From Arch Linux install to Steam Streaming GTAV | Tek Syndicate

Level1Techs
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In this video I'm going to stumble my way through installing Arch Linux. I start with the Arch Linux install USB, configure my system to boot from UEFI and then install the Gnome desktop environment and Steam, Valve's gaming platform.


Along the way I encounter some weird stuff including Vim barfing at me, and some font issues with Steam.


By then end I'm up and running playing (streaming) GTA V on the little ASRock Beebox.


If you aren't familiar with the ASRock Beebox, it is an Intel N3000 dual-core CPU in a tiny half liter enclosure. It has USB 3 type C and some other nifty features. Check out the full review:





So what's the verdict? I like Arch, but it reminds me a lot of slackware. I like that it doesn't do anything I don't explicitly tell it to do, and I was surprised by some of the default choices. I am not sure why, for example, that even though I have /etc/skel it did not use that to create a home folder; I suspect the useradd utility on the box was of a very ancient unix philosophy of do one thing really well and I probably should have pacman'd my way though installing some cool stuff.


I didn't have a chance to dive into aur and user-supplied packages in this video, but I do see the merits of this type of package management system. It seems as though aur had just been switched over to a git backend when I was working on this video and some problems I was having before the switchover went away.


I will continue to experiment with this installation image; don't be surprised if it shows up in future videos as this installation image will probably make its way from the Beebox to a Skylake-based box, and beyond.


Stay tuned! And if I did anything really dumb, do please let me know as I'm a bit of a newb from Arch and if I can feed on your knowledge and experience then that only gets me that much closer to becoming cthulu.



This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://teksyndicate.com/videos/arch-linux-install-steam-streaming-gtav
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The same day I spend hours installing Arch you upload this :). I wish there was a way to increase the font size of the terminal to 36-48 or something like that so when I use tty there isn't a need for me to take pictures with my iPad and zoom in on them.

I did get MDM (way less trouble then I made it out to be, I forgot to add the -f parameter to systemctl enable mdm) with Cinnamon and a few other necessities up and running. Wasn't aware you were testing it out.

I need to rest my eyes. If I keep staring at my monitor 8+ hours a day it's going to kill them.

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From man useradd:

-m, --create-home

Create the user's home directory if it does not exist. The files and directories contained in the skeleton directory (which can be defined with the -k option) will be copied to the home directory.

By default, if this option is not specified and CREATE_HOME is not enabled, no home directories are created.

And if I cat /etc/login.defs | grep CREATE_HOME I get no results. You must provide the -m option to useradd (as well as the user's home directory) as those are the defaults for /etc/login.defs. Yes arch should change them, but it's been like this for a long time.

Thanks for the great video!

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I have no personal experience using Arch, but this video has confirmed what I've heard previously from a number of different people: Arch isn't for Linux noobs, but if you really want to learn how Linux works and you have the time, it's one of the best because it makes you do everything. For the time being i'll stick to Debian-based distros. Maybe someday I'll have the time to fiddle around with the "more-advanced" distros. In any case, great video! Thanks Wendell.

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Also installed Arch today and then watched this video on it. Tis a great day!

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Stream in @DeusQain and do a gentoo install next.

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Curious what the point of the 1MB partition at the start of the disk was. Was it something to do with using Grub?

I've only ever used gummiboot (now systemd-boot) on EFI systems and just create an EFI /boot and a / partition.

As for why you didn't get a home folder for your user. When running useradd include a -m switch

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I believe the EXT4 file system unallocates a megabyte for metadata, but I'm unsure as I use BTRFS

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Thank you @Chronos. The errors I was getting when installing things from the AUR seem to be fixed now. Yaourt was wanting me to modify package builds and I don't have any experience with that so I skipped it. Would you recommend reinstalling what I installed from the AUR? Everything seems to work just fine.

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I don't think I would use Arch for long if I had to individually install dependencies. I've been using Fedora for about a year now and I really like it, still bleeding edge, but its not too much work to keep it running.

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far out man! i use arch and have for years. it was interesting to see this approach to installing arch and it shows me i just need to get out more. i was thinking what's up with making these partitions? i guess i am so steeped in mbr, i've never moved to gpt whether that is what happened on this video i do not know since, i just make two parts 1)ext4 and 2) swap, i have 8 GB ram and have never touched my swap, but i mkswap && swapon anyway, matching RAM size, since i do not know any better and i run z97 chipset and dual boot w/ win 8.1 pro.

one thing i like to do is basically a cop out and this would be good for gnubs is to "> systemctl start sshd" , create a passwd and then install from another pc via ssh. that way i can copy and paste "install instructions" into the shell. cheap i know, but i had a lot of fun in the 80s and can forget things. this is a good way for new users to access the arch beginner install wiki and simply copy and paste commands during install. of course one needs 2 PCs.

after i get the base done, i use clonezilla (i learned this with gentoo) to back it up. if i want to do anything different e.g., try another desktop, and it really helps on a test machine or if i york my os, i just reload the base (or snapshot) and pacman -Syu and then replace the back up to an image and then i can gnome it or kde it or mate it, or go back( in case i york my main driver) oh yeah install xorg before a desktop. you need xorg... back up any scenario and start again!

more arch videos if you like it please... btw, i was a huge slack user in the early 00s and even was flush enough to buy the disks from volkerding, they were not expensive. i never thought about it, but i left red hat, since they went pay enterprise (early fedora was not fun, later fedora is not fun, centos yes!) , so i went to slack then to debian to ubuntu to arch, with a brief gentoo outing. i never made the slack to arch install similarities, but looking back, yes i can see it. debian >=2.2 was bit interesting, menu driven, i digress... i like linux in general and am in no way a distro maniac... so yeah, use whatever you want, it's your freaking computer.

have fun use linux!!!!! < suse reference, remember the printed manuals?

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It's great that you finally started playing around with Arch, many of us love it and it's been nice to see you playing around with it.
This video was a nice "commentary" on installing Arch and I really enjoyed it.
But these days we all MUST PROCEED IN A FAST VELOCITY, so in hope to see more Arch stuff on the channel, I'd want to make a suggestion: I'm not sure if you know it already but there's a much faster and painless way to deploy pure Arch. There's an Arch live with openbox, a few tools including gparted and a network manager, made to install Arch right away. The installer itself uses curses, so it's pretty simple to use and makes installing Arch a pleasure.
This project is called evo/lution and I'm sure you'd want to check it out:
http://www.evolutionlinux.com/
Mind that this is not a standalone distro, it's just an Arch installer.

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I forgot about the useradd -m because.. seriously.. the last time I had to do that was.. 1999? 2000? lol. I'm used to the system being configured to do all that stuff for me. Shows how much I know lol. I looked at antergos, but didn't think it was pure enough.

My honest opinion is that while it's nice to say that it doesn't do a lot of cruft/it just does what you tell it, I think that some of it also not wanting to add features to keep noobs out. It's a kind of badge of honor. Oh, you installed arch? welcome, welcome. Not unlike $5 to participate in the SomethingAwful forums, MENSA and the Kroger plus card.

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As you were struggling starting gnome I was thinking "Why does he not go to the wiki?!".

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME#Starting_GNOME

Also, pacman does have recommended packages. But they're called "optional dependencies". They usually flash by when installing stuff.

Note: you can see meta data about any package with "pacman -Qi [name]", such as optional deps you've missed when you installed the package.

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I completely agree with your last clause there. I've been using arch for about 4 months non-stop as my main OS on my main computer (I've used ti on my school laptop for a year or so though), and I was kinda of proud when I first installed it. Then I matured up, and realised that it wasn't such a big achievement. Now I'm just using it for the same reason you stick to Debian. It's what I'm used to, and it's not all that bad.

I've actually intentionally tried to discourage people from using Arch. No, no, no, not because I want it to be for a small elite (even though I've thought in that path before). I wish people would stop seeing it as something that makes you superior to others (yes I'm aware I used to be one of those people), but instead find something that REALLY fits them. Maybe that way people will stop making distributions based on Arch (I think Antergos and Manjaro are horrible ideas. Arch is Arch, and Arch is bleeding edge. I know Manjaro has had a load of problems because they haven't realised that), and stop thinking people are being extremist just because they get mad when people won't read the wiki. :P

Edit: What I wanted to say is, I think Arch is a hobbyist distro, and people forget that. I think that just like other distributions it has its own demographic. I don't think it's aimed towards those who want to sit on their high horse and condemn those who use Ubuntu, but it's aimed towards those who have the patience to read the wiki, experiment, and make things work the way they want to.

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Aahhhh, now you can be taken seriously as a Linux tech channel, you managed to install Arch! ;-)

BTW Why not use GPT if the system is EFI?

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Like all linux distros the more you use them the more you learn about them - Arch is no different.
This video highlights some of the issues new users will face during an Archlinux install, and as such is why some Arch users have the "did you RTFM" reputation.

There used to be an installer made by Dieter Plaetinck back in 2008 called AIF, which eventually shipped in official Arch ISO's with the help of Aaron, and Gerhard in early 2009 to late 2012. AIF was dropped due to lack of maintenance and contributions but also it was around this time that there were alot of system changes like EFI, btrfs etc which grub2 didn't have support for at the time.

Newcomers to Arch would tend to get stuck during the installer, and then complained in the forums about a lack of documentation - dropping AIF compelled the community to make the Arch wiki what it is today in regards to the beginner's install guide and such.

This installer borrows from AIF.

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It actually did boot efi! I meant to only use fdisk to look at the partitions -- it is was already marked GPT when I started from prior installations -- but I meant to use gdisk and not fdisk. But it actually did boot efi when I rebooted. my surprise there was I expected it to fail, and I was going to redo it with gdisk. But it apparently worked fine, and the boot code is on that 1mb MBR.

It did NOT boot EFI from USB however. So that was also a miracle I was able to install EFI from a non-efi USB boot. It should have set some EFI vars.

Wendell

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i do not see any difference in the arch install as i did the older debian or slack installers. it's just being familiar with the script(not shell script but process). gentoo is just a script you need to wait for and you can toggle flags in the compiler[/*edit > and customize kernel */]. using useradd is simply a command. -m and -s for shell and add me to the wheel group... i don't feel this makes me a linux admin or some sort of linux "person". i just know how to use something since i need it. it's coming up with tail, sed, awk, grep and all the other admin tools that make it clever. i feel as if i am just a spectator. that said wendell did it his way and checked it.. i'm like heck yeah!

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