lst
title Arch Install
root (hd0,8)
kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 root=/dev/rd/0
initrd=/isolinux/initrd.img
This should be self-explanatory. The root (hd0,8) is pointing to partition 9. So the rest of the commands start from partition 9.
When you experience problems, remember you can always edit the grub boot options by typing 'e' and then edit the section. Also, a good idea is to include several variations in your menu.lst so you can easily try other ways to boot efficiently. And, remember to read up on all the installation guides that come with your distro, specifically, hard-disk installs.
There are special cases, Gentoo, has a semi-new compressed filesystem called squashfs. BTW, this is AWESOME, so check it out. It has to be compiled into the kernel, so some work is in order, but use this recompile to optimize your kernel. You can get the squashfs patch for almost any kernel. I use the latest stable 2.6 kernel. Squashfs is incredible and although I don't think you need it to install from ISO, you do need it to expand the livecd.squashfs filesystem that comes with the cd.
Heres a sample Gentoo section from my menu.lst
title Gentoo Install
root (hd0,8)
kernel /isolinux/gentoo root=/dev/ram0
initrd=/isolinux/gentoo.igz init=/linuxrc acpi=off looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs cdroot vga=791 splash=silent
A nother' tip is the shell that is provided if you experience problems, typically busybox or ash. The key tools to get you going from here is mount and chroot. Sometimes you will need to manually create a simulated file system and then chroot into it. For instance, you might have to create boot, etc, bin, directories on the target partition.
I generally install each OS onto the next partition (careful of the logical partition) and add it to my menu.lst after install. A good idea is after installation, copy the kernel and initrd(if there is one) to the slackware(or whatever) boot partition on hda1. I copy kernels to /boot/KERNEL/ and initrd's to /boot/INITRD, then menu.lst is more organized...
You then need to add an updated section to your menu.lst (just comment out the install section for later)
Here is the finished arch-linux section from menu.lst
title Arch Linux 6
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 ro root=/dev/hdc3
This doesn't use my convenient boot/KERNEL/vmlinuz26 as you can tell by setting the root to partition 3.
***NOTE: Make a backup of MBR using dd and save to floppy, also backup the partition table to floppy, using cfdisk or parted. And boot disks (I use 1 with grub, and 1 with slack, and tomsbootdisk) will invariably come in handy. Tomsbootdisk is recommended, and make the grub boot disk when you install grub. install to floppy.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The final result after some fun experimenting, is when I boot, I have a cool grub boot screen come up with the option to boot into whatever OS I want, this is handy for multiple reasons. One good thing to do after this is to port scan and vuln scan each OS, after you update of course. Write this stuff down and you will know the weaknesses/strengths of the various OS's.
I can boot a custom Firewall, snort, or multiple honeypots using this procedure, as well as a graphical kde environment with a kernel optimized for graphics and my processor/architecture, or an environment devoted to forensics or even an environment suitable for programming.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
P.S. Some of the cooler alternative operating systems are BeOS 5, EOS, ER_OS, V2_OS, and my personal favorite Menuet. Menuet is 100% assembly graphical operating system that fits on a floppy. Its f'in money!
This should be a good enough example to get you started, this kind of thing should be learned and not just copied... Knowing how to do this stuff could prove to be exceptionally useful...

Start by reading all the articles built-in on your Mac - Help > Mac Help, search "printer sharing."
http://desk.stinkpot.org:8080/tricks/index.php/2008/04/how-to-print-to-a-cups-se rver-from-mac-os-x/
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080324224027152&query=share%2Bpri nter
http://members.cox.net/18james/osxprintersharing.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-56940.html

[SOLVED] Arch Linux Duke (2007) Fails to Boot

Folks, I have a unique and challenging problem that has exhausted my Arch Linux skills, and so I am now turning to you.
I have a vintage Pentium Pro 200 system (that’s 200 MHz folks! – 200 MHz 686 architecture – the original 686!), two CPUs, running a dual boot between Windows NT 4.0 and Arch Linux Duke (2007). It has 512 MB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive, partitioned up between Windows NT and Linux. I built this system new in 2007, hence the dated version of Arch. It has run like a charm all these years, granted not getting that much use. After about a year of no use at all, I fired the system up last week to help with a little research for a blog post I was writing on networking Windows NT 4.0 and Mac OS 8.6. Windows NT 4.0 fired right up with no issue, and after I was done testing what needed to be tested I tried to boot over to Arch.
After a year of disuse, Arch unexpectedly and stubbornly refused to boot. The boot process started up just fine, but towards the end, it declared that it could not mount the root file system on the root device and took a kernel panic and stopped. My Arch skills have gotten a bit rusty in the last few years, but I dusted them off and went to work. My guess was a file system or superblock error. Arch wouldn’t boot, but I dragged out my trusty RIPLinux 2.9 Rescue Live CD and fired it up. It came right up and ran, and I was able to mount the Arch partition and view all the files… everything seemed to be there; it just wouldn’t boot. Windows NT 4.0 AND RIPLinux both boot and run on the machine, so the hardware is fine as well.
A little information on the disk layout. Windows NT 4.0 is in the first partition on the hard drive. The extended partition has a second Windows NT 4.0 partition (sort of a /home partition for Windows NT 4.0), followed by the main Arch partition (the one I am trying to boot), followed by a swap partition and then the largest partition, which I use to share data between Arch and Windows NT 4.0 (I have loaded an ext2/3 driver into Windows NT 4.0 and it happily accesses the Linux partitions on the box).
RIPLinux’s e2fsck did find some issues with the Arch partition and I had it repair them all. I checked again afterwards that all the files were still there, and they were. With the partition now known to be clean, and the superblock repaired from one of the backups, all should have been well. However, Arch still wouldn’t (and still won’t) boot.
RIPLinux has a kind of a chain loader function, so I had it attempt to start up Arch for me. However, this was flummoxed by the fact that Arch addresses all my hard drive partitions as /dev/sdax and RIPLinux addresses them as /dev/hdax. Hence, without a common language, it was hard to get the one to start the other. Still, using this function, I have been able to get a crippled version of Arch running on the machine again. No modules had been loaded, and so it couldn’t do almost anything, but there it was (and is), Arch Linux Duke, at the CLI level. From there, I can see all the files, I can move freely in and out of my user account and the root account, but I can’t make the thing actually boot properly.
If you have read this far, you are a trooper. Summarizing what I know, the hardware is good, the file system is clean, the superblock is good, I can mount it cleanly from a live CD and I can chain load a crippled version of Arch. Here is the boot process blow-by-blow. When I try to do a normal boot, the Windows NT 4.0 loader passes control to the Lilo boot sector I have placed on hda1 (sda1 in Duke’s parlance). Lilo takes over, present a menu and when I select Duke, takes off. Arch Linux Duke starts to boot. It gets a good long way along, all the way along to:
:: Loading udev events [Pass]
:: Mount root Read-only
:: Checking file systems
This is where it stops.
The next thing I see is:
/dev/sda6
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else) then the superblock is corrupt and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
E2fsck –b 8193 <device>
I then get a sort of character based splash screen that says
**********FILE SYSTEM CHECK FAILED ****************************
* Please repair manually and reboot. Note that the root file system
* is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read-write, type:
* mount –n –o remount,rw /. When you exit the maintenance
* shell, the system will reboot automatically
Give root password for maintenance
At this point, I give the root password and enter the maintenance shell as root. I typed in “mount” and the first entry I got back is
/dev/sda6 on / type ext3 (rw)
This is exactly the root partition that the start up complains about. It is clearly there. I can see it, I can walk around it… it is clearly there. Why won’t it boot? Despite the message, the superblock is fine – it passes every test e2fsck can throw at it.
At this point, I did a “e2fsck /dev/hda6 (which is how RIPLinux would have passed it into Arch” and it says it is “clean”. I suspect that the Superblock message is because Arch sees root as sda6, while RIP passed it in as hda6...
Deciding to see what Arch would be seeing as it tried to set things up in the boot sequence, I tried the following next:
# mknod “/dev/root2” b 3 6
(“3” because RIPLinux refers to my hard drive as IDE, while Arch refers to it by major number “8”, which is SCSI. By the way, it IS an IDE drive – not sure why Arch insists on using the sdx nomenclature instead of hdx)
Then I entered “mount /dev/root2 /mnt/hda6” and “ls /mnt/hda6”
All was well. I can make the node, I can mount it, and I can see the contents. All is clearly well, but something is clearly wrong enough that Arch can’t boot.
I am totally out of ideas. I have tried every trick I know and am out of tricks. I would welcome any insights as to what I could try to get this venerable Arch installation back on its legs.
By the way, the key section of the /etc/lilo.conf file (lest anyone want to know) is:
image = /boot/vmlinuz26
root = /dev/sda6
label = ArchLinux-Duke
initrd = /boot/kernel26.img
read-only
I am stumped. Thanks in advance for any and all pointers you may be able to offer.
Last edited by mac57 (2014-06-02 17:42:21)

Folks, thanks for all your helpful comments, and I wanted to report back to you that I finally overcame the issue, and ArchLinux-Duke (2007) is once again executing flawlessly on my old Pentium Pro 200 system. I won't bother reporting here all the blind allies I went down as I tried to figure out what was wrong, but in the end, literally moments before I was about to give up and overwrite my Arch installation with a new Linux variant (antiX seemed well suited for such old and low power hardware), my attention was drawn to a note I had made in my files back in 2007 about a problem with similar symptoms. In that case, I had just deleted ZenWalk Linux from the hard drive (both Arch and Zen had been on the drive), and merged several partitions to make use of the newly free space. This had changed Arch's view of the drive lettering, and what had been its /dev/sddx root device was now /dev/sdcx. Arch failed to boot, throwing off the same errors I was seeing now. I wish I had recalled that note a month or so ago! It would have saved me a lot of work and a lot of frustration.
At any rate, as a last step, and testing the idea that maybe the drive lettering had changed for some reason, I repeatedly manually booted Arch, specifying root=/dev/sda6, then /dev/sdb6, then /dev/sdd6, and finally, /dev/sdc6. Eureka! Arch now considered itself to be on /dev/sdc6 whereas previously it had been on /dev/sda6. This got me part way there, but the boot failed at the filesystem check stage and threw me into root. I disabled the file system check in /etc/rc.sysinit and got farther. Then I cleaned up /etc/fstab to agree with the new sdc naming, and I was back on the air fully.
So, what had happened was that Arch had changed its view of the drive it was on from sda6 to sdc6. While I could not understand why this "sudden" change had occurred, at least I had a solution, and had Arch back up and running.
Trolling through the rest of my notes, I found the answer. In 2012, the Tekram SCSI card in the machine failed, and I ultimately replaced it with an Adaptec card. The Tekram card did not have a BIOS segment on it. The Adaptec card did. My guess is that this caused the two internal SCSI devices I have built into the system (Iomega ZIP and Jaz respectively) to be enumerated first, claiming the "sda" and "sdb". device names. That left "sdc" for the root device, and that is where Arch went next. This is my guess anyway.
I should have caught this issue back in 2012, at the time, but from my notes, I can see that I tested the new card thoroughly using the Windows NT 4.0 side of the machine, but never thought to bring up Arch as well. Hence, this problem lay dormant for two years, before I attempted to fire up Arch last month and blundered right into it.
It has not all been bad. I have learned more about the ext2 and ext3 file systems and superblocks in the intervening time than I will ever need to use. I have learned how to manually boot Linux on a machine whose BIOS is so old that it cannot address the disk cylinder that the kernel is on and I have completely refreshed the many general Linux skills that used to just flow from my finger tips. It has been a frustrating experience, but ultimately a successful and useful one.
Just wanted to let everyone know that this is now [SOLVED]. I would mark the post as such, but I don't see any obvious way to do that. Thanks again everyone.

Progress on Unity under Arch Linux!

See here for information about the new GNOME 3.12-compatible packages: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p1404683
I'm now on IRC! Come join us at #unityforarch on Freenode
To install Unity from my repos:
See the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/un … mmended.29
To install Unity from source:
See the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/unity#From_source
-- You probably don't want to read anything below --
The story
So...rather than wasting internet bandwith to download a new Ubuntu ISO to test out the new Unity features, I decided to try to make it work under Arch Linux. It took a whole lot longer than I expected to get it even partially working. So, here's my story:
Knowing that Unity isn't in the main repositories, I went the AUR's website and looked for a user created Unity package. That didn't go too well. The Unity package hasn't been updated for 6 months. D'oh! I decided to download the existing PKGBUILD and modify it to work with the Unity 4.xx series. After changing the version number, I tried to "makepkg" it, and was greeted with a message about installing Compiz 0.9.x. I thought it would be an easy install. It was quite the opposite. Compiz's install prefix was set to /opt/unity, but FindCompiz cmake build file expected Compiz to be in /usr, so none of the Compiz packages, except for compiz-core would compile. Then, I tried reinstalling compiz-core, but this time, changing the prefix to /usr. The compiled package ended up being only a few kilobytes big. I guess the mouse wheel was invented for a reason. I looked at the PKGBUILD again, only to find that there was a line at the very bottom that ran "rm -rf ${pkgdir}/usr". That explains a lot! I ended up adopting all the compiz*-git packages and fixing them so they would compile and install.
So, now that Compiz is working (restarted and tested just to make sure I didn't waste my time with something that didn't work), I went on to install the rest of the dependencies listed in the Unity PKGBUILD file. That went relatively well. I was so happy after seeing the progress counter go up after running "makepkg", but at about 8%, gcc spat out an error about an undeclared function (sorry, I forgot what the function was). Natually, I went to Google and searched the name of the function. 0 results! Exactly was I was looking for! I ended up downloading the Ubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 ISO and running "find -type f /usr/lib | xargs objdump -T | grep the_function". The problem lied in the libindicator package. There was a newer version available which contained that function. I have no idea why a package that's only 0.02 versions ahead of the AUR package would contain new functions...
Next! Utouch...ugh...great memories! Not! I was so glad that I had fixed the utouch packages earlier (for touchegg to work). I was too frustrated from compiz and libindicator to try to compile more stuff.
Cmake. Whoever created the CMakeLists.txt file didn't list all the dependencies required. So after running "makepkg" 10 billion times, waiting for "somebodydidntputthisincmake.h not found" errors to appear, I finally got all the dependencies I needed installed...or so I thought. After installing and compiling all these dependencies, the cmake only continues 3% further before encountering another cryptic gcc error. This time, there no error about a file not being found. So not knowing what dependency was missing, I headed over to http://packages.ubuntu.com and downloaded the Unity DEB source to find the dependencies in then debian/control file. After install those few dependencies that I missed, I ran "makepkg" again, hoping that it would finally compile successfully. CMake went a little further--5% further to be exact--before running into another error. It complained about DndSourceDragBegin() having two return types. Sure, enough "./plugins/unityshell/src/ResultViewGrid.h" had the return type as boolean and "/usr/include/Nux-1.0/Nux/InputArea.h" had the return type as void. WTF? How the heck does this even compile under 11.10???
After changing void to bool in "/usr/include/Nux-1.0/Nux/InputArea.h", I ran "makepkg" once again anxiously waiting to the see the line "Finished making: unity 4.10.2". CMake compiled about 35% before running into error about an undeclared gtk function. Nooooooooooooo!!! I wasn't brave enough to install the git version of gtk3, so I created a chroot, installed the base packages, and installed all of those dependencies fairly quickly (it gets a lot easier after doing it so many times).
Moving on to gtk3. After cloning the ~200MB git repository, autotools spits out an error about cairo-gl missing. So, I proceeded to install the cairo-gl-git package, which failed to compile (it compiled successfully outside of the chroot...). GREAT. So, Unity fails to compile because GTK version is too old, and GTK failed to compile because cairo-gl is missing, and cairo-gl fails to compile because I'm in a chroot. GAHHH!!! While thinking about throwing the computer out of the window, I searched the AUR for other GTK3 packages. I just happened to find a package named "GTK3-UBUNTU"! That package was still at version 3.0, but it was pretty easy to get the patches and source code for 3.1 from the Ubuntu GTK source package.
So, FINALLY, Unity compiles. I was so darn happy, I didn't even care if it ran or not. I logged out and logged back into the GNOME 3 fallback mode, and entered the chroot. After running "xhost +SI:localuser:chenxiaolong" to run X11 apps in the chroot, I crossed my fingers and ran "DISPLAY=:0.0 unity --replace". It failed with python 3 complaining about missing modules. That's okay, since the Unity launch script is written in python 2. I changed the shebang line in "/usr/bin/unity" to point to python 2 and ran "DISPLAY=:0.0 unity --replace". It didn't necessarily fail, but it didn't succeed either. It didn't print out any error messages. Weird... I thought I'd try enabling Unity from the compiz settings manager then. I ran "DISPLAY=:0.0 compiz --replace" and "DISPLAY=:0.0 ccsm" and enabled the Unity plugin. Unity runs! Although nothing shows on the screen, it runs! It shows up in the process list! Woohoo!
And that's about how far I got. There were quite a few Vala errors during the compiling process (I forgot which package it was), which is probably why Unity won't appear. I'll try again later with the vala-devel or vala-git package and hopefully Unity will work then. Here are screenshots of what I've gotten working so far:
http://i.imgur.com/7F1fm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zGNJc.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3mCgd.jpg
By then way, I love the simplicity of pacman and the AUR. I can't imagine how long this would have taken with other package managers.
Moderator edit: Do not place large images in line. If you want, you may embed links to thumbnails inside url tags.
Last edited by chenxiaolong (2014-04-15 17:11:04)

City-busz: I'm getting a ton of Vala errors when I compile libunity (AUR version) with vala or vala-devel. libunity fails to compile with vala-git. I'll try your packages in a virtual machine and see how they work on 64 bit.
In the meantime, Unity still fails to show up: http://i.imgur.com/btPwo.png I'll try out your PKGBUILDS and see how that works. I'm glad there are people who want to port Unity to Arch Linux
EDIT: City-busz: Just to let you know, Unity will fail to compile at around 45% with GTK 3.0. Here's my source packaage for Ubuntu's GTK 3.1: http://ubuntuone.com/p/1EzX/ It contains all of the patches in the Ubuntu source package. I'm not sure if all the patches are needed, but GTK compiles fine with all of them.
EDIT2: Right now, I'm trying to compile Vala 0.10.4, then version used in Ubuntu 11.10. Hopefully that will eliminate some of the Vala errors.
EDIT3: Vala 0.10 is too old. 0.12 and 0.14 are also in the Ubuntu repository. Trying those...
EDIT4: 0.14 is actually 0.13.1. Gah... Vala takes longer to compile under VirtualBox than GTK3...
EDIT5: Okay...so VirtualBox "helpfully" became slow enough that I could read the error messages. The Vala error messages aren't actually error messages, but rather warnings about unused methods. I wonder what prevents Unity from running then...
Last edited by chenxiaolong (2011-08-30 02:30:29)

Installing Arch Linux on USB key: error while booting

Hello,
first of all, I must say I've followed the steps from this article on arch wiki to install archlinux on my USB key: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … _a_USB_key
So what I did is to use one of my 2 usb keys to INSTALL linux, and the second one to RUN linux. I used dd to write on the 1st usb, eveything worked fine when booting, then I do install arch on the my second usb following the stept from the link above, everything works until I get this error while booting (at the middle):
Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/sdc/
Root device '/dev/sdc' doesn't exist. Attempting to create it.
ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device '/dev/disk/by-uuid/lotsofnumbers'
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
Type 'exit' to try and continue booting
/bin/sh: Can't contact tty; job control turned off
[ramfs /]#
To summarize I'll show you my conf files that could help you to resolve my problem:
/etc/fstab.conf
/dev/sdc1 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdc2 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdc3 /home ext3 defaults 0 1
So here I've sdc1 boot 32MB partition; sdc2 root 3GB partition; sdc3 home 978MB partition for a total of 4GB USB key~
I didn't make a swap partition as in the tutorial they are writing it's unnecessary for some kind of reasons.
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
HOOKS="base udev usb autodetect pata scsi sata filesystems"
I've added to here, "usb" to the hooks
installed GRUB on my sdc, here is the menu.ist:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux (USB)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdc ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img
So, I boot GRUB without problems, start Arch Linux, but then I got this error above.
I've searched alot on some forums and read many stuffs, but sitll can't fix it and it seems complicated.
I've tried to boot with UUID, also, but didn't make difference. I tried to remove some parameter from the hooks, but unfortunately this wasn't working still. I've read somewhere to use chroot, but I didn't catch on how to do that and what was the use of chroot, I'm still noob user of arch linux and currently learning. Maybe it's the problem, as some forum were talking about creating a new image, but I still don't know how to make it. By the way, I'm not sure this could have fixed my current problem. I've also read somewhere it could be due to my lack of space, but I wrote you how I did partition my USB key, let me know if you have any suggestion please.

1. What I did is re-installing entirely from my installation disk or USB to test out different setting in my config files, because I don't know how to edit my .conf as I can't really finish to boot to the end and get in terminal mode? If there is a quicker way to edit files from any terminal to go into my current USB sdc to modify directly my file from there, I'd enjoy probably. So rebuilding the initpio, no, I just re-installed to test out different configs.
2. Yes, same error.
3. Tested out by-id/by-path and uuid = no difference
4. Didn't know about larch, it seems to be a nice tool, I'll check it out

[Bounty] Free Macbook Pro to get Arch Linux running on Amazon's EC2

First, the details:
I will purchase a lowest–end Macbook Pro 13″ ($US 1,200 on Apple's store, new) for the first person to deliver to me a working set of step–by–step instructions for installing the latest Arch Linux on top of Amazon's EC2 platform.
Caveats & Rules:
- I don't care how long it takes you—there's a good chance I'm doing something absolutely stupid in my noobishness that's causing the problems I've been experiencing; if it takes you half an hour to make a working AMI, and produce instructions to do such… you just won yourself a Macbook Pro for half an hour's work. Booyah!
- Again, I say, I don't care how long it takes you—if you don't produce a working set of instructions, there will be no payout, even if you spend 200 hours trying (as I already have!). It's a bounty, not a work contract d-:
- You must provide me with instructions that work for me (as I don't intend to use your AMI, but rather modify the steps that worked for you a bit at a time until I arrive at an AMI configured exactly as I want it). If you arrive at a working AMI, and can reproduce your steps successfully locally, but they can't be made to work for me, I may be able to go about procuring alternative hardware for myself on which to preform the steps, or taking other measures to reproduce your environment; but the bottom line is I will not shell out until I can, personally, produce a working AMI running Arch Linux.
- The instructions are considered to be "working" when I can successfully SSH into the root account on an instance instantiated from an AMI created by following the instructions using the key generated by EC2.
- Your instructions must work both for x86_32 and x86_64 instance types; however, this shouldn't be too much of a problem, as (barring any weirdness) anything that works on x86_32 should be easily made to work on x86_64.
- Instructions that involve instantiating an intermediate bundling host (say, a CentOS or Fedora Core instance) and then installing Arch to a loopback filesystem using a statically–built pacman are much preferred to instructions that involve me having to install and package Arch locally and then ship it up to S3, because my upstream is unimaginably slow and I eventually will need to create something between eight and twenty different AMIs (see below). But anything that works will be accepted.
- If you don't want a Macbook Pro, alternative payment methods may be arranged, though you need to contact me before you start and arrange these, as there's only so much I can do.
- If you are in any way confused or unsure of what I'm offering here, please contact me before you start (see below for contact info)
Backstory:
I set up the first AMI for Arch Linux on Amazon, but unfortunately, I did some really stupid things (hey, I was completely new to Linux at the time, gimmie a break!). The root filesystem was limited to 1GB, there was a whole bunch of software that really was completely unnecessary (WiFi drivers? on a virtualized server? seriously?), there were no kernel modules provided… and so on.
So, after running all my stuff on instances of that for a while, I finally got fed up and found the time to start setting up a newer, cleaner AMI. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of deleting my old AMI before starting work on the first. Now I find myself completely unable to create an AMI that will work whatsoever, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.
I've already invested 200 or so hours of my personal time since deleting my original, broken AMI; I'm very fed up and in badly need of working instances. I tried every method I could think of; running the Arch installer from a LiveCD locally and then bundling the running (and thus proved working) Arch install and shipping it off to S3; installing Arch on a loopback filesystem locally, cloning it to a local partition, booting to it to ensure it works, and shipping it off to S3; installing Arch on a loopback filesystem on a remote bundling host running CentOS or whatever and then shipping it off to S3… I've tried installing nothing but the essentials, I've tried installing everything the installer offers… I've tried to do my best to remember the exact steps I took the first time around, years ago, and reproduce them exactly… nothing has worked.
If I take EC2 out of the equation, and install the images I've prepared locally, they work. If I take Arch out of the equation, and install, say, CentOS instead, and then ship it off to EC2, it works. The only time I have problems is when I attempt to install Arch Linux specifically on EC2 specifically; the exact use–case I need.
I've run into a lot of problems along the way, and fixed them as I go, but I universally end up with an AMI that, once instantiated, does not successfully boot. Worse yet, I get absolutely no output from the console (provided by the ec2-get-console command–line tool) to help me debug the problem. I can't give you any more specifics beyond this to help you, because I don't want to insinuate some idea that will cause you to make some little stupid mistake that I also made, thus dooming the project.
Contact:
For more info of any sort, please hit me up on Google Talk or Jabber (… or any other XMPP–federated chat service, or AIM, or ICQ, or MSN, or whatever you like, they all use the same address anyway) at the following address:
[email protected]
Edit: I should point out that it would be good form to post here if you're going to make a stab at it, so interested parties know how many people are already making attempts.
Last edited by elliottcable (2009-07-25 03:59:46)

drtoki wrote:
http://blog.mudy.info/2009/04/archlinux-ec2-public-ami/
lolwat
from fryguy
Public AMIs aren't what I need, because I need to mass–produce quite a few AMIs with different custom configurations for different purposes; so I have to be able to start from scratch and arrive at a working AMI *myself*.
As for the script, I'm sitting down to play with it now; it looks just about exactly like what I've been doing so far. Maybe there's some small thing he did differently that will make it work. Here's hoping it works for me; that'll be a real load off my chest.

System encryption using LUKS and GPG encrypted keys for arch linux

Update: As of 2012-03-28, arch changed from gnupg 1.4 to 2.x which uses pinentry for the password dialog. The "etwo" hook described here doesn't work with gnupg 2. Either use the openssl hook below or use a statically compiled version of gnupg 1.4.
Update: As of 2012-12-19, the mkinitcpio is not called during boot, unless the "install" file for the hook contains "add_runscript". This resulted in an unbootable system for me. Also, the method name was changed from install () to build ().
Update: 2013-01-13: Updated the hook files using the corrections by Deth.
Note: This guide is a bit dated now, in particular the arch installation might be different now. But essentially, the approach stays the same. Please also take a look at the posts further down, specifically the alternative hooks that use openssl.
I always wanted to set up a fully encrypted arch linux server that uses gpg encrypted keyfiles on an external usb stick and luks for root filesystem encryption. I already did it once in gentoo using this guide. For arch, I had to play alot with initcpio hooks and after one day of experimentation, I finally got it working. I wrote a little guide for myself which I'm going to share here for anyone that might be interested. There might be better or easier ways, like I said this is just how I did it. I hope it might help someone else. Constructive feedback is always welcome
Intro
Using arch linux mkinitcpio's encrypt hook, one can easily use encrypted root partitions with LUKS. It's also possible to use key files stored on an external drive, like an usb stick. However, if someone steals your usb stick, he can just copy the key and potentially access the system. I wanted to have a little extra security by additionally encrypting the key file with gpg using a symmetric cipher and a passphrase.
Since the encrypt hook doesn't support this scenario, I created a modifed hook called “etwo” (silly name I know, it was the first thing that came to my mind). It will simply look if the key file has the extension .gpg and, if yes, use gpg to decrypt it, then pipe the result into cryptsetup.
Conventions
In this short guide, I use the following disk/partition names:
/dev/sda: is the hard disk that will contain an encrypted swap (/dev/sda1), /var (/dev/sda2) and root (/dev/sda3) partition.
/dev/sdb is the usb stick that will contain the gpg encrypted luks keys, the kernel and grub. It will have one partition /dev/sdb1 formatted with ext2.
/dev/mapper/root, /dev/mapper/swap and /dev/mapper/var will be the encrypted devices.
Credits
Thanks to the authors of SECURITY_System_Encryption_DM-Crypt_with_LUKS (gentoo wiki), System Encryption with LUKS (arch wiki), mkinitcpio (arch wiki) and Early Userspace in Arch Linux (/dev/brain0 blog)!
Guide
1. Boot the arch live cd
I had to use a newer testing version, because the 2010.05 cd came with a broken gpg. You can download one here: http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/. I chose the “core“ version. Go ahead and boot the live cd, but don't start the setup yet.
2. Set keymap
Use km to set your keymap. This is important for non-qwerty keyboards to avoid suprises with passphrases...
3. Wipe your discs
ATTENTION: this will DELETE everything on /dev/sda and /dev/sdb forever! Do not blame me for any lost data!
Before encrypting the hard disc, it has to be completely wiped and overwritten with random data. I used shred for this. Others use badblocks or dd with /dev/urandom. Either way, this will take a long time, depending on the size of your disc. I also wiped my usb stick just to be sure.
shred -v /dev/sda
shred -v /dev/sdb
4. Partitioning
Fire up fdisk and create the following partitions:
/dev/sda1, type linux swap.
/dev/sda2: type linux
/dev/sda3: type linux
/dev/sdb1, type linux
Of course you can choose a different layout, this is just how I did it. Keep in mind that only the root filesystem will be decrypted by the initcpio. The rest will be decypted during normal init boot using /etc/crypttab, the keys being somewhere on the root filesystem.
5. Format and mount the usb stick
Create an ext2 filesystem on /dev/sdb1:
mkfs.ext2 /dev/sdb1
mkdir /root/usb
mount /dev/sdb1 /root/usb
cd /root/usb # this will be our working directory for now.
Do not mount anything to /mnt, because the arch installer will use that directory later to mount the encrypted root filesystem.
6. Configure the network (if not already done automatically)
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0
route add default gw 192.168.0.1
echo "nameserver 192.168.0.1" >> /etc/resolv.conf
(this is just an example, your mileage may vary)
7. Install gnupg
pacman -Sy
pacman -S gnupg
Verify that gnupg works by launching gpg.
8. Create the keys
Just to be sure, make sure swap is off:
cat /proc/swaps
should return no entries.
Create gpg encrypted keys (remember, we're still in our working dir /root/usb):
dd if=/dev/urandom bs=512 count=4 | gpg -v --cipher-algo aes256 --digest-algo sha512 -c -a > root.gpg
dd if=/dev/urandom bs=512 count=4 | gpg -v --cipher-algo aes256 --digest-algo sha512 -c -a > var.gpg
Choose a strong password!!
Don't do this in two steps, e.g don't do dd to a file and then gpg on that file. The key should never be stored in plain text on an unencrypted device, except if that device is wiped on system restart (ramfs)!
Note that the default cipher for gpg is cast5, I just chose to use a different one.
9. Create the encrypted devices with cryptsetup
Create encrypted swap:
cryptsetup -c aes-cbc-essiv:sha256 -s 256 -h whirlpool -d /dev/urandom create swap /dev/sda1
You should see /dev/mapper/swap now. Don't format nor turn it on for now. This will be done by the arch installer.
Important: From the Cryptsetup 1.1.2 Release notes:
Cryptsetup can accept passphrase on stdin (standard input). Handling of new line (\n) character is defined by input specification:
if keyfile is specified as "-" (using --key-file=- or by positional argument in luksFormat and luksAddKey, like cat file | cryptsetup --key-file=- <action> ), input is processed
as normal binary file and no new line is interpreted.
if there is no key file specification (with default input from stdin pipe like echo passphrase | cryptsetup <action> ) input is processed as input from terminal, reading will
stop after new line is detected.
If I understand this correctly, since the randomly generated key can contain a newline early on, piping the key into cryptsetup without specifying --key-file=- could result in a big part of the key to be ignored by cryptsetup. Example: if the random key was "foo\nandsomemorebaratheendofthekey", piping it directly into cryptsetup without --key-file=- would result in cryptsetup using only "foo" as key which would have big security implications. We should therefor ALWAYS pipe the key into cryptsetup using --key-file=- which ignores newlines.
gpg -q -d root.gpg 2>/dev/null | cryptsetup -v -–key-file=- -c aes-cbc-essiv:sha256 -s 256 -h whirlpool luksFormat /dev/sda3
gpg -q -d var.gpg 2>/dev/null | cryptsetup -v –-key-file=- -c aes-cbc-essiv:sha256 -s 256 -h whirlpool -v luksFormat /dev/sda2
Check for any errors.
10. Open the luks devices
gpg -d root.gpg 2>/dev/null | cryptsetup -v –-key-file=- luksOpen /dev/sda3 root
gpg -d var.gpg 2>/dev/null | cryptsetup -v –-key-file=- luksOpen /dev/sda2 var
If you see /dev/mapper/root and /dev/mapper/var now, everything is ok.
11. Start the installer /arch/setup
Follow steps 1 to 3.
At step 4 (Prepare hard drive(s), select “3 – Manually Configure block devices, filesystems and mountpoints. Choose /dev/sdb1 (the usb stick) as /boot, /dev/mapper/swap for swap, /dev/mapper/root for / and /dev/mapper/var for /var.
Format all drives (choose “yes” when asked “do you want to have this filesystem (re)created”) EXCEPT for /dev/sdb1, choose “no”. Choose the correct filesystem for /dev/sdb1, ext2 in my case. Use swap for /dev/mapper/swap. For the rest, I chose ext4.
Select DONE to start formatting.
At step 5 (Select packages), select grub as boot loader. Select the base group. Add mkinitcpio.
Start step 6 (Install packages).
Go to step 7 (Configure System).
By sure to set the correct KEYMAP, LOCALE and TIMEZONE in /etc/rc.conf.
Edit /etc/fstab:
/dev/mapper/root / ext4 defaults 0 1
/dev/mapper/swap swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/mapper/var /var ext4 defaults 0 1
# /dev/sdb1 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
Configure the rest normally. When you're done, setup will launch mkinitcpio. We'll manually launch this again later.
Go to step 8 (install boot loader).
Be sure to change the kernel line in menu.lst:
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/mapper/root cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:root cryptkey=/dev/sdb1:ext2:/root.gpg
Don't forget the :root suffix in cryptdevice!
Also, my root line was set to (hd1,0). Had to change that to
root (hd0,0)
Install grub to /dev/sdb (the usb stick).
Now, we can exit the installer.
12. Install mkinitcpio with the etwo hook.
Create /mnt/lib/initcpio/hooks/etwo:
#!/usr/bin/ash
run_hook() {
/sbin/modprobe -a -q dm-crypt >/dev/null 2>&1
if [ -e "/sys/class/misc/device-mapper" ]; then
if [ ! -e "/dev/mapper/control" ]; then
/bin/mknod "/dev/mapper/control" c $(cat /sys/class/misc/device-mapper/dev | sed 's|:| |')
fi
[ "${quiet}" = "y" ] && CSQUIET=">/dev/null"
# Get keyfile if specified
ckeyfile="/crypto_keyfile"
usegpg="n"
if [ "x${cryptkey}" != "x" ]; then
ckdev="$(echo "${cryptkey}" | cut -d: -f1)"
ckarg1="$(echo "${cryptkey}" | cut -d: -f2)"
ckarg2="$(echo "${cryptkey}" | cut -d: -f3)"
if poll_device "${ckdev}" ${rootdelay}; then
case ${ckarg1} in
*[!0-9]*)
# Use a file on the device
# ckarg1 is not numeric: ckarg1=filesystem, ckarg2=path
if [ "${ckarg2#*.}" = "gpg" ]; then
ckeyfile="${ckeyfile}.gpg"
usegpg="y"
fi
mkdir /ckey
mount -r -t ${ckarg1} ${ckdev} /ckey
dd if=/ckey/${ckarg2} of=${ckeyfile} >/dev/null 2>&1
umount /ckey
# Read raw data from the block device
# ckarg1 is numeric: ckarg1=offset, ckarg2=length
dd if=${ckdev} of=${ckeyfile} bs=1 skip=${ckarg1} count=${ckarg2} >/dev/null 2>&1
esac
fi
[ ! -f ${ckeyfile} ] && echo "Keyfile could not be opened. Reverting to passphrase."
fi
if [ -n "${cryptdevice}" ]; then
DEPRECATED_CRYPT=0
cryptdev="$(echo "${cryptdevice}" | cut -d: -f1)"
cryptname="$(echo "${cryptdevice}" | cut -d: -f2)"
else
DEPRECATED_CRYPT=1
cryptdev="${root}"
cryptname="root"
fi
warn_deprecated() {
echo "The syntax 'root=${root}' where '${root}' is an encrypted volume is deprecated"
echo "Use 'cryptdevice=${root}:root root=/dev/mapper/root' instead."
if poll_device "${cryptdev}" ${rootdelay}; then
if /sbin/cryptsetup isLuks ${cryptdev} >/dev/null 2>&1; then
[ ${DEPRECATED_CRYPT} -eq 1 ] && warn_deprecated
dopassphrase=1
# If keyfile exists, try to use that
if [ -f ${ckeyfile} ]; then
if [ "${usegpg}" = "y" ]; then
# gpg tty fixup
if [ -e /dev/tty ]; then mv /dev/tty /dev/tty.backup; fi
cp -a /dev/console /dev/tty
while [ ! -e /dev/mapper/${cryptname} ];
do
sleep 2
/usr/bin/gpg -d "${ckeyfile}" 2>/dev/null | cryptsetup --key-file=- luksOpen ${cryptdev} ${cryptname} ${CSQUIET}
dopassphrase=0
done
rm /dev/tty
if [ -e /dev/tty.backup ]; then mv /dev/tty.backup /dev/tty; fi
else
if eval /sbin/cryptsetup --key-file ${ckeyfile} luksOpen ${cryptdev} ${cryptname} ${CSQUIET}; then
dopassphrase=0
else
echo "Invalid keyfile. Reverting to passphrase."
fi
fi
fi
# Ask for a passphrase
if [ ${dopassphrase} -gt 0 ]; then
echo ""
echo "A password is required to access the ${cryptname} volume:"
#loop until we get a real password
while ! eval /sbin/cryptsetup luksOpen ${cryptdev} ${cryptname} ${CSQUIET}; do
sleep 2;
done
fi
if [ -e "/dev/mapper/${cryptname}" ]; then
if [ ${DEPRECATED_CRYPT} -eq 1 ]; then
export root="/dev/mapper/root"
fi
else
err "Password succeeded, but ${cryptname} creation failed, aborting..."
exit 1
fi
elif [ -n "${crypto}" ]; then
[ ${DEPRECATED_CRYPT} -eq 1 ] && warn_deprecated
msg "Non-LUKS encrypted device found..."
if [ $# -ne 5 ]; then
err "Verify parameter format: crypto=hash:cipher:keysize:offset:skip"
err "Non-LUKS decryption not attempted..."
return 1
fi
exe="/sbin/cryptsetup create ${cryptname} ${cryptdev}"
tmp=$(echo "${crypto}" | cut -d: -f1)
[ -n "${tmp}" ] && exe="${exe} --hash \"${tmp}\""
tmp=$(echo "${crypto}" | cut -d: -f2)
[ -n "${tmp}" ] && exe="${exe} --cipher \"${tmp}\""
tmp=$(echo "${crypto}" | cut -d: -f3)
[ -n "${tmp}" ] && exe="${exe} --key-size \"${tmp}\""
tmp=$(echo "${crypto}" | cut -d: -f4)
[ -n "${tmp}" ] && exe="${exe} --offset \"${tmp}\""
tmp=$(echo "${crypto}" | cut -d: -f5)
[ -n "${tmp}" ] && exe="${exe} --skip \"${tmp}\""
if [ -f ${ckeyfile} ]; then
exe="${exe} --key-file ${ckeyfile}"
else
exe="${exe} --verify-passphrase"
echo ""
echo "A password is required to access the ${cryptname} volume:"
fi
eval "${exe} ${CSQUIET}"
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
err "Non-LUKS device decryption failed. verify format: "
err " crypto=hash:cipher:keysize:offset:skip"
exit 1
fi
if [ -e "/dev/mapper/${cryptname}" ]; then
if [ ${DEPRECATED_CRYPT} -eq 1 ]; then
export root="/dev/mapper/root"
fi
else
err "Password succeeded, but ${cryptname} creation failed, aborting..."
exit 1
fi
else
err "Failed to open encryption mapping: The device ${cryptdev} is not a LUKS volume and the crypto= paramater was not specified."
fi
fi
rm -f ${ckeyfile}
fi
Create /mnt/lib/initcpio/install/etwo:
#!/bin/bash
build() {
local mod
add_module dm-crypt
if [[ $CRYPTO_MODULES ]]; then
for mod in $CRYPTO_MODULES; do
add_module "$mod"
done
else
add_all_modules '/crypto/'
fi
add_dir "/dev/mapper"
add_binary "cryptsetup"
add_binary "dmsetup"
add_binary "/usr/bin/gpg"
add_file "/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/10-dm.rules"
add_file "/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/13-dm-disk.rules"
add_file "/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/95-dm-notify.rules"
add_file "/usr/lib/initcpio/udev/11-dm-initramfs.rules" "/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/11-dm-initramfs.rules"
add_runscript
help ()
cat<<HELPEOF
This hook allows for an encrypted root device with support for gpg encrypted key files.
To use gpg, the key file must have the extension .gpg and you have to install gpg and add /usr/bin/gpg
to your BINARIES var in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf.
HELPEOF
Edit /mnt/etc/mkinitcpio.conf (only relevant sections displayed):
MODULES=”ext2 ext4” # not sure if this is really nessecary.
BINARIES=”/usr/bin/gpg” # this could probably be done in install/etwo...
HOOKS=”base udev usbinput keymap autodetect pata scsi sata usb etwo filesystems” # (usbinput is only needed if you have an usb keyboard)
Copy the initcpio stuff over to the live cd:
cp /mnt/lib/initcpio/hooks/etwo /lib/initcpio/hooks/
cp /mnt/lib/initcpio/install/etwo /lib/initcpio/install/
cp /mnt/etc/mkinitcpio.conf /etc/
Verify your LOCALE, KEYMAP and TIMEZONE in /etc/rc.conf!
Now reinstall the initcpio:
mkinitcpio -g /mnt/boot/kernel26.img
Make sure there were no errors and that all hooks were included.
13. Decrypt the "var" key to the encrypted root
mkdir /mnt/keys
chmod 500 /mnt/keys
gpg –output /mnt/keys/var -d /mnt/boot/var.gpg
chmod 400 /mnt/keys/var
14. Setup crypttab
Edit /mnt/etc/crypttab:
swap /dev/sda1 SWAP -c aes-cbc-essiv:sha256 -s 256 -h whirlpool
var /dev/sda2 /keys/var
15. Reboot
We're done, you may reboot. Make sure you select the usb stick as the boot device in your bios and hope for the best. . If it didn't work, play with grub's settings or boot from the live cd, mount your encrypted devices and check all settings. You might also have less trouble by using uuid's instead of device names. I chose device names to keep things as simple as possible, even though it's not the optimal way to do it.
Make backups of your data and your usb stick and do not forget your password(s)! Or you can say goodbye to your data forever...
Last edited by fabriceb (2013-01-15 22:36:23)

I'm trying to run my install script that is based on https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=129885
Decrypting the gpg key after grub works, but then "Devce root already exists." appears every second.
any idea ?
#!/bin/bash
# This script is designed to be run in conjunction with a UEFI boot using Archboot intall media.
# prereqs:
# EFI "BIOS" set to boot *only* from EFI
# successful EFI boot of Archboot USB
# mount /dev/sdb1 /src
set -o nounset
#set -o errexit
# Host specific configuration
# this whole script needs to be customized, particularly disk partitions
# and configuration, but this section contains global variables that
# are used during the system configuration phase for convenience
HOSTNAME=daniel
USERNAME=user
# Globals
# We don't need to set these here but they are used repeatedly throughout
# so it makes sense to reuse them and allow an easy, one-time change if we
# need to alter values such as the install target mount point.
INSTALL_TARGET="/install"
HR="--------------------------------------------------------------------------------"
PACMAN="pacman --noconfirm --config /tmp/pacman.conf"
TARGET_PACMAN="pacman --noconfirm --config /tmp/pacman.conf -r ${INSTALL_TARGET}"
CHROOT_PACMAN="pacman --noconfirm --cachedir /var/cache/pacman/pkg --config /tmp/pacman.conf -r ${INSTALL_TARGET}"
FILE_URL="file:///packages/core-$(uname -m)/pkg"
FTP_URL='ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch'
HTTP_URL='http://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch'
# Functions
# I've avoided using functions in this script as they aren't required and
# I think it's more of a learning tool if you see the step-by-step
# procedures even with minor duplciations along the way, but I feel that
# these functions clarify the particular steps of setting values in config
# files.
SetValue () {
# EXAMPLE: SetValue VARIABLENAME '\"Quoted Value\"' /file/path
VALUENAME="$1" NEWVALUE="$2" FILEPATH="$3"
sed -i "s+^#\?$${VALUENAME}$=.*$+\1=${NEWVALUE}+" "${FILEPATH}"
CommentOutValue () {
VALUENAME="$1" FILEPATH="$2"
sed -i "s/^$${VALUENAME}.*$$/#\1/" "${FILEPATH}"
UncommentValue () {
VALUENAME="$1" FILEPATH="$2"
sed -i "s/^#$${VALUENAME}.*$$/\1/" "${FILEPATH}"
# Initialize
# Warn the user about impending doom, set up the network on eth0, mount
# the squashfs images (Archboot does this normally, we're just filling in
# the gaps resulting from the fact that we're doing a simple scripted
# install). We also create a temporary pacman.conf that looks for packages
# locally first before sourcing them from the network. It would be better
# to do either *all* local or *all* network but we can't for two reasons.
# 1. The Archboot installation image might have an out of date kernel
# (currently the case) which results in problems when chrooting
# into the install mount point to modprobe efivars. So we use the
# package snapshot on the Archboot media to ensure our kernel is
# the same as the one we booted with.
# 2. Ideally we'd source all local then, but some critical items,
# notably grub2-efi variants, aren't yet on the Archboot media.
# Warn
timer=9
echo -e "\n\nMAC WARNING: This script is not designed for APPLE MAC installs and will potentially misconfigure boot to your existing OS X installation. STOP NOW IF YOU ARE ON A MAC.\n\n"
echo -n "GENERAL WARNING: This procedure will completely format /dev/sda. Please cancel with ctrl-c to cancel within $timer seconds..."
while [[ $timer -gt 0 ]]
do
sleep 1
let timer-=1
echo -en "$timer seconds..."
done
echo "STARTING"
# Get Network
echo -n "Waiting for network address.."
#dhclient eth0
dhcpcd -p eth0
echo -n "Network address acquired."
# Mount packages squashfs images
umount "/packages/core-$(uname -m)"
umount "/packages/core-any"
rm -rf "/packages/core-$(uname -m)"
rm -rf "/packages/core-any"
mkdir -p "/packages/core-$(uname -m)"
mkdir -p "/packages/core-any"
modprobe -q loop
modprobe -q squashfs
mount -o ro,loop -t squashfs "/src/packages/archboot_packages_$(uname -m).squashfs" "/packages/core-$(uname -m)"
mount -o ro,loop -t squashfs "/src/packages/archboot_packages_any.squashfs" "/packages/core-any"
# Create temporary pacman.conf file
cat << PACMANEOF > /tmp/pacman.conf
[options]
Architecture = auto
CacheDir = ${INSTALL_TARGET}/var/cache/pacman/pkg
CacheDir = /packages/core-$(uname -m)/pkg
CacheDir = /packages/core-any/pkg
[core]
Server = ${FILE_URL}
Server = ${FTP_URL}
Server = ${HTTP_URL}
[extra]
Server = ${FILE_URL}
Server = ${FTP_URL}
Server = ${HTTP_URL}
#Uncomment to enable pacman -Sy yaourt
[archlinuxfr]
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/\$arch
PACMANEOF
# Prepare pacman
[[ ! -d "${INSTALL_TARGET}/var/cache/pacman/pkg" ]] && mkdir -m 755 -p "${INSTALL_TARGET}/var/cache/pacman/pkg"
[[ ! -d "${INSTALL_TARGET}/var/lib/pacman" ]] && mkdir -m 755 -p "${INSTALL_TARGET}/var/lib/pacman"
${PACMAN} -Sy
${TARGET_PACMAN} -Sy
# Install prereqs from network (not on archboot media)
echo -e "\nInstalling prereqs...\n$HR"
#sed -i "s/^#S/S/" /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist # Uncomment all Server lines
UncommentValue S /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist # Uncomment all Server lines
${PACMAN} --noconfirm -Sy gptfdisk btrfs-progs-unstable libusb-compat gnupg
# Configure Host
# Here we create three partitions:
# 1. efi and /boot (one partition does double duty)
# 2. swap
# 3. our encrypted root
# Note that all of these are on a GUID partition table scheme. This proves
# to be quite clean and simple since we're not doing anything with MBR
# boot partitions and the like.
echo -e "format\n"
# shred -v /dev/sda
# disk prep
sgdisk -Z /dev/sda # zap all on disk
#sgdisk -Z /dev/mmcb1k0 # zap all on sdcard
sgdisk -a 2048 -o /dev/sda # new gpt disk 2048 alignment
#sgdisk -a 2048 -o /dev/mmcb1k0
# create partitions
sgdisk -n 1:0:+200M /dev/sda # partition 1 (UEFI BOOT), default start block, 200MB
sgdisk -n 2:0:+4G /dev/sda # partition 2 (SWAP), default start block, 200MB
sgdisk -n 3:0:0 /dev/sda # partition 3, (LUKS), default start, remaining space
#sgdisk -n 1:0:1800M /dev/mmcb1k0 # root.gpg
# set partition types
sgdisk -t 1:ef00 /dev/sda
sgdisk -t 2:8200 /dev/sda
sgdisk -t 3:8300 /dev/sda
#sgdisk -t 1:0700 /dev/mmcb1k0
# label partitions
sgdisk -c 1:"UEFI Boot" /dev/sda
sgdisk -c 2:"Swap" /dev/sda
sgdisk -c 3:"LUKS" /dev/sda
#sgdisk -c 1:"Key" /dev/mmcb1k0
echo -e "create gpg file\n"
# create gpg file
dd if=/dev/urandom bs=512 count=4 | gpg -v --cipher-algo aes256 --digest-algo sha512 -c -a > /root/root.gpg
echo -e "format LUKS on root\n"
# format LUKS on root
gpg -q -d /root/root.gpg 2>/dev/null | cryptsetup -v --key-file=- -c aes-xts-plain -s 512 --hash sha512 luksFormat /dev/sda3
echo -e "open LUKS on root\n"
gpg -d /root/root.gpg 2>/dev/null | cryptsetup -v --key-file=- luksOpen /dev/sda3 root
# NOTE: make sure to add dm_crypt and aes_i586 to MODULES in rc.conf
# NOTE2: actually this isn't required since we're mounting an encrypted root and grub2/initramfs handles this before we even get to rc.conf
# make filesystems
# following swap related commands not used now that we're encrypting our swap partition
#mkswap /dev/sda2
#swapon /dev/sda2
#mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3 # this is where we'd create an unencrypted root partition, but we're using luks instead
echo -e "\nCreating Filesystems...\n$HR"
# make filesystems
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/root
mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
#mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/mmcb1k0p1
echo -e "mount targets\n"
# mount target
#mount /dev/sda3 ${INSTALL_TARGET} # this is where we'd mount the unencrypted root partition
mount /dev/mapper/root ${INSTALL_TARGET}
# mount target
mkdir ${INSTALL_TARGET}
# mkdir ${INSTALL_TARGET}/key
# mount -t vfat /dev/mmcb1k0p1 ${INSTALL_TARGET}/key
mkdir ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot
# Install base, necessary utilities
mkdir -p ${INSTALL_TARGET}/var/lib/pacman
${TARGET_PACMAN} -Sy
${TARGET_PACMAN} -Su base
# curl could be installed later but we want it ready for rankmirrors
${TARGET_PACMAN} -S curl
${TARGET_PACMAN} -S libusb-compat gnupg
${TARGET_PACMAN} -R grub
rm -rf ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot/grub
${TARGET_PACMAN} -S grub2-efi-x86_64
# Configure new system
SetValue HOSTNAME ${HOSTNAME} ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/rc.conf
sed -i "s/^$127\.0\.0\.1.*$$/\1 ${HOSTNAME}/" ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/hosts
SetValue CONSOLEFONT Lat2-Terminus16 ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/rc.conf
#following replaced due to netcfg
#SetValue interface eth0 ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/rc.conf
# write fstab
# You can use UUID's or whatever you want here, of course. This is just
# the simplest approach and as long as your drives aren't changing values
# randomly it should work fine.
cat > ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/fstab <<FSTAB_EOF
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sda1 /boot vfat defaults 0 0
/dev/mapper/cryptswap none swap defaults 0 0
/dev/mapper/root / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
FSTAB_EOF
# write etwo
mkdir -p /lib/initcpio/hooks/
mkdir -p /lib/initcpio/install/
cp /src/etwo_hooks /lib/initcpio/hooks/etwo
cp /src/etwo_install /lib/initcpio/install/etwo
mkdir -p ${INSTALL_TARGET}/lib/initcpio/hooks/
mkdir -p ${INSTALL_TARGET}/lib/initcpio/install/
cp /src/etwo_hooks ${INSTALL_TARGET}/lib/initcpio/hooks/etwo
cp /src/etwo_install ${INSTALL_TARGET}/lib/initcpio/install/etwo
# write crypttab
# encrypted swap (random passphrase on boot)
echo cryptswap /dev/sda2 SWAP "-c aes-xts-plain -h whirlpool -s 512" >> ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/crypttab
# copy configs we want to carry over to target from install environment
mv ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/resolv.conf ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/resolv.conf.orig
cp /etc/resolv.conf ${INSTALL_TARGET}/etc/resolv.conf
mkdir -p ${INSTALL_TARGET}/tmp
cp /tmp/pacman.conf ${INSTALL_TARGET}/tmp/pacman.conf
# mount proc, sys, dev in install root
mount -t proc proc ${INSTALL_TARGET}/proc
mount -t sysfs sys ${INSTALL_TARGET}/sys
mount -o bind /dev ${INSTALL_TARGET}/dev
echo -e "umount boot\n"
# we have to remount /boot from inside the chroot
umount ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot
# Create install_efi script (to be run *after* chroot /install)
touch ${INSTALL_TARGET}/install_efi
chmod a+x ${INSTALL_TARGET}/install_efi
cat > ${INSTALL_TARGET}/install_efi <<EFI_EOF
# functions (these could be a library, but why overcomplicate things
SetValue () { VALUENAME="\$1" NEWVALUE="\$2" FILEPATH="\$3"; sed -i "s+^#\?$\${VALUENAME}$=.*\$+\1=\${NEWVALUE}+" "\${FILEPATH}"; }
CommentOutValue () { VALUENAME="\$1" FILEPATH="\$2"; sed -i "s/^$\${VALUENAME}.*$\$/#\1/" "\${FILEPATH}"; }
UncommentValue () { VALUENAME="\$1" FILEPATH="\$2"; sed -i "s/^#$\${VALUENAME}.*$\$/\1/" "\${FILEPATH}"; }
echo -e "mount boot\n"
# remount here or grub et al gets confused
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /boot
# mkinitcpio
# NOTE: intel_agp drm and i915 for intel graphics
SetValue MODULES '\\"dm_mod dm_crypt aes_x86_64 ext2 ext4 vfat intel_agp drm i915\\"' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
SetValue HOOKS '\\"base udev pata scsi sata usb usbinput keymap consolefont etwo encrypt filesystems\\"' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
SetValue BINARIES '\\"/usr/bin/gpg\\"' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
mkinitcpio -p linux
# kernel modules for EFI install
modprobe efivars
modprobe dm-mod
# locale-gen
UncommentValue de_AT /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
# install and configure grub2
# did this above
#${CHROOT_PACMAN} -Sy
#${CHROOT_PACMAN} -R grub
#rm -rf /boot/grub
#${CHROOT_PACMAN} -S grub2-efi-x86_64
# you can be surprisingly sloppy with the root value you give grub2 as a kernel option and
# even omit the cryptdevice altogether, though it will wag a finger at you for using
# a deprecated syntax, so we're using the correct form here
# NOTE: take out i915.modeset=1 unless you are on intel graphics
SetValue GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX '\\"cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:root cryptkey=/dev/sda1:vfat:/root.gpg add_efi_memmap i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1 pcie_aspm=force quiet\\"' /etc/default/grub
# set output to graphical
SetValue GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT gfxterm /etc/default/grub
SetValue GRUB_GFXMODE 960x600x32,auto /etc/default/grub
SetValue GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX keep /etc/default/grub # comment out this value if text only mode
# install the actual grub2. Note that despite our --boot-directory option we will still need to move
# the grub directory to /boot/grub during grub-mkconfig operations until grub2 gets patched (see below)
grub_efi_x86_64-install --bootloader-id=grub --no-floppy --recheck
# create our EFI boot entry
# bug in the HP bios firmware (F.08)
efibootmgr --create --gpt --disk /dev/sda --part 1 --write-signature --label "ARCH LINUX" --loader "\\\\grub\\\\grub.efi"
# copy font for grub2
cp /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 /boot/grub
# generate config file
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
exit
EFI_EOF
# Install EFI using script inside chroot
chroot ${INSTALL_TARGET} /install_efi
rm ${INSTALL_TARGET}/install_efi
# Post install steps
# anything you want to do post install. run the script automatically or
# manually
touch ${INSTALL_TARGET}/post_install
chmod a+x ${INSTALL_TARGET}/post_install
cat > ${INSTALL_TARGET}/post_install <<POST_EOF
set -o errexit
set -o nounset
# functions (these could be a library, but why overcomplicate things
SetValue () { VALUENAME="\$1" NEWVALUE="\$2" FILEPATH="\$3"; sed -i "s+^#\?$\${VALUENAME}$=.*\$+\1=\${NEWVALUE}+" "\${FILEPATH}"; }
CommentOutValue () { VALUENAME="\$1" FILEPATH="\$2"; sed -i "s/^$\${VALUENAME}.*$\$/#\1/" "\${FILEPATH}"; }
UncommentValue () { VALUENAME="\$1" FILEPATH="\$2"; sed -i "s/^#$\${VALUENAME}.*$\$/\1/" "\${FILEPATH}"; }
# root password
echo -e "${HR}\\nNew root user password\\n${HR}"
passwd
# add user
echo -e "${HR}\\nNew non-root user password (username:${USERNAME})\\n${HR}"
groupadd sudo
useradd -m -g users -G audio,lp,optical,storage,video,games,power,scanner,network,sudo,wheel -s /bin/bash ${USERNAME}
passwd ${USERNAME}
# mirror ranking
echo -e "${HR}\\nRanking Mirrors (this will take a while)\\n${HR}"
cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.orig
mv /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.all
sed -i "s/#S/S/" /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.all
rankmirrors -n 5 /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.all > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
# temporary fix for locale.sh update conflict
mv /etc/profile.d/locale.sh /etc/profile.d/locale.sh.preupdate || true
# yaourt repo (add to target pacman, not tmp pacman.conf, for ongoing use)
echo -e "\\n[archlinuxfr]\\nServer = http://repo.archlinux.fr/\\\$arch" >> /etc/pacman.conf
echo -e "\\n[haskell]\\nServer = http://www.kiwilight.com/\\\$repo/\\\$arch" >> /etc/pacman.conf
# additional groups and utilities
pacman --noconfirm -Syu
pacman --noconfirm -S base-devel
pacman --noconfirm -S yaourt
# sudo
pacman --noconfirm -S sudo
cp /etc/sudoers /tmp/sudoers.edit
sed -i "s/#\s*$%wheel\s*ALL=(ALL)\s*ALL.*$$/\1/" /tmp/sudoers.edit
sed -i "s/#\s*$%sudo\s*ALL=(ALL)\s*ALL.*$$/\1/" /tmp/sudoers.edit
visudo -qcsf /tmp/sudoers.edit && cat /tmp/sudoers.edit > /etc/sudoers
# power
pacman --noconfirm -S acpi acpid acpitool cpufrequtils
yaourt --noconfirm -S powertop2
sed -i "/^DAEMONS/ s/)/ @acpid)/" /etc/rc.conf
sed -i "/^MODULES/ s/)/ acpi-cpufreq cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave coretemp)/" /etc/rc.conf
# following requires my acpi handler script
echo "/etc/acpi/handler.sh boot" > /etc/rc.local
# time
pacman --noconfirm -S ntp
sed -i "/^DAEMONS/ s/hwclock /!hwclock @ntpd /" /etc/rc.conf
# wireless (wpa supplicant should already be installed)
pacman --noconfirm -S iw wpa_supplicant rfkill
pacman --noconfirm -S netcfg wpa_actiond ifplugd
mv /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.orig
echo -e "ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=network\nupdate_config=1" > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
# make sure to copy /etc/network.d/examples/wireless-wpa-config to /etc/network.d/home and edit
sed -i "/^DAEMONS/ s/)/ @net-auto-wireless @net-auto-wired)/" /etc/rc.conf
sed -i "/^DAEMONS/ s/ network / /" /etc/rc.conf
echo -e "\nWIRELESS_INTERFACE=wlan0" >> /etc/rc.conf
echo -e "WIRED_INTERFACE=eth0" >> /etc/rc.conf
echo "options iwlagn led_mode=2" > /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn.conf
# sound
pacman --noconfirm -S alsa-utils alsa-plugins
sed -i "/^DAEMONS/ s/)/ @alsa)/" /etc/rc.conf
mv /etc/asound.conf /etc/asound.conf.orig || true
#if alsamixer isn't working, try alsamixer -Dhw and speaker-test -Dhw -c 2
# video
pacman --noconfirm -S base-devel mesa mesa-demos
# x
#pacman --noconfirm -S xorg xorg-xinit xorg-utils xorg-server-utils xdotool xorg-xlsfonts
#yaourt --noconfirm -S xf86-input-wacom-git # NOT NEEDED? input-wacom-git
#TODO: cut down the install size
#pacman --noconfirm -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-utils xorg-server-utils
# TODO: wacom
# environment/wm/etc.
#pacman --noconfirm -S xfce4 compiz ccsm
#pacman --noconfirm -S xcompmgr
#yaourt --noconfirm -S physlock unclutter
#pacman --noconfirm -S rxvt-unicode urxvt-url-select hsetroot
#pacman --noconfirm -S gtk2 #gtk3 # for taffybar?
#pacman --noconfirm -S ghc
# note: try installing alex and happy from cabal instead
#pacman --noconfirm -S haskell-platform haskell-hscolour
#yaourt --noconfirm -S xmonad-darcs xmonad-contrib-darcs xcompmgr
#yaourt --noconfirm -S xmobar-git
# TODO: edit xfce to use compiz
# TODO: xmonad, but deal with video tearing
# TODO: xmonad-darcs fails to install from AUR. haskell dependency hell.
# switching to cabal
# fonts
pacman --noconfirm -S terminus-font
yaourt --noconfirm -S webcore-fonts
yaourt --noconfirm -S fontforge libspiro
yaourt --noconfirm -S freetype2-git-infinality
# TODO: sed infinality and change to OSX or OSX2 mode
# and create the sym link from /etc/fonts/conf.avail to conf.d
# misc apps
#pacman --noconfirm -S htop openssh keychain bash-completion git vim
#pacman --noconfirm -S chromium flashplugin
#pacman --noconfirm -S scrot mypaint bc
#yaourt --noconfirm -S task-git stellarium googlecl
# TODO: argyll
POST_EOF
# Post install in chroot
#echo "chroot and run /post_install"
chroot /install /post_install
rm /install/post_install
# copy grub.efi file to the default HP EFI boot manager path
mkdir -p ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot/EFI/Microsoft/BOOT/
mkdir -p ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot/EFI/BOOT/
cp ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot/grub/grub.efi ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot/EFI/Microsoft/BOOT/bootmgfw.efi
cp ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot/grub/grub.efi ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
cp /root/root.gpg ${INSTALL_TARGET}/boot/
# NOTES/TODO

[HOWTO] Installing Arch Linux stable release on Acer Aspire One 522

[This is a work on progress and my first howto ever]
These steps will teach you how to install ArchLinux x64 stable release (currently 2010.05) on Acer Aspire One 522 from an existing ArchLinux (your desktop computer)
As you need a 2.6.37+ kernel to make networking work on the AO522, installing stable release as is won't work.
This Howto borns with the intention to address this problem.
You need to be familiarized with Linux internals to follow this howto.
(Expect this howto to become useless with new stable releases of ArchLinux.)
Remember to make a backup of your Windows 7 Starter system before installing ArchLinux.
I did a full raw copy of the harddisk by using systemrescuecd, an external harddisk and dd utility:
Just boot with systemrescuecd
Mount your external harddisk on /mnt/floppy for example
Clone harddisk with: dd if=/dev/sda |gzip -c > /mnt/floppy/ao522.img
This process took me a lot of time since my external harddisk is USB-1 (almost an entire evening)
Result image was about 22GB size
This image will restore partition table, boot sector and all data if things go wrong.
I followed some of the steps from this guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … ting_Linux
If you have some Gentoo Linux experience you will find those steps really familiar.
You will need 2 USB pendrives or similar storage options.
One is needed to boot into your netbook, and the other to store our custom archlinux build.
Making an updated ArchLinux system
1) Make a local dir on your existing linux system
# mkdir ./newarch
2) Install pacman database on it
# pacman -Sy -r ./newarch
3) Install base system
# pacman -S base -r ./newarch
4) Let's chroot inside
# cp /etc/resolv.conf ./newarch/etc/
# cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist ./newarch/etc/pacman.d
# mount -t proc proc ./newarch/proc
# mount -t sysfs sys ./newarch/sys
# mount -o bind /dev ./newarch/dev
# chroot ./newarch /bin/bash
5) Edit configuration files
# nano -w /etc/rc.conf
# nano -w /etc/hosts
# nano -w /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
Forget /etc/fstab for now since you don't know what partitions to use yet
6) Generate kernel image
# mkinitcpio -p kernel26
7) Generate locales
# nano -w /etc/locale.gen
# locale-gen
8) Make a tarball with our custom ArchLinux
# exit
# umount ./newarch/proc
# umount ./newarch/dev
# umount ./newarch/sys
# tar -cvpf newarch.tar ./newarch
9) Copy this tarball to an USB pendrive or external harddisk
10) Boot your netbook with a Linux bootable USB stick (I used systemrescuecd, and remember to pick the x64 bit kernel at grub screen)
You can use any linux distribution with usb bootable options. I suppose ArchLinux works too
To install SystemRescueCD on an USB stick follow this tutorial -> SystemRescueCD on usb stick
Insert the usb stick on your netbook, switch on, hit F2 to enter BIOS menu, and choose to boot from USB as first option. Save and Exit.
You should be booting into SystemRescueCD without any problem.
After initialization you will end in a root prompt.
11) Let's partition the disk
You will find 3 partitions if this is your first time:
/dev/sda1 2048 29362175 14680064 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2 * 29362176 29566975 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 29566976 488397167 229312696 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
My recomendation is to leave sda1 and sda2 intact, as they have the recovery information to restore Windows 7 Starter
You have plenty of space with sda3, about 230G.
So run fdisk/cfdisk and delete /dev/sda3
Now create a 100M partition for boot
Now create a Extended partition with all the space left
Now create a 1GB logical partition for swap
Now create a 10-15 GB logical partition for root system
And finally a logical partition for our home partition with all space left
Your partition table should look like this:
/dev/sda1 2048 29362175 14680064 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2 * 29362176 29566975 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 29566976 29771775 102400 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 29771776 488397167 229312696 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 29773824 31821823 1024000 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 31823872 63281151 15728640 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 63283200 488397167 212556984 83 Linux
12) Create filesystems
I choosed ext2 for boot, and reiserfs for root and home partitions.
# mke2fs /dev/sda3
# mkreiserfs /dev/sda6
# mkreiserfs /dev/sda7
# mkswap /dev/sda5
13) Mount partitions
# mkdir arch
# mount /dev/sda6 arch
# mkdir arch/boot
# mount /dev/sda3 arch/boot
# mkdir arch/home
# mount /dev/sda7 arch/home
14) Copy our custom ArchLinux build on it
# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/floppy (for example)
# cd arch
# tar -xvpf /mnt/flopy/newarch.tar
15) Configure /etc/fstab
Mine is as follows:
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sda3 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
/dev/sda6 / reiserfs defaults 0 1
/dev/sda7 /home reiserfs defaults 0 1
/dev/sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
16) Chroot in your new system
# mount -t proc proc ./proc
# mount -t sysfs sys ./sys
# mount -o bind /dev ./dev
# chroot ./ /bin/bash
17) Install grub
# grub-install
Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to suit your needs
Mine looks like this:
timeout 5
default 0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda6 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda6 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img
title Windows 7 Recovery
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
As you see, you can restore Windows 7 Starter from Grub.
18) Change root password
# passwd
19) Add a regular user account
# useradd -G video,audio,users -m username
# passwd username
20) You're done!
# exit
# cd ..
# umount ./arch/proc
# umount ./arch/dev
# umount ./arch/sys
# umount ./arch/boot
# umount ./arch/
# reboot
Remove the usb stick from your netbook.
If all went ok, you will be inside your new stable and updated ArchLinux system
Next post is reserved for software configurations specific to the Acer Aspire One 522
Last edited by tigrezno (2011-04-20 12:22:38)

Using acpid to achieve the following:
- Change screen brightness when operating in battery mode
- Power off when the power button is pressed
- Suspend when the lid is down
- Reduce CPU frequency speed to maximize battery usage
Remember that system suspend is only supported by ati free driver xf86-video-ati
1) Install acpid daemon and cpufrequtils
# pacman -S apcid cpufrequtils
2) edit acpid handler script
# nano -w /etc/acpi/handler.sh
Change the following section:
ac_adapter)
case "$2" in
AC)
case "$4" in
00000000)
echo -n $minspeed >$setspeed
#/etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode start
00000001)
echo -n $maxspeed >$setspeed
#/etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode stop
esac
*) logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
esac
for:
ac_adapter)
case "$2" in
ACAD)
case "$4" in
00000000)
echo 3 > /sys/devices/virtual/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
cpufreq-set -c 0 -f 800Mhz
cpufreq-set -c 1 -f 800Mhz
00000001)
echo 9 > /sys/devices/virtual/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
cpufreq-set -c 0 -f 1000Mhz
cpufreq-set -c 1 -f 1000Mhz
esac
*) logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
esac
Make sure you changed AC) for ACAD)
Now change this other section:
button/power)
#echo "PowerButton pressed!">/dev/tty5
case "$2" in
PWRF) logger "PowerButton pressed: $2" ;;
*) logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
esac
with:
button/power)
#echo "PowerButton pressed!">/dev/tty5
case "$2" in
PWRF) poweroff ;;
*) logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
esac
Change:
button/lid)
#echo "LID switched!">/dev/tty5
logger "ACPI group/action undefined: $1 / $2"
for:
button/lid)
pm-suspend && /etc/rc.d/network restart
logger "ACPI group/action undefined: $1 / $2"
Network restart is used because wlan0 will disconnect from AP after some time. You can try using iwconfig wlan0 essid <ap> key <key> instead of the network script, but haven't tested it myself.
3) Start acpid and load modules
# modprobe powernow-k8
# /etc/rc.d/acpid start
Add "acpid" to DAEMONS in /etc/rc.conf to start on boot
Add "powernow-k8" to the modules sections on /etc/rc.conf to load at boot
Stopping system freezes due to ethernet driver
The only way people have found to avoid freezes is by blacklisting atheros kernel drivers.
To do it at boot just edit /etc/rc.conf and change the MODULES line as this:
MODULES=(!ath9k !atl1c)
Reboot and you're done, but remember to not press the Wifi key, because it can freeze your system.
Correctly starting wireless at boot
I've found that standard scripts wont load properly my wireless lan. It gave an error telling you to use the WIRELESS_TIMEOUT variable and such.
To solve this, edit /etc/rc.d/network script and change the wi_up function by adding a second iwconfig command like this:
wi_up()
eval iwcfg="\$wlan_${1}"
[[ ! $iwcfg ]] && return 0
/usr/sbin/iwconfig $iwcfg
[[ $WIRELESS_TIMEOUT ]] || WIRELESS_TIMEOUT=2
sleep $WIRELESS_TIMEOUT
/usr/sbin/iwconfig $iwcfg
bssid=$(iwgetid $1 -ra)
It will do the trick and will start at boot correctly. This is not a solution but a fix.
Adjust Touchpad to disable false taps
What I did here is defining an area to be ignored. This area are 3 rectangles on top, left and right of the touchpad.
This means you can write and press space without having the cursor click out of the window and such.
# synclient AreaLeftEdge=150
# synclient AreaRightEdge=1300
# synclient AreaTopEdge=300
Also, add it to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "evdev touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "evdev"
Option "AreaTopEdge" "300"
Option "AreaLeftEdge" "150"
Option "AreaRightEdge" "1300"
EndSection
You can play with those values. They just work for me.
Last edited by tigrezno (2011-04-23 13:49:48)

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