Do I need a clean Arch install to change DE or WM?

Hey all,
I'm new to Arch... well, I will be new to Arch. Still currently using Fedora. One of the things I'm doing right now is taking some time to read the wiki and fully embracing "The Arch Way."
Since I have the opportunity to build a system from the ground up, it's caused me to reconsider some of my pre-existing ideas. Like... do I need a full blown DE? The answer is probably not. All I do is listen to music, surf and code. Therefore, there's a lot I don't need.
I'm considering using these:
Gnome3
Openbox
Fluxbox
DWM
Xmonad
The problem is... I kind of want to try all of them. Well, except for Gnome3. I know what's up there.
Will it be relatively simple to just use pacman to change my DE or WM? Or do I need to cleanly install Arch? The answer will have some bearing on how long it takes me to move forward.

You can have multiple ones going no problem, the idea is super simple, you either install a display manager to graphically choose which environment you want, or you set up your .xinitrc like the previous poster mentioned to include the multiple environments. The Wiki usually covers near everything you could possibly need including things from the aur in depth.
I personally prefer the .xinitrc way because it's simpler. startx will start whichever you specified as your main de, and xinit gnome or xinit xfce, etc. will start the other enviroments.
My preference on a laptop is openbox and my preference on a desktop is kde. Make sure you follow the guide for openbox should you choose to use it, you need to copy a few default files to your .config folder. Also note that a fresh openbox install is pretty barebones and takes a while to configure. I like that stuff, but xfce might be a better choice if you don't.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xinitrc explains how to set up your .xinitrc for multiple de's in detail, while configuring all the major display managers are explained in depth in their respective wikis.
Also note that its really easy to remove one if you don't like it, with just "pacman -Rs gnome" for example, which should remove it and all its standalone dependencies.
Last edited by xtraroot (2013-12-29 19:18:57)

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I need to clean erase/install before selling

I have a flat-panel iMac that I'm selling to neighbors for their daughter's use. First, tell me is $200.00 too low an asking price? The specs are shown in my profile. Nothing is wrong except the mysterious sound issue, which I told them about and advised them to get external speakers. I was hoping to get closer to $400.00 as I saw many going for on Ebay with less capability than mine. (This machine has been a dream!) Do you recommend my getting the original, round Harmon Kardon speakers to accompany the computer for sale?
Secondly, I went to the Apple Store yesterday and the associate knew very little to provide me with assistance. In attempting to do a erase and install of the OS from Disk Utility, my computer is now stuck on a grey screen with apple logo in the middle; it looks like in classic OS9.
It was asking for the install disk and I had 5 disks given to me from the guy that sold it to me off Ebay. I didn't know which one to insert so I chose "OS9" first. That's what put it in its current state.
After trying to backup or save items that I wanted to keep (iTunes library, documents, movies) I gave up and decided to sacrifice them all because the blank DVDs that I was using kept giving me error messages.
I have read here to: "Put your install disk in your Mac and Restart while holding down the C key." What should be on the screen when you put the install disk in?
"Click on Disk Utility and choose the hard drive you want your OS on." How do I know which HD to choose?"
Do I need to take this computer back to Apple or can I restore this myself?

The original Harmon Kardon speakers are hard to find and not compatible with many newer Macs but they do have good quality. If you got them, it would prove once and for all if the problem is with the sound chip on your computer, or just the speaker that is built-in, or some setting. My FAQ* explains how to prepare a Mac for selling:
http://www.macmaps.com/selling.html
Apple may have the correct install disks, if you misplaced yours. Give their AppleCare office a call.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

I have a macbook pro with 10.6.8 on it but I need to do a clean re install and my CD is 10.4.6. Can I use the CD and then are my OS updates to 10.6.8 free?

I have a macbook pro with 10.6.8 on it but I need to do a clean re install and my CD is 10.4.6. Can I use the CD and then are my OS updates to 10.6.8 free?
Also can I use iMac OS install disks on a MacBookPro?

You will have to buy Snow Leopard:
You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order. You also should find it at your local Apple retailers.
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mountain Lion if your computer meets the requirements.

Need help with arch linux install!

Hello, let me start off by telling you about the predicament I'm in at the moment. I've been trying to install arch linux on with a cd-drive that has been failing for a little over a year now, so you can already see where my problem starts! The cd-drive, however will work with such cd's as Windows, Ubuntu, and Slackware, which I'm happy with. Yet, archlinux doesn't work so much.
And now maybe my solution. I've got a usb cd drive, that I've had laying around that works well, just not well enough for my bios to be able to boot from; which is horrible I know. I've searched the bios for loading a usb cd drive and everything else, including google so I don't think I'm going to get anywhere with that one. Anyways what I'm thinking of doing is that when archlinux is in the terminal right before you type the "/arch/setup" command, I would like to know if there is any command that allows you to change the cd it boots the cd from to go right into the installation. I'm still working on easying my out of the newbie stage of linux at the moment, but I've never run into a command like that, that would help me out. Hopefully there is one though, because I would very much like to archlinux to work, so please respond! Right now I'm running elinks through the terminal right before you type "/arch/setup". Thanks!

loosec wrote:
So you get through the boot process just fine then on your old CD drive. The only thing you should have to do after that is to throw your CD into the USB CD drive and proceed with the installation. The installer should then ask you what CD drive you would like to use when you choose install from CD.
Another way to do it would be to switch cd like above and then manually mount your /dev/[your_usb_cd_here] on /src. The installer then has to be pointed to this place as the source of your installation. To find out what your usb cd drive is called you should unplug it, then replug it and run: dmesg
The mount command might also need to be shown that this is a cd so:
mount -t iso9660 /dev/[usb_cd_device_name] /src
should do the trick.
If you really want to learn more of what the installer does (and fail installing a few times) you should also check out the command
/arch/quickinstall
If your Internet connection is up for it, it seems like you could just choose an FTP install instead.
Goodluck!
Once the CD is removed from the drive that it was booted from. the installation will not continue, as the arch install always goes back to the boot drive to continue read the neccessary information for the install. I do not think there is a way to fool the computer into booting from one cd drive and then continueing on with another. To do this you would have to tell the computer that you are switching drives.
If you can boot up the CD kernel and get to where you type in /arch/setup then the next thing I would od is FTP install. That would limit your CD rom drie usage.
There is also a way to install arch from within another distro, EVEN ANOTHER LIVECD! <-- this may be your best bet. Check the wiki, there is tons of information there.
Last edited by rooloo (2008-08-16 12:32:00)

Do i need to clean install mavericks

macbook pro 10.8.5 want mavericks do i need to clean instal it.

Better asked on MacBook Pro forum, no you don't but yes there is some wisdom in making bootable backup or restore image if you do.
A clean install is easy to do and Setup Assistant will take the system image or clone as source for your old prefs and apps and add them back.
Make sure everything you use is current and supported, some are not. Less an issue with a notebook than a Mac tower.
How to make your own bootable OS X 10.9 Mavericks USB install drive
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/how-to-make-your-own-bootable-os-x-10-9-mav ericks-usb-install-drive/
Apple has changed things in 10.9, but making a recovery drive is still possible.
by Andrew Cunningham - Oct 23 2013, 8:19am CDT
OS X
Flickr user Prime Number
When Apple released OS X 10.7 two years ago, it stopped selling operating system DVDs in its stores, stopped shipping recovery disks with new Macs, and switched to downloadable installers for OS X upgrades. These download-only installers have actually worked pretty well—I’ve never had an issue downloading the software from the Mac App Store or restoring a Mac using the Internet Recovery feature when something went south. That said, it’s still nice to have an install disk handy for those cases when you don’t have a connection, when your connection is slow, or when you just have a whole bunch of Macs and don’t want to have to download the installer on each and every one of them.
The good news is, as with Lion and Mountain Lion, it’s possible to create a local USB installer for Mavericks. The bad news is that it wasn’t as simple as it was before—Apple has changed the way the installer works, and making an install disk manually is more difficult than it used to be. Before we get started, here’s what you’ll need:
An 8GB or larger USB flash drive, or an 8GB or larger partition on some other kind of external drive
The OS X 10.9 Mavericks installer from the Mac App Store in your Applications folder. The installer will delete itself when you install the operating system, but it can be re-downloaded if necessary.
The latest beta of the Lion Diskmaker app, available here (as of this writing, version 3 beta 3 is the most recent). This app is free to download, but the creator accepts donations if you want to support his efforts.
How to clone your system:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner
You can also use Disk Utility Restore to image or clone the system to another disk volume.
MacBook Series Forums
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks?view=discussions
Mac OS X Forum
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions

Spring clean: re-installing everything I need, and nothing else

Hello,
I wonder if anyone can advise me on order of installing Creative Suite applications? I currently have all of CS4, all of CS5, and all of the CS5.5 Creative Suite applications installed. It's cluttered and I don't like it. And I'd like to have CS3 back, but know I can't do it in the wrong order.
I'm thinking of doing a big renewal my Mac by doing a clean re-install of Snow Leopard, then installing the following applications in the following order:
1. InDesign CS3 (but not the rest of the applications in the Suite)
2. InDesign CS4 (but not the rest of the applications in the Suite)
3. All applications of CS5.5 Creative Suite.
Does this sound like a bad idea? I never use the earlier versions of Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Photoshop etc. but I need different versions of InDesign to deal with various clients, saving down, etc..
Any advice would be much appreciated -- Jeremy

So far, all of your advice seems to have come up trumps... For what it's worth, I've done a clean install of Lion, re-installed and updated InDesign 5.0.4, 6.0.6, 7.5.1 (skipping 5.0) and all other applications of CS 5.5 Design Premium.
It's early days yet, but the transition went smoothly and so far they all seem to be playing nicely with each other. (I don't have the CS3/4 printer crashing problem as my work computer doesn't even have a printer installed).
Thanks to all again -- I really appreciate it -- Jeremy

[SOLVED]Shift my Arch install to a new (smaller) PC/HDD?

Hey all, I've looked around all sorts of forums for the answer to this, but none of them seem to cater exactly to my need, so I'll post my problem here!
Essentially I bought a new harddive. Well actually, I bought a whole new PC-worth of parts, but it's the harddrive causing problems.
I've had this Arch install for quite a while, and as such it's pretty well tweaked and messed about with, so I REALLY don't want to start again with a clean install, so I want to (For lack of a better terminology) Copy-paste my entire Arch install into the new harddrive.
I looked into Clonezilla, but there's a slight issue... My new drive is smaller than my old one. I know this was a dumb mistake on my part, but really I don't need anything bigger (Even with a load of movies, VM's and Wine games that can easily be deleted I'm only using 60-70GB of drive right now) And the only reason I really needed a new drive was because the new motherboard doesn't have an IDE slot, and my old drive is an IDE (I know there's adaptors for that, but they sound a bit dodgy at best)
My current partitions on my drive are also numbered a bit funny, which I think is where this went wrong when I attempted it, due to me distro-hopping a bit before landing on Arch.
So, is there an easy way to go about this, that I'm overlooking? Are there more config files that I should have editted (All I did upon clonezilla-ing the main partition was change the grub menu.lst file to say sda1 instead of sda3, and the same in fstab)
What I tried first time round, was to use Clonezilla, and only clone my /dev/sda3 partition (That's the one with Arch installed, sda1 is just an empty box that I occasionally store junk in) And this put a partition on the new drive, sda1, which was the reason for editting the menu.lst/fstab.
I then (Upon the above failing to boot) used GParted (Using a Mint LiveCD) To shrink my partitions down so they're approx. 65GB each (My current drive is 200GB, split equally in half, and my new drive is 160gb) Hoping Clonezilla would believe my drive was only 130GB (This still didn't work, it still told me the destination drive's too small)
Is there anything else I can do that I'm missing?
Last edited by Reded (2012-07-15 17:12:58)

Phew, thread is solved!
To R00KIE, your post actually helped me quite a lot - It turns out I was missing installing grub + regenerating initramfs
So how I did it:
GParted the new drive so it had a filesystem
Boot from a Ubuntu LiveCD,
mount both drives
copy-paste drive-to-drive (literally... used the cp command)
chroot into the new drive
adjust fstab/menu.lst
grub-install /dev/sda
mkinitcpo -p linux
reboot
PROFIT!
You're right ROOKIE, that whole process was far simpler than some websites make it out to be Thread closed!

Installing a ssd into a mid 2010 15 inch MBP with a clean Mavericks install

I have the above mentioned computer, and it is beginning to show signs of hard drive issues. I have tried to repair it with disk utilities, but it won't and says I need to reformat. The current hard drive is a seagate hybrid with a little ssd and a 750 gb 7200 rpm drive (the original drive was cloned over, so this hard drive's software has been in use through updates and new OS's for a little over three years now). I am running Mavericks now with no problems, but I wanted to do this before a catastrophic oops. To be honest, the hard drive probably isn't bad, just had some os read/write errors over the years that have built up (probably because this was my first mac and I did not know how to use it at first).
How do I go about upgrading to the ssd? Do I need to make a bootable usb stick so I can format the new drive and boot enough to download mavericks from the app store or does mavericks keep a portion of itself in the computer memory so it can help recover from a hard drive crash?
Honestly, I don't know what other questions to ask (yet).
David

The easiest way would be to put the SSD into a 2.5 enclosure then boot into the Recovery partition by holding down Command and R at boot. Use disk utility to prep the new drive then install to it.
Those few errors you're talking about could be due to a faulty SATA cable. That will really show itself with an SSD, so if you get a lot of errors after moving the SSD in, that's a likely culprit.
By the way, the easiest way to do this if you don't need a clean install is with Carbon Copy Cloner. Just clone your existing drive to the SSD.
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-TB4P/dp/B005EIGUD4/ ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391917664&sr=8-1&keywords=2.5+enclosure+usb+3.0

Mid-2010 27" iMac very slow, even after clean OS install - HELP!

Good afternoon guys, I'm hoping someone can offer me some advice.
I bought my Mid-2010 27" iMac in May-ish 2011. Everything was brilliant, I couldn't believe the ease of use, and especially the start up speed, coming from a world of PCs. My iMac was used almost every day, for web browsing, photo editing, etc.
Maybe about April / May this year it started becoming very slow, slow to boot, slow to respond to mouse clicks, slow to do anything. Since I'd used about 750GB of my HDD (mainly photos), I decided I would archive some and hope that would ease the congestion. As my photos were stored in Aperture, it took about 3 days to export them all to my external HDD, 3 days of the iMac only getting so far, switching itself off, then me finally getting it to come back on (I was getting messages about Kernals, etc. now and again through boot too) - it finally backed up my photos I have from my daughters first year.
Great news, but I still had probably 400GB / 500GB of photos from her second year and any other photos I'd taken. I found the root of my Aperture directory, and managed to pull these images off, so everything is now backed up.
I decided I should try and clean install, and managed to get the HDD to boot and choose the option to re-install from Apple's Servers. All installed OK, and we're good to go! Fired up the iMac, and although it's fractionally quicker to respond, and a lot more stable, it's not quite right. And I've lost all my iLife Apps which originally came with the iMac.
Does this sound like a HDD issue? As I say, it was on quite a lot through the backup procedure, and I had set it (maybe stupidly looking back now) to never sleep, and for the monitor to only switch off after 3 hours. Or does it sound like something more is wrong with it?
I am quite confident of working with PCs, so would manage to replace the HDD I think, looking at some videos, etc. online. I did upgrade the RAM to 16GB, and that was simple enough. My question is, when you replace the HDD, how does it know where to look to the Apple Servers for the clean OS install? Or do I have to do something to let it know where to look first? I have to point out I don't have any Time Machine backup, etc. as the iMac was just not stable enough to get this in place - and up until that point, again probably stupid now looking back, I had never bothered to set up.
Any help / advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated. At the moment I have totally fallen out of love with the iMac, for something to cost £1,500+ and only last 3 years, where my last build PC lasted Approx 8 years for half the price, is very disappointing.
Thanks in advance,
Col

Just suggesting things right off the bat here-
To me it sounds as though the HDD is failing, if your iMac shipped with a Seagate drive try entering your serial number to see if Apple will replace it:http://www.apple.com/au/support/imac-harddrive/
Or try running Apple Hardware Test a few times back to see if it is a hardware error.
As for the iLife apps they should've come on one of the install discs that shipped with your mac.
If your iMac is ineligible for the program above I would consider replacing it yourself with either an SSD or HDD, as for recognising apples servers for download, you will need the original install discs that came with your computer or if you haven't already it will need a firmware update to enable internet recovery
See here:Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery
Good Luck!

[SOLVED] Advice for Arch install with rEFInd dual boot Lenovo laptop?

I am trying to plan an Arch install on a new laptop for dual boot with Windows 8.1, but I know there is a potential to cause huge problems so I have been trying to read and learn about the hard disk partition structure and how I might install the rEFInd boot files so that I am still able to boot Windows once Arch is installed. (Unfortunately for some tasks such as updating the maps on my satnav box Windows is essential). However I am really quite unsure if I am doing the right thing in the way I am thinking about the Arch install so I would appreciate any help from experts on the forum.
The laptop is a Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p which came with Windows 8 pre-installed, with the option to upgrade to Windows 8.1. The upgrade was completed without issue and I then looked into the question of hard drive partitions and boot. I had read posts on the Ubuntu forums about users who had installed Ubuntu on this same laptop and ended up being unable to boot Windows afterwards so I wanted to tread very carefully before executing anything which might cause really major damage. I had also read on the Lenovo forums replies about people who had replaced the hard drive and installed linux only to find that they could not boot to the recovery partitions, with replies from Lenovo moderators saying that if the partition structure had been changed then the laptop would have to be sent back to Lenovo for a factory repair.
On this laptop to get into the bios or boot options you do not just press the power button and hit an F key, but instead there is a special small "OneKey Recovery" button next to the power jack, which opens up with options for BIOS setup and boot options as well as normal boot or recovery. This OneKey Recovery button is therefore needed to boot a usbkey - the power button only allows it to boot to windows presumably until/unless a different bootloader and NVRAM entry is amended.
I have done all the initial ( safe!)changes necessary to move to the point at which I can execute the Arch install. From within Windows (switched off fastboot, and shrunk the "C:" drive to make space for linux partitions). I have also switched off Secure Boot from the BIOS, and made sure that Windows still boots up fine.
The current arch install iso (February 2014) boots under uefi just fine - and of course once booted I have access to the gdisk programme. That certainly showed the pre-existing partitions on the drive (8 partitions with partition number 2 being the EFI partition, and three recovery partitions!) with a GPT partition table, and it should therefore be possible to make the necessary new linux partitions in the now unallocated space on the disk that was freed up with the internal disk management facility within Windows 8.1. So at that point I created three partitions for a root partition (type 8300), a swap partition (type 8200) and another type 8300 partition which will become /opt in the installed Arch system.
In order to try and not make any changes to the partition structure I let the three new linux partitions be number 9, 10 and 11.
I am told that for a GPT disk it is a definite no-no to try to create more than one EFI partition. So I will need to use the existing EFI partition to place the rEFInd files and the kernel once I install Arch.
In this (Y510p) laptop the EFI partition contains the following structure:
BOOT/ - containing only boot.sdi
BOOTSECT.BAK
EFI/ which contains two directories Boot/ and Microsoft/
so EFI/Boot/ contains only Boot64.efi which is likely a fallback copy of the Windows 8.1 bootloader
and EFI/Microsoft/ contains a Boot/ directory - so
EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ contains loads of language specific directories like en-GB/
plus bootmgfw.efi (which I believe is the Windows main efi loader file)
bootmgr.efi
memtest.efi
The scheme that I am planning to use which I have previously used in pure Arch uefi machines, is that /boot is a directory in the root partition, /. That way /boot is an ext4 directory and will contain the kernel and initramfs plus the rEFInd linux config file.
Then I can mount the EFI (vfat) partition as /boot/efi and so I can then make a /boot partition under /. Then the EFI /BOOT/ directory would be seen in Linux as /boot/efi/BOOT/ and the Windows efi stuff would be in /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/Microsoft/Boot/ in which case I would presume that I have to make a new directory in /boot/efi/EFI/refind/ and put the refind stuff including the filesystem drivers there, and let the kernel go into the (ext4) /boot/ directory which would be preferred! However I am not 100% confident that this is what will work and I need to read more before trying to do the install. The thing that concerns me is how the system will handle the uefi boot process, and whether it would auto-detect the Windows efi file as well as the Arch refind efi file once the system has started up?
... and then there is the issue of the NVRAM entries and I am no longer confident that if I use the usual tools to create an entry (efiboomgr or bcfg), that I will get a successful dual boot system!
There is still a chance that I would irrevocably damage being able to boot to the Windows and Recovery partition boot options by messing up the EFI and/or the NVRAM so I have to tread very very carefully with this.
If anyone has gone through this kind of dual boot install with a Windows 8 or 8.1 machine using rEFInd for the bootloader, and can offer advice or help here I would very much appreciate it. I have another pure Arch system which uses rEFInd that works extremely well, but it seems that dual boot with uefi is a rather more complex animal than a pure linux system!
Last edited by mcloaked (2014-02-22 10:06:03)

vipin wrote:I have recently bought the y510p , im planning to install Arch , this is my 4th laptop , i had installed Arch in all the other 3 with no problems, but im a bit worried with the installation as this is the first laptop which has EFI , im a linux user for the past 6 years , i started with fedora , now i like Arch , mike documentation is excellent, i just had one question when i had grub , it automatically finds the new kernel when i update (grub.conf/menu.lst gets updated), does rEFInd also do that.
When there is an update to the rEFInd package you need to copy the files across to your ESP from the files contained in /usr/share/refind/ usually you need to copy the refind_x64.efi binary as well as the icons, fonts, and drivers directories. Since there is flexibility in how you configure the kernel and initrd files in terms of where they are located whether you need to do anything else when a new kernel update arrives depends on how you set your system up. If you have the /boot directory as your ESP partition which will then have the kernel and initrd files updated by default then there no need to do anything else when there is a kernel update. If the ESP is then at /boot/EFI and within that is your refind/ directory then that is where the replacement files go if refind-efi gets a pacman update. So it is actually fairly straight forward. If you configure rEFInd to look for kernels in some other directory than /boot/ then you may need to copy the files there after a kernel update but there is more information in the arch wiki about this.
During a refind-efi package update there are helpful files in the pacman output (and log) reminding you of what you need to do. eg for the latest refind-efi update you get:
[2014-06-18 18:48] [PACMAN] upgraded radvd (1.12-1 -> 1.13-1)
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] rEFInd UEFI application has been installed at /usr/share/refind/refind_*.efi
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Other UEFI applications have been installed at /usr/share/refind/tools_*/
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] UEFI drivers have been installed at /usr/share/refind/drivers_*/
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Copy the efi application (according to your UEFI ARCH)
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] and /usr/share/refind/refind.conf-sample to a sub-directory of <EFISYS>/EFI/
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] as refind.conf and add an entry to firmware boot menu using efibootmgr
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] or mactel-boot (for Macs)
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] rEFInd Icons have been installed at /usr/share/refind/icons/
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] rEFInd Fonts have been installed at /usr/share/refind/fonts/
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] HTML Documentation is available at /usr/share/refind/docs/html/
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] More info: [url]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI_Bootloaders#Using_rEFInd[/url]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]
[2014-06-18 18:48] [PACMAN] upgraded refind-efi (0.8.1-1 -> 0.8.2-1)
I hope that helps.
By the way you can also boot uefi using grub and in fact you can get rEFInd to chainload grub as a backup bootloader as an added safety factor and have both rEFInd as well as grub installed simultaneously. How that can be done is explained in the thread at https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=181906
Last edited by mcloaked (2014-06-25 17:41:12)

I have a mac book pro with Boot Camp that also runs windows. I upgraded to Lion and somehow it crashes the mac side peridoically. I am told I need to "clean" it and reinstall lion using the recovery drive. will that delete the windows partition too??

I have a mac book pro with Boot Camp that also runs windows. I upgraded to Lion and now the mac side crashes/freezes periodically, especially iphoto. I am told by the genius' that I probably need to "clean" it and reinstall lion using the "recovery drive" which resets everything back to default and reinstalls the lion operating system. My question is will this also delete the "windows" partition drive and all that data too. If so that will be a huge pain in the ___ to back up and reinstall boot camp and windows. I want to shoot the lion.

There is no system like Acronis for the Mac platform. You can try using the buiilt in Disk Utility to create an Image of the complete Mac drive but I have found that this does not work very well as on tryiing to restore it gives errors sometimes.
You can use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable Clone of your system partition. But that is only for the System partition and not the complete drive.
If you use Boot Camp to install Windows on your Mac neither of those two programs will clone the Windows side.
Neither will Disk utility as Mac's can not create or write to a NTFS partition. So some other program is need for that.

I just got my MacBook Air and every time I go to a website other ads and websites pop up saying I need to clean my mac out. Any ideas on what I should do?

When I am surfing the web other websites pop up saying I need to clean my mac out or I am a winner of something. I just got my Mac so I'm not sure how this happened.

You may have installed the "VSearch" trojan, perhaps under a different name. Remove it as follows.
Malware is constantly changing to get around the defenses against it. The instructions in this comment are valid as of now, as far as I know. They won't necessarily be valid in the future. Anyone finding this comment a few days or more after it was posted should look for more recent discussions or start a new one.
Back up all data before proceeding.
Step 1
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.vsearch.agent.plist
Right-click or control-click the line and select
          Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)
from the contextual menu.* A folder should open with an item named "com.vsearch.agent.plist" selected. Drag the selected item to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password.
Repeat with each of these lines:
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.vsearch.daemon.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.vsearch.helper.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/Jack.plist
Restart the computer and empty the Trash. Then delete the following items in the same way:
/Library/Application Support/VSearch
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/Jack
/System/Library/Frameworks/VSearch.framework
~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ConduitNPAPIPlugin.plugin
Some of these items may be absent, in which case you'll get a message that the file can't be found. Skip that item and go on to the next one. Even if you find none of the items listed in this step, go on to Step 2.
Step 2
From the Safari menu bar, select
          Safari ▹ Preferences... ▹ Extensions
Uninstall any extensions you don't know you need, including any that have the word "Spigot," "Trovi," or "Conduit" in the description. If in doubt, uninstall all extensions. Do the equivalent for the Firefox and Chrome browsers, if you use either of those.
Reset the home page and default search engine in all the browsers, if it was changed.
This trojan is distributed on illegal websites that traffic in pirated content. If you, or anyone else who uses the computer, visit such sites and follow prompts to install software, you can expect much worse to happen in the future.
You may be wondering why you didn't get a warning from Gatekeeper about installing software from an unknown developer, as you should have. The reason is that this Internet criminal has a codesigning certificate issued by Apple, which causes Gatekeeper to give the installer a pass. Apple could revoke the certificate, but as of this writing, has not done so, even though it's aware of the problem. This failure of oversight has compromised both Gatekeeper and the Developer ID program. You can't rely on Gatekeeper alone to protect you from harmful software.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
          Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

Do I need to clean my computer like I did with my Dell?

Hi I have a MacBook Air
I was wondering if I need to clean up records etc like I did on my old Dell computer. I know very little about computers.
Thanks Dennis

No. Any one or any thing that recommends you "clean" your Mac should elicit a visceral negative reaction.
If you're having trouble with your Mac explain what it is. Make no attempt to "clean" it, unless you want to create real problems. For more information read below.
There will always be threats to your information security associated with using any Internet - connected communications tool:
You can mitigate those threats by following commonsense practices
Delegating that responsibility to software is an ineffective defense
Assuming that any product will protect you from those threats is a hazardous attitude that is likely to result in neglecting point #1 above.
OS X already includes everything it needs to protect itself from viruses and malware. Keep it that way with software updates from Apple.
A much better question is "how should I protect my Mac":
Never install any product that claims to "clean up", "speed up", "optimize", "boost" or "accelerate" your Mac; to "wash" it, "tune" it, or to make it "shiny". Those claims are absurd.Such products are very aggressively marketed. They are all scams.
Never install pirated or "cracked" software, software obtained from dubious websites, or other questionable sources.
Illegally obtained software is almost certain to contain malware.
"Questionable sources" include but are not limited to spontaneously appearing web pages or popups, download hosting sites such as C net dot com, Softonic dot com, Soft pedia dot com, Download dot com, Mac Update dot com, or any other site whose revenue is primarily derived from junk product advertisements.
If you need to install software that isn't available from the Mac App Store, obtain it only from legitimate sources authorized by the software's developer.
Don’t supply your password in response to a popup window requesting it, unless you know what it is and the reason your credentials are required.
Don’t open email attachments from email addresses that you do not recognize, or click links contained in an email:
Most of these are scams that direct you to fraudulent sites that attempt to convince you to disclose personal information.
Such "phishing" attempts are the 21st century equivalent of a social exploit that has existed since the dawn of civilization. Don’t fall for it.
Apple will never ask you to reveal personal information in an email. If you receive an unexpected email from Apple saying your account will be closed unless you take immediate action, just ignore it. If your iCloud, iTunes, or App Store account becomes disabled for valid reasons, you will know when you try to buy something or log in to this support site, and are unable to.
Don’t install browser extensions unless you understand their purpose:Go to the Safari menu > Preferences > Extensions. If you see any extensions that you do not recognize or understand, simply click the Uninstall button and they will be gone.
Don’t install Java unless you are certain that you need it:
Java, a non-Apple product, is a potential vector for malware. If you are required to use Java, be mindful of that possibility.
Java can be disabled in System Preferences.
Despite its name JavaScript is unrelated to Java. No malware can infect your Mac through JavaScript. It’s OK to leave it enabled.
The same precaution applies to Adobe Flash Player. Newly discovered Flash vulnerabilities appear almost weekly.
Beware spontaneous popups: Safari menu > Preferences > Security > check "Block popup windows".
Popup windows are useful and required for some websites, but unsolicited popups are commonly used to deceive people into installing unwanted software they would never intentionally install.
Popups themselves cannot infect your Mac, but many contain resource-hungry code that will slow down Internet browsing.
If you ever receive a popup window indicating that your Mac is infected with some ick or that you won some prize, it is 100% fraudulent. Ignore it.
The same goes for a spontaneously appearing dialog insisting that you upgrade your video player right this instant. Such popups are frequently associated with sites that promise to deliver "free" movies or other copyrighted content that is not normally "free".
The more insistent it is that you upgrade or install something, the more likely it is to be a scam. Close the window or tab and forget it.
Ignore hyperventilating popular media outlets that thrive by promoting fear and discord with entertainment products arrogantly presented as "news". Learn what real threats actually exist and how to arm yourself against them:
The most serious threat to your data security is phishing. Most of these attempts are pathetic and are easily recognized, but that hasn't stopped prominent public figures from recently succumbing to this age-old scam.
OS X viruses do not exist, but intentionally malicious or poorly written code, created by either nefarious or inept individuals, is nothing new.
Never install something without first knowing what it is, what it does, how it works, and how to get rid of it when you don’t want it any more.
If you elect to use "anti-virus" software, familiarize yourself with its limitations and potential to cause adverse effects, and apply the principle immediately preceding this one.
Most such utilities will only slow down and destabilize your Mac while they look for viruses that do not exist, conveying no benefit whatsoever - other than to make you "feel good" about security, when you should actually be exercising sound judgment, derived from accurate knowledge, based on verifiable facts.
Do install updates from Apple as they become available. No one knows more about Macs and how to protect them than the company that builds them.
Summary: Use common sense and caution when you use your Mac, just like you would in any social context. There is no product, utility, or magic talisman that can protect you from all the evils of mankind.

Dual boot Arch and Windows XP (arch installed first) [solved]

I recently moved over to arch from Ubuntu, and would like to install Windows XP so that I can dual-boot between the two. However, my arch install created four partitions on my disk, and I can not create another one.
I would rather not have to reinstall arch, as setting it back up would take days on my current network connection. Is this possible? While I have installed XP over Ubuntu in the past (and am more than able to reform the MBR after the XP install) I have absolutely no experience with disk-partitioning, so concise instructions would be very much appreciated.
errata: my laptop has 4 gigs of RAM, so I don't think I need the SWAP partition. I am hesitant to delete it outright however.
this is a Gparted screenshot, running off of a Ubuntu live CD. The 60 gigs of unallocated space is where I was hoping to install windows.
Last edited by spotdart (2009-02-05 17:13:55)

What's on /dev/sda4? If you can blow away the last partition, turn the whole thing into an extended partition and then you can set up as many logical partitions as you want inside the extended partition. I suppose Arch is probably on sda4 and if that is the case you could move arch to sda3 first--there are lots of posts in the forum about how to move an installation of arch from one place to another.
Edit: Beat to the punch again. Yeah like he said you might want to delete the swap partition and then incorporate it into the 1st or third partitions so you can free up that last one.
Last edited by bgc1954 (2009-02-05 15:27:21)

Clean Re-install of iTunes?

Can I re-install iTunes without losing all my songs? iTunes just isn't working... Want to have my iPod back.

peetypoopy wrote:
I need to do a clean re-install of iTunes.
While I realise that the re-installed iTunes will pick up my music, will it also pick up the Lyrics I have attached to the music, and will it pick up the Artwork (some of which I have created myself). I dont know where iTunes puts these items.
Also - will it pick up playlists?
Advice from an iTunes guru please! (Or anyone else who knows!)
As far as I know, as long as you don't mess with any of the files stored in your iTunes folder or the iTunes library file (.itl), everything should come back fine. I believe the lyrics and artwork you add is also stored in your iTunes folder as well and logged in your iTunes library file, since it's essentially a database for the items in your library. You might want to make backups if you're still feeling nervous about it. Everyone should have backups all the time. I've lost my music library once (over 40GB) and that was enough for me.
You can backup your playlists really easily too. Backup info below:
Playlists
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93763
Library
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302392
Let me know how it turns out!

Do I need a clean Arch install to change DE or WM?

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