Arch Linux is a light and fast distro. I run my arch linux inside Virtual Box VM on a Dell D630 (T7250 @ 2.0GHz + 4G memory). Desktop environment is XFCE4 which is also light and fast.

Here are my notes of configure the ArchLinux virtual machine in Virtualbox.

On 4/21/2010, I made a dual boot (Windows XP and archlinux) on the Dell D630, this note was updated accordingly.

VirtualBox Guest Addition

See http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox#Installing_Guest_Additions

# pacman -S virtualbox-additions

# modprobe loop
# mount /usr/lib/virtualbox/additions/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso /media/cdrom -o loop

Run install script then reboot.

Xorg and Xfce4

Install xorg:

$ pacman -S xorg mesa xf86-input-keyboard xf86-input-mouse hal dbus xf86-input-evdev xf86-input-synaptics

Generate xorg config:

$ xorg -configure

$ cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Add default depth, screen resolutions and enable composite in xorg.conf

Add ‘hal’ to rc.conf DAEMONS section. Add @ in front of network, netfs, cpufreq, alsa, syslog-ng.

Start hal:

$ /etc/rc.d/hal start

Install xfce4:

pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies fortune-mod ttf-ms-fonts ttf-dejavu ttf-bitstream-vera

See also: Archlinux Wiki “xfce4″, “xorg” and “Beginner’s Guide”.

Create .xinitrc and .xprofile:

$ cat .xinitrc

$ cat .xprofile

export  GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus

export  QT_IM_MODULE=ibus

export  XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus

ibus-daemon –xim -d &

Slim

$ pacman -S slim slim-themes archlinux-themes-slim

Add ‘slim to rc.conf DAEMONS section.

Add ‘current_theme archlinux-simplyblack’ to /etc/slim.conf

Chinese

Reference: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux_中文化_(简体中文)

Font

See wiki ‘Fonts’.

$ pacman -S wqy-zenhei wqy-bitmapfont ttf-arphic-ukai ttf-arphic-uming ttf-fireflysung

To modify font settings, see /etc/fonts/conf.d

For fixing Chinese font display problem under Chromium: go to /etc/fonts/conf.avail/66-wqy-zenhei-sharp.conf, enable antialias.

My .fonts.conf:

cat .fonts.conf

<?xml version=’1.0′?>

<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM ‘fonts.dtd’>

<fontconfig>

<match target=”font” >

<edit mode=”assign” name=”rgba” >

<const>rgb</const>

</edit>

</match>

<match target=”font” >

<edit mode=”assign” name=”hinting” >

<bool>true</bool>

</edit>

</match>

<match target=”font” >

<edit mode=”assign” name=”hintstyle” >

<const>hintslight</const>

</edit>

</match>

<match target=”font” >

<edit mode=”assign” name=”antialias” >

<bool>true</bool>

</edit>

</match>

</fontconfig>

Config SCIM for chinese

Following from: http://verbatim.72pines.com/category/arch-linux/

配置用户的输入法设置：

使用新用户登录，在用户家目录下建立.xinitrc和.xprofile两个文件，内容如前面一样，如下：

[lee@myhost ~]$ cat .xinitrc

export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM

export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim

export QT_IM_MODULE=scim

scim -d

[lee@myhost ~]$ cat .xprofile

export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM

export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim

export QT_IM_MODULE=scim

scim –d

Config ibus for Chinese input

$ sudo pacman -S ibus-sunpinyin

$ sudo pacman -S ibus-sogoupycc

Add export LC_CTYPE=”zh_CN.UTF-8″ to .xinitrc and .xprofile

Add following to /etc/environmentLC_CTYPE=”zh_CN.UTF-8″, so emacs can use Chinese IME

Set IME switch key to Alt_R to avoid conflict with emacs.

Laptop

See wiki “laptop”.

cpufreq

$ pacman -S acpi cpufrequtils

Add ‘acpi-cpufreq’ and ‘cpufreq_ondemand’ to MODULES section of /etc/rc.conf.

Edit /etc/conf.d/cpufreq:

#configuration for cpufreq control

# valid governors:

#  ondemand, performance, powersave,

#  conservative, userspace

governor=”ondemand”

# limit frequency range (optional)

# valid suffixes: Hz, kHz (default), MHz, GHz, THz

min_freq=”0.8GHz”

max_freq=”2GHz”

Dual Screen

TBD

Wireless Device Drive

$ pacman -S iwlwifi-3945-ucode wireless_tools wpa_supplicant

$ modprobe iwl3945

Add ‘iwl3945′ to MODULES section of /etc/rc.conf

To test wireless device:

$ iwconfig

Network Manager

$ pacman -S networkmanager network-manager-applet xfce4-xfapplet-plugin

Add

”

[keyfile]

hostname= “yourhostnamehere”

”

to /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf

Then stop network service:

$ /etc/rc.d/network stop

$ ifconfig eth0 down

$ ifconfig wlan0 down

Comment out all network interface in /etc/rc.conf:

#eth0

#wlan0

INTERFACES = (!eth0 !wlan0)

and modify DAEMONS section:

DAEMONS =(… !newwork hal networkmanager…)

Make sure your account can manager network settings:

$ gpasswd -a yourusername network

Reboot.

But how to save wpa password in nm?

Sound

$ pacman -S alsa-utils gstream0.10-base-plugins

In rc.conf, add ‘alsa’ to DAEMONS and disable pc speaker like:

MODULES=(… !pcspkr !snd-pcsp …)

To test sound:

$ aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

fstab

Add noatime option to / and /home.

Mount NTFS

$ pacman -S ntfs-3g

Add following line to /etc/fstab:

/dev/sda1 /mnt/c ntfs-3g defaults,ro 0 0

Cups

$ pacman -S cups ghostscript gsfonts

Add cups to DAEMONS section of rc.conf.

$ pacman -S hplip cups-pdf sane python-imaging python-reportlab xsane

Add user to camera and scanner group.

Make sure dbus service is enabled.

Archlinux AUR

AUR是第三方包，不包含在官方source中。 安装过程需要编译，时间可能较长。

下面的例子是在archlinux上面安装mongodb的过程：

1. 在http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=27971下载tarball

2. 解压缩： tar -xzvf mongodb.tar.gz

3. cd mongodb

4. makepkg -S

5.得到 mongodb-1.4.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

6. sudo pacman -U mongodb-1.4.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

Software

Guake – A dropdown term software

Slim – Login Mgr, see http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SLiM

MongoDB – There is an AUR package of MongoDB

DocUtil – $ sudo pacman -U docutils

Launchy – $ sudo pacman -S launchy This brought too many QT stuffs.

Tomboy – A note application powered by Mono.

Words – Words file to /usr/share/dict.

Cherokee – pacman -S cherokee

vlock – A terminal lock to lock the work station.

evince – Document viewer.

Other software

pacman -S firefox chromium guake python emacs

Blender

AUR libjpeg6 and blender-bin.

Emacs

using Aspell:

adding the line below to .emacs:

(setq-default ispell-program-name “aspell”)

W3M

$ sudo pacman -S emacs-w3m-cvs

Config:

Put this line into your ~/.emacs file:

(require 'w3m-load)

Just type M-x w3m, and you can use emacs-w3m.

In order to handle text/html part with emacs-w3m under SEMI MUAs such as Wanderlust, you have to put the following line in your ~/.emacs file:

(require 'mime-w3m)

REST-MODE

Download rst.el, save to /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp, chmod to 622, chown to root:root.

Add (require ‘rst) to ~/.emacs.

Trigger to rest-mode: M-x rest-mode.

Email

msmtp

See: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Msmtp

$ sudo pacman –S msmtp

Add following to ./msmtprc:

account default
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
protocol smtp
auth on
from username@gmail.com
user username@gmail.com
password xxxxx
tls on
tls_starttls on
tls_trust_file /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/Thawte_Premium_Server_CA.crt

Chmod 600 to ./msmtprc.

Testing:

$ echo “testing msmtp via gmail” | msmtp -a gmail <username>@gmail.com

Mutt

See: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mutt

$ sudo pacman -S mutt

if you are using Gmail as your smtp server, you may need to install the package cyrus-sasl.

Setting mutt with Gmail:

Set .muttrc to:

set sendmail = “/usr/bin/msmtp”

set use_from = yes

set realname = “user”

set use_from = yes

set envelope_from = “yes”

set editor = /usr/bin/emacs

set edit_headers=yes

set imap_user = “user@gmail.com”

set imap_pass = “”

#set smtp_url = “smtp://user@smtp.gmail.com:587/”

#set smtp_pass = “”

#set from = “username@gmail.com”

#set realname = “Your Real Name”

set folder = “imaps://imap.gmail.com:993″

set spoolfile = “+INBOX”

set postponed=”+[Gmail]/Drafts”

set trash = “imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Trash”

set header_cache=~/.mutt/cache/headers

set message_cachedir=~/.mutt/cache/bodies

set certificate_file=~/.mutt/certificates

set move = no

set imap_keepalive = 900

set sort = ‘threads’

set sort_aux = ‘last-date-received’

set imap_check_subscribed

#Header

ignore “Authentication-Results:”

ignore “DomainKey-Signature:”

ignore “DKIM-Signature:”

hdr_order Date From To Cc

See:

http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/howto/howto_setup_mutt_with_gmail_imap

and

http://shreevatsa.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/using-gmail-with-mutt-the-minimal-way/

$ mkdir .mutt
$ mkdir .mutt/cache

$ chmod 600 .muttrc

Fetchmail

$ sudo pacman –S fetchmail

if run fetchmail as deamon not cron job, then run ‘chown fetchmail /etc/fetchmailrc’.

$ chmod 600 .fetchmailrc

$ sudo chown fetchmail .fetchmailrc

Test:

$ fetchmail –c

$ fetchmail –d0 –v

I decided using mutt to receive mail directly from gmail, so no fetchmail at this time.

Other Reference

http://mrwlwan.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/archlinux：安装配置笔记/