Playing around with arch.... (Page 1 of 3)

For Arch+Openbox I use many of the same packages as CrunchBang. I initially install a few packages such as xorg, gksu, openbox, obconf, obmenu, a text editor, and file manager.

After installing and logging in, I install the rest.

For restart/shutdown, I modified the script included in CrunchBang:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import pygtk
pygtk.require('2.0')
import gtk
import os

class DoTheLogOut:

    # Cancel/exit
    def delete_event(self, widget, event, data=None):
        gtk.main_quit()
        return False

    # Logout
    def logout(self, widget):
        os.system("openbox --exit")

    # Reboot
    def reboot(self, widget):
        os.system("sudo shutdown -r now && openbox --exit")

    # Shutdown
    def shutdown(self, widget):
        os.system("sudo shutdown -h now && openbox --exit")

    def __init__(self):
        # Create a new window
        self.window = gtk.Window(gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL)
        self.window.set_title("Exit? Choose an option:")
        self.window.set_resizable(False)
        self.window.set_position(1)
        self.window.connect("delete_event", self.delete_event)
        self.window.set_border_width(20)

        # Create a box to pack widgets into
        self.box1 = gtk.HBox(False, 0)
        self.window.add(self.box1)

        # Create cancel button
        self.button1 = gtk.Button("Cancel")
        self.button1.set_border_width(10)
        self.button1.connect("clicked", self.delete_event, "Changed me mind :)")
        self.box1.pack_start(self.button1, True, True, 0)
        self.button1.show()

        # Create logout button
        self.button2 = gtk.Button("Log out")
        self.button2.set_border_width(10)
        self.button2.connect("clicked", self.logout)
        self.box1.pack_start(self.button2, True, True, 0)
        self.button2.show()

        # Create reboot button
        self.button3 = gtk.Button("Reboot")
        self.button3.set_border_width(10)
        self.button3.connect("clicked", self.reboot)
        self.box1.pack_start(self.button3, True, True, 0)
        self.button3.show()

        # Create shutdown button
        self.button4 = gtk.Button("Shutdown")
        self.button4.set_border_width(10)
        self.button4.connect("clicked", self.shutdown)
        self.box1.pack_start(self.button4, True, True, 0)
        self.button4.show()

        self.box1.show()
        self.window.show()

def main():
    gtk.main()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    gogogo = DoTheLogOut()
    main()

BTW you also need to edit your sudoers file so you can shutdown without password:

%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown

Thanks so much for all the great suggestions. Everyone on this forum is always a great help.

lalalala.... POTATO!

This would be an overly simplistic script but:

#!/bin/bash
sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S xorg gksu openbox obconf obmenu leafpad pcmanfm

just add the packages you want.

It would be an awsome idea to set up a script, similar to the crunch bang alternitave instilation script, that sets up arch exactly like crunch bang.

I am an eee pc user, and I know that the arch kernel already comes with the eee wireless drivers needed, so this would be pretty sweet for me.

I need my finals to be over so that I can put some real work into this.

Crunch and Arch ahh a beautiful marriage. (I hope they don't have ugly kids).

The deb issue is something that I was expecting from leaving a debian based system, but i don't consider it much of a sacrifice. I am mostly doing this for just the learning experience. Ubuntu has always been comfortable for me. I could get around with no problems. Then I tried crunchbang. It was not as strait forward, but it almost forced learning on me. Not only was it faster, but i learned a LOT from it. I have really grown to love openbox and i have realized how much work and effort has gone into all of the ready made linux distros that are out now.  I was stuck with windows for years not even realizing that there were alternatives for the longest time. I hated fixing the same issues on my comp and other peoples time and time again. I learned a bit about linux, then thought I should just try it. I searched, found ubuntu was the most popular, so that was where I started. I think that was the best decision I could have made. Ubuntu has it's problem, and yes, it is slow compared to pretty much any other linux distro I've seen, but it is EASY. The install was painless, and everthing for me worked out of box. Ubuntu was working great and WAY faster and more stable then any windows machine, but something about it still bothered me. I tried Xubuntu to try to get the most out of my machine, but saw almost zero improvement. Then I found crunchbang. I know I am preaching to the choir, but this is really the holy grail of Ubuntu + resource efficiency. Anyways, Ubuntu made me find linux, and be comfortable with it. It was a good bridge point. It also made me want to learn more. Crunchbang was really where the learning began. I have been comfortable with crunchbang for awhile now and am now wanting to learn more. I can honestly say that moving from ubuntu to crunchbang has done just as much as movinf from windows to ubuntu for my drive to learn more, and taught me VERY much. I have the utmost respect for ceremonial and anyone who makes an effort to improve the community as a whole. Sorry for the long rant, but I am REALLY drunk.

lalalala.... POTATO!

haha, wow, Just read my post from last night/this morning. Sorry about the rant, no idea where it came from. Friends shouldn't let friends drink and post.

lalalala.... POTATO!

Well, if you don't have time for Arch, you should not try it
Arch is a huge time-eater...

Or try chakra http://chakra-project.org/ - arch based kde "distro".

Last edited by klanger (2009-12-03 09:40:36)

Sidux and chakra are getting back into the heavy weights again... crunch is great because of openbox. If you like #! because of openbox your not going to be happy with a gnome or KDE setup, may as well use vanilla ubuntu.

I just tried installing arch on a virtual machine using virtualbox.

It's nothing special. Then I hit the first stone. Search around and i can get it fixed. But it's a hint of time-eater.

Then I install chakra in virtualbox. It's utterly slow--> unsuable. It's 512MB and 1 CPU core of 2GHz. Even windows XP runs just fine in 256MB.

chakra minimal was a bit faster but still very slow.

I'll have a week off end of this year, will try to pull out arch. But still concern for a stable working environment.

Thanks for pointing out antix. But i read review it doesn't work well with some modern hardware. That's bad thing since my working laptop is rather new.

Not really. Year ago it was recommended to use hwd to set up X, now they use hal to detect input devices, now Xorg is moving out hal and there would be something else. And the same is with the rest of the packages.

I just install elinks and open archwiki on tty2 while following the instructions on tty1.

By the way there is a cool thing called powerpill which can save you some time during installation.

Anyway, !# is almost perfect, while arch is for kinda maniacs and it hogs your time.

For the xkcd font problem, try uninstalling xorg-fonts-75dpi and xorg-fonts-100dpi. Also try messing around with your .fonts.conf file like:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
 <match target="font" >
  <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
   <const>none</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>
 <match target="pattern" >
  <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
</fontconfig>