Arch Linux and Awesome WM Installation Notes

01 Apr 2014

I have been a big fan of Arch Linux (inc. it’s philosophy) and the Awesome Window Manager for just under a year now. I recently went through the process of a clean installation on my laptop and thought I would jot down some installation notes for future reference. Some background information on my 64bit setup, I currently use Intel HD Graphics 4000 and a Western Digital 4K Advanced Format Hard Drive. I opted for the simplicity of setting up only two partitions (root and home) using GParted prior to the writing of these notes.

Base Installation

# check wifi connectivity
$ wifi-menu
$ ping www.google.com

# format disk partitions
$ lsblk /dev/sda
$ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 # root
$ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2 # home

# mount disk partitions
$ mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
$ mkdir /mnt/home
$ mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/home

# install base
$ pacstrap /mnt base

# generate fstab
$ genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
$ nano /mnt/etc/fstab # amend as necessary

# change disk root
$ arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

# install GRUB2
$ pacman -S grub
$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
$ nano /boot/grub/grub.cfg # menu-entry listings
$ grub-install --recheck /dev/sda

# reboot into installed env
$ exit
$ umount /mnt/{home,}
$ reboot

Base Configuration

# amend root password
$ passwd

# hostname
$ hostnamectl set-hostname arch

# keymap
$ ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps # locate keymap
$ localectl set-keymap uk

# locale
$ nano /etc/locale.gen # uncomment locale
$ locale-gen
$ localectl set-locale LANG=en_GB.UTF-8

# timezone
$ ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/ # locate timezone
$ timedatectl set-timezone Europe/London

$ nano /etc/pacman.conf # enable multilib (32bit)
$ pacman -Syy

# setup user
$ useradd -m -g users -s /bin/bash edd
$ passwd edd
$ pacman -S sudo
$ visudo # set user access
# login as new account

# basic build utilities
$ pacman -S multilib-devel fakeroot git jshon wget make pkg-config autoconf automake patch

# packer, arch user repo.
$ wget http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pa/packer/packer.tar.gz
$ tar zxvf packer.tar.gz
$ cd packer && makepkg
$ pacman -U packer<tab>

Graphics and X.Org Server

# xorg
$ pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-server-utils mesa
$ pacman -S xorg-twm xorg-xclock xterm # basic components

# intel graphics
$ pacman -S xf86-video-intel libva-intel-driver

# laptop touchpad
$ pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics

Awesome Window Manager

$ pacman -S awesome vicious
$ cp /etc/skel/.xinitrc ~ # basic initrc
$ echo "exec awesome" >> ~/.xinitrc
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/awesome/
$ cp /etc/xdg/awesome/rc.lua ~/.config/awesome/ # basic config