Arch Linux is a simple, lightweight Linux distribution aimed at keeping things simple.
90
votes
16answers
15k views
Any reason NOT to run Linux in a VM all the time?
I've switched to using Arch Linux for most of my day to day work and don't need Windows for anything but gaming and the couple of apps that aren't ported to Linux like OneNote. My Linux distro is ...
27
votes
10answers
9k views
How can I get my external IP address in bash?
I need to find my external IP address from a bash script. At the moment I use this function:
myip () {
lwp-request -o text checkip.dyndns.org | awk '{ print $NF }'
}
But it depends on ...
18
votes
1answer
372 views
How to get started writing drivers?
I have a throw-away cheap laptop I'd like to twiddle around, a Thinkpad SL 500.
What bothers me are two leds, the one for wireless connectivity, and the one for hibernation, which don't light up at ...
14
votes
4answers
3k views
How to properly and easy configure `xdg-open` without any enviroment?
I'm using OpenBox window manager without any desktop enviroment.
xdg-open behaves strangely. It opens everything with firefox.
$ xdg-settings --list
Known properties:
default-web-browser ...
12
votes
3answers
4k views
How do I minimize disk space usage
One of my machines is the 2GB EeePC Surf, a neat netbook with very limited resources. So limited that right now, I have 22MB free space left.
On it, I'm running Arch Linux with the Openbox DE and a ...
11
votes
2answers
959 views
Booting native Arch Linux on an Android device
I have a Galaxy Note 10.1 (n8010) and I want to make it boot Arch Linux natively. I mean boot Arch Linux instead of android. All that I need is to alter the initramfs, which I can't find anywhere in ...
10
votes
3answers
3k views
sudo cannot open /etc/sudoers
sudo does not work.
I have installed Arch Linux onto a USB key formatted with BTRFS.
The output of sudo is:
$ sudo
sudo: unable to stat /etc/sudoers: Permission denied
sudo: no valid sudoers sources ...
9
votes
1answer
6k views
How to disable auto suspend when I close laptop lid?
I'm using archlinux. It never auto-suspend before a recent system upgrade(maybe I updated the kernel?).
I think it is related to laptop-mode or acpid, so I stop them:
/etc/rc.d/laptop-mode stop
...
9
votes
1answer
1k views
archlinux aif command not found
I`m pretty much a newbie to linux and a complete newbie to archlinux. I started Archlinux after grub and I see a
[root@archiso ˜]#
command bash. The installation guide tells me to either type
...
9
votes
3answers
3k views
How to get VIM to display 256 colors properly
I'm trying to get 256 color theme files to work with VIM under xterm.
This is peaksea how it looks for me:
How it should look:
I've tried following the tips on the wiki page to no avail.
set ...
9
votes
4answers
4k views
Why is almost every program complaining about my locale?
I'm using Arch Linux, and I've followed the directions on the wiki about setting my locale.
Nearly every program that runs complains about the locale - even locale. It looks like this:
% locale
...
9
votes
2answers
999 views
“Only root can mount” error - but I am root
Yesterday I was able to mount my smb share with the following command:
sudo mount -t cifs //XXXX/share /media/share -o user=Ben,password=XXX,workgroup=WORKGROUP,ip=XXX.XX.XX,uid=ben,gid=ben,rw
I ...
8
votes
2answers
2k views
How to investigate cause of total hang?
My Arch machine sometimes hangs, suddenly not responding in any way to the mouse or the keyboard. The cursor is frozen. Ctrl-Alt-Backsp won't stop X11, and ctrl-alt-del does exactly nothing. The ...
8
votes
2answers
5k views
using sudo on GUI applications
When I was using kubuntu, I could always open X applications with sudo, sudo kate for example. Now that I've switched to arch that doesn't work. I know I've always been told to use kdesu, but what ...
7
votes
2answers
415 views
What's up with “*-git date” packages in the AUR?
I'm just about to move to Arch Linux. Checking out packages in the AUR, there's a lot of packages following the naming scheme "project-name-git date", e.g:
adonthell-git 20100408-1
...
7
votes
2answers
1k views
Update only one package with pacman
Is there a way to update only selected programs in pacman?
I'm running ArchLinux on my netbook, and the complete upgrade of my system takes up more temporary space than I have on my system, so I'd ...
7
votes
3answers
8k views
How do I configure the GNOME gdm login screen?
I recently installed Arch Linux and have it mostly set up. With many other Linux distributions, there is a tool that is used to configure the look and feel of the login screen. I would like to change ...
7
votes
3answers
945 views
List optional dependencies with pacman on arch linux
I'm using arch linux.
Is there a way to list optional dependencies of all installed packages? And if yes, can I filter this list to see only the missing (not installed) packages?
6
votes
3answers
944 views
Command line join of password protected wireless networks in Ubuntu, Arch Linux, or other distros?
Is there a way to join a password protected wireless network via the command line in installations of Ubuntu or Arch Linux with no desktop environment or any GUI installed?
Also, could this be done ...
6
votes
3answers
241 views
Why does rsync fail to copy files from /sys in Linux?
I have a bash script which uses rsync to backup files in Archlinux. I noticed that rsync failed to copy a file from /sys, while cp worked just fine:
# rsync /sys/class/net/enp3s1/address /tmp
...
6
votes
1answer
106 views
Why are reboot, shutdown and poweroff symlinks to systemctl?
In Arch Linux, if I do ls -l in /sbin, I can see that reboot, shutdown and poweroff are all symlinks to /usr/bin/systemctl. But issuing reboot, shutdown and systemctl commands obviously does not all ...
6
votes
2answers
263 views
Arch Linux how to close tty
I've opened several ttys and I don't know what key combination to use to close a tty. I'm using Arch Linux.
6
votes
2answers
542 views
Why are there no -dev packages in Arch Linux?
I understand that source based distributions like Gentoo or Slackware do not need *-dev versions of programs. They include the source code as well as header files for compiling everything locally.
...
6
votes
2answers
2k views
In Arch Linux how can I find out which package to install that will contain file X?
I'm looking for a package that provides a specific binary, so I can install it. how can I search to find out what packages provide this binary? (note: I know there's at least one tool that does this, ...
6
votes
1answer
625 views
Move /usr to SSD
I have an SSD and regular HDD drive in my laptop. The SSD drive is not used at all; it is not even being mounted. I am using Arch Linux. I'd like to start using the SSD, and from what I have read I ...
6
votes
4answers
4k views
Is ArchBang just Arch Linux + Openbox?
I'm a Arch + KDE guy. I need to reinstall frequently, and I don't like that when I do pacman -S kde I have to wait like two hours (slow Internet) without using the PC.
So I'm looking for an Arch ...
6
votes
1answer
5k views
How can I chroot into a filesystem with a different architechture?
I'm trying to chroot into a Arch Linux ARM filesystem from x86_64.
I've seen that it's possible to do using static qemu by copying the binary into the chroot system:
cp /usr/bin/qemu-arm ...
6
votes
1answer
277 views
How do I set up an encrypted swap file in Linux?
How do I set up an encrypted swap file (not partition) in Linux? Is it even possible? All the guides I've found talk about encrypted swap partitions, but I don't have a swap partition, and I'd ...
6
votes
2answers
2k views
Setting dual monitor with different resolutions using ati open source driver
I have two Monitors and am using Arch Linux, setup like this:
1280x1024(primary)
1680x1050.(secondary)
ATI RADEON X1300
Open source ATI driver
On the boot screen my primary monitor(17") have ...
6
votes
1answer
2k views
How to fix character encoding in bash (arch linux)
I have some issues with the encoding of german umlauts in bash.
It mostly is working fine, but when i am typing a invalid command, the error message generated by bash contains strange escape sequences ...
6
votes
1answer
2k views
Is there a way to adjust the formatting of the date/time in the GNOME 3 login screen and desktop?
I'm specifically looking to change the formatting in two places:
On the desktop, the date/time reads "Sat 21:05". I would like it to read "23-Jul-11 21:05" or "23 Jul 11 21:05". In other words, I ...
6
votes
2answers
215 views
Display problem - Random grid appears on screen
I have recently started using Arch with nvidia driver (I had a lot of problems getting nouveau to even work so I decided to try nvidia) and I started experiencing rather odd problems. Every now and ...
6
votes
1answer
488 views
chroot fails with --userspec when chroot is i686
I'm experencing a problem with chroot...
I'm running on Arch Linux x86_64.
I have a 64 bit chroot and a 32 bit chroot. They are identical except that one is 32 bit and one is 64 bit.
I can enter ...
5
votes
4answers
1k views
How do I create Restore Points in Arch Linux (or Linux in general)?
I am relatively new to Arch Linux and I really like its rolling-release concept. Now what I want to know is that before I do a system update via pacman -Syu, I want to create a restore point so that ...
5
votes
5answers
7k views
dns queries not using nscd for caching
I'm trying to use nscd (Nameservices Cache Daemon) to cache dns locally so I can stop using bind to do it. I've gotten it started and ntpd seems to attempt to use it. But everything else for hosts ...
5
votes
2answers
856 views
Which partitions should I encrypt?
My laptop is currently running Windows and Fedora, but I'm planning to install Arch Linux as my sole OS soon. This current setup is using whole disk encryption through TrueCrypt, but I'm unsure if it ...
5
votes
1answer
4k views
pacman could not find database
I want to install sudo. So I type in pacman -S sudo. But then I get the following errors:
warning: database file for 'extra' does not exist
warning: database file for 'community' does not exist
...
5
votes
3answers
410 views
How do I get pacman to use my custom PKGBUILDs when updating?
I customized a PKGBUILD for Apache, ran makepkg and installed it with pacman -U httpd.tar.xz, which worked fine. A few months later I upgraded my system with pacman -Syu which used the system-default ...
5
votes
1answer
8k views
How do I force remove a package in Arch with pacman?
How do I force remove a package in Arch with pacman while other packages still depend upon it.
pacman -R perl-libwww
checking ...
5
votes
2answers
805 views
Make package explicitly installed in pacman
I have a package that's installed on my PC as an dependency to another package.
I would like to have the package explicitly installed, but without actually re-installing it, or downloading any files.
...
5
votes
2answers
725 views
5
votes
2answers
4k views
XFS vs Ext4 vs Others - which file system is stable, reliable, for long run such as 24/7 case
XFS and Ext4 file system which one is really stable and reliable for long run with heavy disk write and read?
the system will be used in a place where 24/7 is in service, and every second there is ...
5
votes
2answers
3k views
Error updating all ArchLinux packages with -Syu
I am on Arch Linux with Kde.
I haven't updated the packages in a while and I'm having a problem while trying to do so:
The first thing I tried was: sudo pacman -Syu as the documentation says, and I ...
5
votes
2answers
436 views
missing argument to find -exec
I want to remove certain files using find and -exec. But unlikely bash tells me, that I'm "missing" some argument.
find . -name *.png -exec rm {} /;
what do I miss?
same "missing argument" return ...
5
votes
1answer
181 views
How would one permanently set names for network interface (wifi/ethernet) in arch
Seems every reboot the names reverse different nics ( wifi/ethernet )…
5
votes
1answer
254 views
Is it possible to automatically wake from suspend?
Here's my problem:
I have a laptop running Arch that I just keep on at home. It's got a good 4 hour battery life, but sometimes my daughter is playing near where it's kept and ends out pulling the ...
5
votes
1answer
867 views
How Do I Add My Own Daemons in Arch Linux? (BSD-style init)
I have created a symlink to a start/stop/etc. wrapper bash script in /etc/rc.d, added it to DAEMONS=() in rc.conf, but the process it points to isn’t starting on boot, and isn’t showing up in the ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
Package management strategy with Pacman
Since I switched my favorite distro to Gentoo I have been very familiar with the following pattern for installing and removing packages:
Install a bunch of applications that do pretty much the same ...
5
votes
2answers
842 views
Where should I mount my external harddrive?
I've got an external harddrive that I'd like to auto-mount. It will be present most times when my laptop boots. Where is the "correct" place to mount it?
/media/my-hd: Will litter /media with an ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
How to change the default filemanager of the Cinnamon desktop?
I'm running an Arch Linux machine with the cinnamon-git desktop from the Arch User Repository.
The default filemanager is Nautilus, is there any way to change the default filemanager to thunar?
