Archlinux installation

/ Tutorial

I’ve heard the reputation of Archlinux for a very long time, and perpetually notice some issues I am trying to fix are documented by ArchWiki. But the truth is I never tried to use it, because the installation seems too tedious and Ubuntu is still workable at present. What dictates me to use Archlinux is the prolonged audio issue spread through multiple versions of Ubuntu on my Chromebook.

(A few months later, I install ArchLinux again on my desktop, and then I extened this article and change the title from ArchLinux on Chromebook to Archlinux installation.)

updated at: 2025–5–12

Toshiba Chromebook

I have a Toshiba Chromebook bought in 2015, the dust on which has not been swept out for years until the other days I was on demand to use a laptop for a few months.

The first step I did was follow https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/getting-started.html website and install the UEFI Full ROM. Then you would be able to boot your installation image in UEFI mode from your USB device.

After booting from it, you’ll see the command line console already logged as root in your front, all the installations will be manually operated with command in this console. The installation steps are documented at official installation guide.

Archinsall CMD

Besides, to get rid of the annoying cmd process, we can simplify this with archinstall. In this case, the installing of Archlinux can be like procedures below:

  1. burn the usb live CD.
  2. boot up PC from this live CD.
  3. When the cmd line pop up, connect to WIFI network with cmd iwctl.
  4. Once connected to Internet, pacman -Syy to get a fresh of packages list for the Live CD.
  5. Install archinstall with pacman -S archinstall.
  6. Type in archinstall and then, following the instructions to install the Archlinux system to you disk.
  7. As of archinstall, select multilib in case edit file to do it after the reboot; select the lang to be zh_CN or others in case do it afte reboot; select a cn font package in case do it after reboot.

Tips

A few notice the guide does not mention put here:

  1. Format the disk as GPT type and add a fat32 format partition with a size of 50M as the first partition. Remember to mount this partition to /boot/EFI before using the genfstab command. Well to know that if you mount this partition to /boot, the size of this partition needs to be at least 200M, since the initramfs-linux, vmlinuz-linux, and grub files are put to this partition as well.
  2. Before using pacstrap, better update your mirror list in case of the slow downloading packages in your country: pacman -Syy, pacman -S reflector, reflector -c "cn" -f 12 -l 10 -n 12 --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.
  3. Create an extra user but not root as your daily usage: pacman -S sudo, useradd -m yanying, passwd yanying, usermod -ag wheel,audio,video,storage yanying.

  4. Follow lxqt guide and install the lightest lxqt desktop environment: pacman -S xorg lxqt.

  5. If you have issues with showing some special characters properly, try to install fonts: pacman -S noto-fonts noto-fonts-emoji.

  6. Uncomment Color and ILoveCandy in /etc/pacman.conf for a better output of pacman.
  7. Place icons to /usr/share/sddm/faces/yanying.face.icon to show it as the user icon in the login screen.
  8. Check IOS wiki to connect and transfer files with iPhone.
  9. Follow Waydroid wiki to run android on Archlinux.
  10. swap ctrl and search key: modify /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/pc with: key <LWIN> { [ Control_L ] }; and key <LCTL> { [ Super_L ] };. More: https://askubuntu.com/questions/33774/how-do-i-remap-the-caps-lock-and-ctrl-keys
  11. function keys of volumes and backlight: https://github.com/yanyingwang/CBFixesAndTweaks
  12. insall adb tools: pacman -S android-sdk-cmdline-tools and yay -S android-sdk-cmdline-tools-latest
  13. pacman -S bluetooth and sudo systemctl disable bluetooth.serrice and sudo systemctl status bluetooth
  14. Turn on 150% scales for display: gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"
  15. Install yay: git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git && cd yay && makepkg -si ( In China, try this before installing to fix the network issues: go env -w GO111MODULE=on; go env -w GOPROXY=https://goproxy.cn,direct; export GO111MODULE=on; export GOPROXY=https://goproxy.cn)
  16. Make alt + tab to swich windows instead of swith apps: open dconf-edit and change the shotcut keys in: org/gnome/desktop/wm/keybindings

Issues fixing

  • cannot use fcitx5 on goldendict: https://bbs.archlinuxcn.org/viewtopic.php?id=14947, we use pacman -Ql goldendict |grep desktop to see where the desktop file located, and the we edit goldendict-ng desktop file and modify line of Exec=goldendict %u to Exec=env GOLDENDICT_FORCE_WAYLAND=1 goldendict %u.

Beyond chromebook

  1. For other PC not chromebook that use sof audio card, you may need to following this link and install: sof-firmware and alsa-ucm-conf
  2. To show the minimize windows button, use gonme-tweaks and turn on it in Titlebar Buttons
  3. For firefox alt menu, following this link and change ui.key.menuAccessKeyFocuses to false in about:config to disable it.

Archlinux

Below content is what I concluded from my experience of installing archlinux on my desktop with gnome.

  • addin archlinuxcn as repo to pacman: following this link and do it. If you have issues to the keyrings, you can add SigLevel = Optional TrustAll for a workaround.
  • Once have archlinuxcn, you can install paru by sudo pacman -S paru.
  • Use website https://pkgs.org for searching of some pkgs.
  • Install paru -S mihomo-party-bin, paru -S extension-manager, sudo pacman -S cronie dconf-editor
  • Alt + tab to swith-windows: open dconf-editor and change items in org/gnome/desktop/wm/keybindings.
  • install wqy fonts: sudo pacman -S wqy-microhei wqy-zenhei
  • https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB/Tips_and_tricks#Setting_the_framebuffer_resolution to setting the resolution of grub.
  • network question mark: sudo vi /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager-intern.conf and add [connectivity] \n .set.enabled=false to disable it.
  • follow https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Cron and to install it and start the service with systemctl.
  • grub background: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB/Tips_and_tricks, change /etc/default/grub to add the background and then, grub-mkconfig -o /grub/grub.cfg
  • firefox ZeroOmega AutoProxy rules: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gfwlist/gfwlist/master/gfwlist.txt
  • https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/WPS_Office and paru -Ss wps-office ttf-wps-fonts
  • https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Locale, if run into warning: setlocale: LC_ALL: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory issue, or it is just can not show chinese in the terminal on the conditional of setting global lang to zh_cn.UTF8 but setting export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" for terminal, we need to uncomment the lang in /etc/locale.gen and run sudo locale-gen.
  • sudo pacman -Ss proxychains-ng
  • Following https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dropbox to install dropbox. Addtionally, we need to install AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support gnome extension for correctly showing the tray icon, refered from https://help.dropbox.com/zh-cn/installs/dropbox-desktop-app-for-linux#Supported-desktop-environments.

gnome extensions

To use gnome extensions, yay -S chrome-gnome-shell, yay -S extension-manager

  • dash to dock
  • Dim Background Windows
  • battery time
  • dim background windows
  • bedtime mode
  • eye on cursor
  • lock keys
  • lilypad
  • Appindicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support
  • Input Method Panel
  • Lunar Calendar (need to clone the source code to inistall depending lib)
  • Weather O’Clock
  • Wiggle

fcitx5

  • If you have issues with starting your fcitx5, try to add gtk_im_module=fcitx \n qt_im_module=fcitx \n sdl_im_module=fcitx \n xmodifiers=@im=fcitx to your ~/.xprofile file.
  • To input Chinese, you need to following link and install fcitx5 fcitx5-chinese-addons fcitx5-pinyin-sogou
  • Fcitx: following this link to use sudo pacman -S fcitx5-im.
  • As the issue of missing tray for fcitx5, install gnome-extension: Input Method Panel (if you find issue to set font and skin for fcitx5, please uninstall this and try paru -S gnome-shell-extension-kimpanel-git)

plymouth themes

To show archlinux logo instead of the command screen while you are starting your system, check the Plymouth project.

  • pacman -s plymouth
  • paru -S plymouth-theme-arch-breeze https://github.com/jtyr/plymouth-theme-arch-breeze/
  • Check to add GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to /etc/default/grub and then grub-mkconfig -o /grub/grub.cfg.
  • mkinitcpio -P to manual generated the initramfsp.
  • plymouth-set-default-theme -l
  • plymouth-set-default-theme -R plymouth-theme-dark-arch

grub theme

yaru theme

paru -Ss yaru-gnome-shell-theme yaru-gtk-theme yaru-icon-theme yaru-sound-theme libreoffice-style-yaru-fullcolor yaru-colors-gtk-theme

summary

ArchLinux let us be able to control Linux Desktop in a higher level. People who are sophisticated at Ubuntu should also give ArchLinux a try. You must be in love with it.