Arch Linux Question

[securitybreach]

Ok. I have never ran Archlinux in VirtualBox so it could be something related to that.

[raymac46]

Back again. The latest update brought a new kernel version and that borked my Virtual Machine completely. It's not even loading the kernel now. Fallback doesn't work either. I think running Arch on my VirtualBox setup is a non-starter.

The last update I did ran OK and when these latest ones screw up I just delete them and restore the backup.

I tried the update twice from two different mirrors and got different errors. Too many to try and list. Couldn't copy the text because the machine died. First time I couldn't even run a console.

I run Debian Jessie and Mageia 4 on VBox without problems, so there's something either broken about the way VirtualBox handles Arch or my install technique is bad and I end up with something unstable.

[securitybreach]

Anything here help:

https://wiki.archlin..._kernel_modules

[saturnian]

Have you folks who run Arch natively seen this before?

 

No problems here. Latest updates done in Arch, ArchBang, and Bridge Linux.

[securitybreach]

Yup and I even run the Testing branch on a couple of my machines without any issues.

[raymac46]

This thread pretty well explains the first issue I had after upgrading the kernel.

 

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=130095

[securitybreach]

Have you tried chrooting in and reinstalling the kernel as that link said?

[raymac46]

Not yet. Just restored the old system. What exactly would the chroot command be here? I assume I'd have to mount the borked system again on the install iso FS.

[securitybreach]

Follow this to chroot in:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_Root

 

Then reinstall the kernel with:

pacman -Sy linux

[raymac46]

Thanks for all your help. I'm thinking that rather than waste everyone's time and goodwill I am going to terminate my Arch in VBox experiment and try it on the rails on an old desktop I have in the basement. That way we'll all be on the same page and we won't have the virtualization barrier to deal with. I'll report back in a few days once I have time to play with it. I'd rather have a good install before getting more technical assistance.

[raymac46]

OK got the beast installed on my old desktop. I followed Josh's tutorial and used Syslinux, as my attempt with Grub failed and Syslinux seems to be a bit easier. I have installed X, Xfce4, Nouveau, Firefox and the graphics are fine. Now I have to figure out the best way to get a USB wireless adapter working. Still running from a wired connection.

[securitybreach]

Plug it in and post the output from lsusb

[abarbarian]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_network_configuration#Netctl

 

Configuring wireless is a two-part process; the first part is to identify and ensure the correct driver for your wireless device is installed (they are available on the installation media, but often have to be installed explicitly), and to configure the interface. The second is choosing a method of managing wireless connections. This article covers both parts, and provides additional links to wireless management tools.

 

This should help.

 

I'm surprised that you had trouble with Grub. Anyways now that you have joined the Arch Way, happy travelling.

[raymac46]

My problem with Grub was that instead of booting the system, I got a recursion where the boot menu just reappeared when the boot started. Over and over I'd reboot and come back to the boot screen.

I might try deleting the partition table with GParted and reformatting the drive and reinstalling from scratch. The more practice I get installing the better I get at it. So I can try Grub again.

I'm going to attempt to use netctl for wireless as I don't need to roam or connect to more than one network. My USB dongle is an ASUS N10 which has a Realtek chipset and I intend to set up WPA.

I am pretty familiar with CLI wireless configuration from my early days with Ubuntu. At that time Network Manager didn't work very well with WPA. So now it's just a matter of dealing with systemd and the Arch wifi tools.

[raymac46]

Well this seemed to work pretty well. I began the install by using the wifi tools on the installation medium and got a wifi connection right from the start. Didn't plug in a wire at all. Later on I installed the same tools during the chroot process. After that when I rebooted I used wifi-menu to generate a profile and enabled it with netctl. Now when I reboot I get right into wifi. My wifi USB dongle was supported out of the box on the installation medium.

Grub is also working for me, so I have a pretty good installation of Arch to play with. Thanks to Josh for his tutorial and everyone for their support.

[securitybreach]

Very nice

 

Glad it is working nice for you!

[raymac46]

Yep reminds me of the good ole days when I was just using wifi on a desktop and didn't have to worry about Network Manager, roaming, scanning etc. etc.

 

[abarbarian]

Hurray another happy archer. Enjoy.

[raymac46]

It's obviously early days but here are a few comments:

1. Arch is obviously a distro which will be happier running in real life than in virtualization. Virtual machines add another layer of complexity which in a way defeats the purpose of Arch simplicity. The frequent updates always leave a VBox user scratching his head about some VBox instability.
    
   
2. Having said this, it is a lot easier to install Arch in VBox. The virtual networking always acts like Ethernet so you never have to worry about wifi configuration.
    
   
3. I found wifi configs to be both simple and complicated. Once I discovered the simple wifi tools on the install media and concluded that these would be just fine for a desktop (non-roaming) wifi connection, I was in business. However had I needed something more sophisticated for (say) a laptop, I would have been in trouble. My attempts to post-install either Wicd or Network Manager ended in No-Connection Land with no obvious way out.
    
   
4. It's said that the new device interface names in Arch make more sense. I don't see wow wlp029sf4u7 is more intuitive than wlan0 but there you have it.
    
   
5. This was my first encounter with systemd after years of init, and frankly I think systemd is pretty solid. It's a different set of commands but I could get used to it easily.
    
   
6. The first couple of times I installed Arch I was very slow and conservative. Basically I got X working, installed other stuff as I thought of it. This time I just installed a bunch of stuff at once. As a result I probably ended up with something that looks like Debian, but it's still lighter in weight.
    
   
7. All in all a great install on an old Dell dual core with 3 GB of RAM.
   

Edited April 15, 2014 by raymac46

[sunrat]

...As a result I probably ended up with something that looks like Debian, but it's still lighter in weight.

Just on this point, is anyone using Arch with KDE? If so could you please post your memory usage immediately after a fresh bootup/login?

[raymac46]

No I have Xfce right now.

[securitybreach]

It's obviously early days but here are a few comments:

 

1 Arch is obviously a distro which will be happier running in real life than in virtualization. Virtual machines add another layer of complexity which in a way defeats the purpose of Arch simplicity. The frequent updates always leave a VBox user scratching his head about some VBox instability.

 

2 Having said this, it is a lot easier to install Arch in VBox. The virtual networking always acts like Ethernet so you never have to worry about wifi configuration.

 

3 I found wifi configs to be both simple and complicated. Once I discovered the simple wifi tools on the install media and concluded that these would be just fine for a desktop (non-roaming) wifi connection, I was in business. However had I needed something more sophisticated for (say) a laptop, I would have been in trouble. My attempts to post-install either Wicd or Network Manager ended in No-Connection Land with no obvious way out.

 

4 It's said that the new device interface names in Arch make more sense. I don't see wow wlp029sf4u7 is more intuitive than wlan0 but there you have it.

 

5 This was my first encounter with systemd after years of init, and frankly I think systemd is pretty solid. It's a different set of commands but I could get used to it easily.

 

6 The first couple of times I installed Arch I was very slow and conservative. Basically I got X working, installed other stuff as I thought of it. This time I just installed a bunch of stuff at once. As a result I probably ended up with something that looks like Debian, but it's still lighter in weight.

 

7. All in all a great install on an old Dell dual core with 3 GB of RAM.

 

As far as wireless is concerned, the default method is to use netctl since it was designed for systemd:

Netctl

netctl is a replacement for netcfg designed to work with systemd. It uses a profile based setup and is capable of detection and connection to a wide range of network types. This is no harder than using graphical tools.

https://wiki.archlin...guration#Netctl

 

To switch networks, it is simple as running wifi-menu as root and choosing the essid.

 

What changed the naming of networking devices was Systemd not archlinux:

Note: You will most probably need to edit the interface name in the profile. As of v197 (systemd), udev no longer assigns network interface names according to the wlanX and ethX naming scheme. Please do not assume that your wireless interface is named wlan0, or that your wired interface is named eth0. You can use the command ip link to discover the names of your interfaces.

https://wiki.archlin...ndex.php/Netctl

 

BTW some distros that use systemd, simply link the old network names to the new ones , like enp3s0 = eth0 but the device names have technically changed. Also I am not for sure why the developers thought this to be a good thing. Actually I just found the reasoning behind this: http://www.freedeskt...InterfaceNames/

 

There is a graphical frontend to netctl but it is not very good. But its as simple as running wifi-menu and choosing the connection from the ncurses menu. Here an album I made: http://imgur.com/MEv...RGMCXrC,19rrL9Z showing the four screens for a new connection.

 

Once you figure out the systemd utilities, you will be amazed at all the features and such. I find systemd much more powerful and useful than init once you get used to how things work. It makes troubleshooting so much easier IMO.

 

 

Hope that helps some....

[raymac46]

Thanks for your comments and the link to device names. Makes a bit more sense now.

I have found that the combination of wifi-menu and netctl is simple and powerful, and fixed the wifi problems I had with Arch immediately. When you think about it, you really don't need a sophisticated GUI like Network Manager for 95% of the network connections you make.

Might be a good idea to put in a tutorial for those who might wish to run with wifi even in the installation process. The Arch documentation has it but it's buried with all the other info about static IPs and Ethernet devices.

[raymac46]

Played around a bit more to see if I could get wifi to connect automatically on boot every time. I have this strange little USB wifi dongle that for some reason did not come up automatically. So I had to put in a systemd script to set it to "up."

To get netctl to start the wifi profile I had to change the dhcp client to dhclient and force connect. After that it seems to work OK.

Lots of fun but hey...I'm learning.

ETA: I now found out that netctl can initiate wifi even if the interface is down when the machine boots so I have removed the script to set it up.

Edited April 16, 2014 by raymac46

[raymac46]

So just to summarize here is what I did to get wifi working at boot on a desktop with a USB dongle:

1. used wifi-menu -o to write a wireless profile that contained the interface, ESSID, wireless key and other stuff needed.
   
2. my trial to start this profile with netctl failed with errors about the interface not being up.
   
3. after consulting the Arch documents I installed dhclient
   
4. added two lines to the profile from (1) namely ForceConnect=yes and DHCPClient='dhclient'
   
5. I was then able to start the wifi service with netctl start profile
   
6. Finally I made the profile start at boot with netctl enable profile
   

After this the wifi starts up automatically at boot and I connect to my home network. I don't need to roam or scan any others.

[securitybreach]

Nicely done

[raymac46]

And now I've got my sound working. (Right now listening to Ringo Starr's "Goodnight Vienna" - don't ask.)

When I first loaded up my music for Banshee - nothing. Wouldn't even play.

After consulting the Arch Wiki I discovered that I had an S/PDIF module being loaded from my graphics card that was stepping on my old fashioned Intel internal sound card. After I blacklisted it and rebooted I had the right stuff showing up in alsamixer.

So I boosted the levels and ran the sound test. Everything looked fine in the terminal but the machine was silent. I played around with the volume controls but no joy.

Back to the documentation and I discovered I had to press "m" in alsamixer to unmute the channels. Doh! After this fix it was blasting out 38 Special at earsplitting levels. Mark it "SOLVED."

Edited April 18, 2014 by raymac46