This is small set of fairly basic tutorials regarding different hints and tips you can use to configure a fresh installation of Arch, or some other lightweight distro.
AUR Installations
To install content from the Arch User Repository you need to edit the pacman.conf file.
vim /etc/pacman.conf
Then add the following lines to the bottom of the file:
[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch
Install From Multilib
To install packages from the multilib repository you need to edit pacman.conf again.
vim /etc/pacman.conf
Then uncomment (remove the #) the following lines
#[multilib]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
During Arch Setup
While installing Arch I found that there were a number of packages I repeatedly forgot to install during the process. These were all present on the installation media, but given Arch installs the bare minimum they were not installed during the process. When in the arch-chroot you create make sure you install:
- wpa_supplicant - Allows you to connect to a wireless network. This is definitely required if you intend on using WiFi only.
- iw - A network configuration tool specifically for wireless networks.
- netctl - Tool that allows you to create and manage network profiles.
- dialog - Allows you to use the wifi-menu set of commands, this is useful for easily connecting to available WiFi hotspots.
- gvim - A version of vim that connects to the clipboard and provides GTK/GTX support. This is really just a QOL installation if you prefer standard vim.
Auto-Connect to WiFi
To automatically connect to WiFi you need to have a netctl profile created. The easiest way to do this is via wifi-menu. Run the following:
wifi-menu
You'll be presented with a screen listing the available WiFi hotspots. Select the one you would like and sign in. You'll then be able to enter in a name for the profile, make sure you enter something that identifies the hotspot and you will remember.
Now enter the following command:
netctl enable <profile_name>