Introduction

I got a new computer. So I had one task: transferring my existing years old install of Archlinux to this new computer. This would allow me to encrypt the root filesystem and get a fresh clean OS.

But doing this is not as easy as you might think. A lot of things can go wrong. Trying to reproduce a system by just copying a few config files over doesn’t work always. Here is the story of the reinstall. I write this for me (in case I have to reinstall again), but I publish it because it might be useful to you, dear reader, as there is a lot of geekiness in the following post.

I’m writing this blog post while listening to the full OST of Aladdin, the game from 1993. It reminds me when I was playing it in the supermarket when on holidays. Why isn’t this a thing anymore? Free arcade games for the kids while the parents can go shopping, knowing their kid won’t move an inch from the front of the arcade. I’m suggesting you open a tab and listen to it too ;)

EDIT: system got reinstalled on another computer in October 2020, so this post has been updated with some missing details.

Setting the keymap and time

We have now booted on the live USB disk (in UEFI mode). The first thing I do is setting the keymap:

loadkeys fr-bepo
# let's also set the correct time
timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Paris

Partitioning

Depending on your setup and what you want, you might not want to follow exactly these steps.

On the main disk, GPT table, 4 partitions:

  • EFI (512M)
  • boot (512M)
  • swap (RAM/2)
  • root (rest)

Root partition is encrypted with LUKS.

Installation

No suprise here, follow the wiki and use your brain. Correctly figuring out how to boot on the encrypted root partition took me a few tries.

I installed base and base-devel with pacstrap because for sure I’ll be compiling stuff on this machine!

Now we have chroot in the new system, here is the last configuration steps. I’m looking at the .bash_history and .histfile to retrace my steps.

The vital package

pacman -S vim

Setting the timezone

This one is easy and straightforward:

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

Locales

Let’s generate the locales:

# use vi as vim is not yet installed ;)
vim /etc/locale.gen
# uncomment en_US.UTF-8
locale-gen

Setting the keymap in the console

I use the bépo keymapping (and you should too if you’re french!), so of course I want to have it set in the console, here is the content of /etc/vconsole.conf:

KEYMAP=fr-bepo

Setting the hostname

Generally this is where I spend most of my time when installing a new system. Finding a good hostname is hard. It should be short, pretty, and the first letter should not be one of any of your other hosts. I choose to keep the same one used at the time when this computer was running Windoze (for gaming only, don’t worry, I’m not crazy): Titan.

As a bonus here is a list of names of some of my devices, in no particular order:

  • osiris (dedicated server for internet services, ubuntu)
  • sierra (VPS for my email, openbsd)
  • titan (the computer of this post, arch)
  • atlas (a very buffy computer to run VR, windoze)
  • neon (my work computer, arche)
  • spip (my work laptop, fedora)
  • powerdidi (my first macbook, with a G4 processor (PPC), mac OS X)
  • droid (my phone, android)
  • pika (yes it’s a Raspberry Pi)
  • crystal (an old computer that I don’t have anymore, used to run BOINC on it)

Set hosts

Add the hostname as localhost and also some name I have for some web projects:

127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost
127.0.0.1 titan.local titan
::1 titan.local titan
127.0.0.1 elab.local
::1 elab.local
127.0.0.1 wonder.local
::1 wonder.local
127.0.0.1 justorderit.local
::1 justorderit.local

Set password for root account

passwd

Install the boot loader: GRUB

# install vim now
pacman -S grub intel-ucode
grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda
# make sure /boot partition is mounted
vim /etc/default/grub

# file: /etc/default/grub
# showing only the line changed from default
# remove the quiet argument, I like to see what happens
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""
# the line for booting on encrypted partition
# use 'blkid' and find one that looks like this:
# /dev/mapper/myvol-myroot: UUID="fb2b71ff-c632-45d7-adbb-6c1038479f1a" TYPE="crypto_LUKS"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="loglevel=3 cryptdevice=UUID=fb2b71ff-c632-45d7-adbb-6c1038479f1a:root root=/dev/mapper/root"
# add lvm in the preload modules
GRUB_PRELOAD_MODULES="part_gpt part_msdos lvm"
# set resolution
GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080,auto
# allow the kernel use the same resolution used by grub
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
# match grub theme with my desktop theme (green/black)
GRUB_COLOR_NORMAL="green/black"
GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="white/blue"
# the wallpaper must be in the boot partition as root is not yet mounted!
GRUB_BACKGROUND="/boot/grub/grubwallpaper.png"

# now that everything is set, generate the config
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Here is the wallpaper I use for GRUB:

grub-wallpaper

Isn’t it lovely? <3 It’s also my main wallpaper at work. Hard to find out who made it though…

Feeling at home right from GRUB is great. :]

Encrypted swap and /tmp

# file: /etc/crypttab
swap          /dev/myvol/swap                              /dev/urandom             swap,cipher=aes-xts-plain64,size=256
tmp          /dev/myvol/tmp                                /dev/urandom             tmp,cipher=aes-xts-plain64,size=256

Getting started

First time (successfully) booting on the fresh new system. feelsgoodman.jpg.

Oops no internet

Internet is not working!! Fortunately for us, fixing this is dead easy:

systemctl start dhcpcd
# enable it at boot
systemctl enable dhcpcd

Adding more essential packages

Before doing that: add “ILoveCandy” somewhere in /etc/pacman.conf. There is no point in using ArchLinux if this option is not set. :p

These are the packages that I deem essential on any system:

# vim is already installed
pacman -S git tmux zsh

The rest of the packages will come later in their own section.

Creating the user

Root is a nice guy, but this is not Kali Linux and we want a non root user:

# create user
useradd nico
# set password
passwd nico
# create home
mkdir /home/nico
chown nico:nico /home/nico
# add it to wheel group
usermod -g wheel nico
# configure sudo to allow wheel group to execute commands as root
# there is a line to uncomment that looks like this: %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
visudo
# switch to new user
su nico
# install my dotfiles
git clone --recursive git@github.com:NicolasCARPi/.dotfiles.git
bash .dotfiles/install.sh
# change default shell
chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh
# and start using it right away
zsh

Sound

sudo pacman -S pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa alsa-utils
systemctl start --user pulseaudio
systemctl enable --user pulseaudio

Make sure to adapt the lua script for sound with the correct sound path!

Graphical interface

I can do a lot of things in the console as most of my favorite tools are text based (mutt, tmux, vim, git, ncmpcpp, …) but let’s not be too nerdy and let’s install a graphical interface with X11, our favorite crappy old unsafe software :)

# install the graphics drivers, xinit, compositing manager, notification daemon, sound, music, cursor hider, terminal emulator and WM
# and some other stuff
sudo pacman -S man mesa xf86-video-amdgpu xorg-xinit xcompmgr twmnd pulseaudio mpd mpc unclutter rxvt-unicode awesome pcmanfm firefox chromium gnupg pcmanfm mutt ruby sshfs conky xarchiver pinentry lxappearance w3m docker-compose filezilla owncloud-client pass python-pip pyenv

Start lxappearance and select Vertex dark theme (yay -S vertex-themes-git vertex-icons-git).

The content of my ~/.xinitrc file:

# file: ~/.xinitrc
# switch keyboard in bépo
setxkbmap fr bepo

# transparency
xcompmgr -c &

# notification daemon
twmnd &

# sound
pulseaudio --start

# start music daemon
mpd

# start gpg-agent
gpg-agent --daemon

# fix the black cross pointer
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr

# hide the cursor if not used
unclutter -b --timeout 30

# start Awesome WM
exec awesome

Also install tmuxinator and jekyll:

sudo pacman -S ruby
# note that I have the --user-install option in my ~/.gemrc
# so the gems are installed without root permissions
# I do the same for python and javascript packages
gem install tmuxinator jekyll

Now the moment that we’re all waiting for: starting Xorg!

startx

Video / office

sudo pacman -S vlc libreoffice-fresh gpicview evince

Because all of my settings are nicely tracked in my .dotfiles repository, all my custom shortcuts and everything are there. But some things are still missing of course!

Filling the holes

I didn’t want to import my full previous home, filled with the accumulated crap over the years. So I only imported some crucial folders from the old $HOME (mounted as an external drive):

  • ~/.bin a bunch of scripts to make my system behave EXACTLY like I want it to, this folder is in my $PATH
  • ~/.ssh with the keys and the config file
  • ~/.opt this is where I put software I download and use, but that can’t be properly installed (Fiji, ZAP)
  • ~/.mozilla it’s great to find all your bookmarks, extensions and configuration without having to redo it from scratch
  • ~/.filezilla same as with firefox, one folder for all the user conf is great
  • ~/.mutt all my email config

Installing an AUR helper (YAY):

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay
makepkg -si

Installing a dark gtk theme

This theme seems to be unmaintained now, need to find another one at some point…

yay -Sy vertex-themes-git vertex-icons-git

The GPG keys

I use GPG to encrypt and decrypt secrets on my computer, like passwords. Because nobody likes a password sitting in plaintext in a file somewhere…

# from the previous computer
gpg --list-secret-keys
# copy the ID
gpg --export-secret-keys $ID > my-key.asc
# copy the file over to the new computer
# and now import it
gpg --allow-secret-key-import --import my-key.asc

Vim config

See post on Vim.

S.M.A.R.T monitoring of the disks

sudo pacman -S smartmontools msmtp-mta mailx

In /etc/smartd.conf: DEVICESCAN -m you@example.com

Append “-M test” to test it once.

In /etc/msmtprc: aliases /etc/aliases

In /root/.msmtprc:

# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults

# Use the mail submission port 587 instead of the SMTP port 25.
port 587

# Always use TLS.
tls on

# A freemail service
account smtp2go

# Host name of the SMTP server
host mail.smtp2go.com

# Envelope-from address
from smart@example.com

# Authentication. The password is given using one of five methods, see below.
auth on
user example-user
password secr3t

# Set a default account
account default : smtp2go

chmod 600 /root/.msmtprc
sudo systemctl start smartd
sudo systemctl enable smartd

You should receive one (or more) email from the smart daemon. Final step is to remove the “-M test” from the config file and restart the daemon.

Cronjobs

Use systemd service files.

mutt config

See post on Mutt

Fonts

It was difficult to find a font with the correct set of UTF-8 characters.

sudo pacman -S bdf-unifont ttf-dejavu ttf-gentium ttf-freefont adobe-source-code-pro-fonts freetype2 ttf-ms-fonts noto-fonts noto-fonts-extra noto-fonts-cjk terminus-fonts

Archiving

sudo pacman -S zip unzip unrar xarchiver

Select Xarchiver in preferences of pcmanfm.

Python

sudo pacman -S python-pip tk
pip install --user pipenv

Miscellanous software

sudo pacman -S baobab gimp docker-compose filezilla ncmpcpp dos2unix jre-openjdk php php-cli picard alsa-utils pulseaudio-alsa dnsutils nmap fortune scrot gvfs gparted dosfstools udisks2 htop mpc mlocate pass vlc mplayer cmake docker cmatrix rsync gdisk openssh