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Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

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Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#81

Post by hughesjj »

geoka9 wrote: post #17
yndoendo wrote: post #12

I've had the same Arch installation between four laptops over 12 years. Boot from a USB Linux distro and enter command line. Partition the new laptop, setup disk encryption, rsync the file system via USB external enclosure, modify the ftab, crypttab, and refind.conf, reboot. Don't have to re-install any software or re-setup and sync any accounts.

Same, but with Debian for almost 20 years. Don't remember how I did it before, but the last few migrations were just `dd if=/dev/sda.old of=/dev/sda.new` and then gparted to enlarge the root partition to fill out the new disk.

Personally, I just gave root "enough" and set up a separate user partition. Although admittedly it gets more complex if using lvm, so realistically I end up setting up sd-encrypt on the new drive, manually partitioning, then rsyncing everything over reserving permissions

Last time I did it I threw away my root install too because I figured it had been around long enough that either my drunken younger self messed up the install or otherwise something "dirtied up" the install.

I also figure it's nice to clean the slate just in case someone put a gnarly rootkit on my box.

Over the last two years I've migrated to fedora/Ubuntu and trying to do everything really secure, but I finally broke down and re enabled community a month or two ago. Just too much user space desktop quality of life stuff which only lives in community....

Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#82

Post by hughesjj »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #79
freeqaz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's Asahi these days? Stable enough to run as a daily?

Depends on your tolerance level. I get random crashes under heavy load at least once a month or so under CPU-bound tasks. As I said, GPU/Sway stability is perfect - I've had no issues there, but large rust builds seem to tip the system over occasionally.

Thermals? Can you nice down the process? Reserve a core for the OS? RAM issue?

(Come on you post a HW issue on hacker news, you know the peanut gallery is coming out in force ;-) )

Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#84

Post by tcrenshaw »

elcapitan wrote: post #5

What's everybody's favorite distribution on the Frame.Work 13? Getting it next week, and toying around with Arch/Debian/Ubuntu/Suse/NixOS/etc in VMs while waiting for it. I think I'll have to throw a coin (or just take Debian).

Big fan of Silverblue/universal blue Fedora immutable installs. I'm using Aurora, a KDE respin, on my framework 13 AMD. There's a framework specific image and it was one of the most complete out of the box Linux installs I've ever used. I truly think that immutable distros are the way forward for desktop Linux

Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#85

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

3np wrote: post #72
geoka9 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but with Debian for almost 20 years. Don't remember how I did it before, but the last few migrations were just `dd if=/dev/sda.old of=/dev/sda.new` and then gparted to enlarge the root partition to fill out the new disk.

How do you know you're not propagating bitrot over time? Feels like a binary here and there may accumulate mismatching checksums over the years from bad hardware or some filesystem error... Not to speak of malware. All it takes is once... Feels a lot safer to do the system- and package installation from scratch and then rsync/dd only /home and /etc.

ZFS is how.

Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#86

Post by neilv »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #56
neilv wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the post title is understated, since I had a related thought: it's not hard to install most Linux distros on a laptop, and this post will intimidate people. This post is about how one person did it on hard mode, to get it just how they want it. That's fine. I suspect that most of the people on HN could pretty easily install Debian, without documentation (just write this file raw to a USB flash drive, boot the…

The article isn't about how to install a Linux distribution on your laptop. It's about installing Arch on your laptop. The fact that installing Debian is easier is true, but also irrelevant.

The Debian example is relevant to my point that I think this article will intimidate people who don't already know Linux (but over the years have heard that it's a pain to get working on laptops, etc.).

Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#87

Post by kelnos »

Jtsummers wrote: post #52
swasheck wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn’t gatekeeping inherently subjective? it’s going to be hard to present objective evidence to a subjective expression of opinion.

Gatekeeping is an active effort to keep others out of something (out of a field, away from information, etc.). Where is the active effort to keep people out of Arch when the documentation is made available for free?

I think you're talking past the person you're replying to.

Not sure why you use the word "active", as it's unnecessary. Gatekeeping is just erecting barriers of whatever sort in an effort to keep people out. Making install documentation that is very very detailed to the point that some people will be turned off by it and go away could very much be considered gatekeeping. Even if that documentation is objectively good documentation.

Obviously we can't know the motives of the people who wrote the documentation. But it's fair to look at the docs and believe that the authors are engaging in gatekeeping. That belief might be wrong, but there's no evidence either way. Unless the authors have come out and said something about this topic, of course. And even then, it depends on if you believe what they've said.

It's subjective.

(I personally have no dog in this race. I don't use or particularly care about Arch; Debian suits me just fine. My main experience with Arch is positive, though: their wiki is amazing, and when I search for answers for various questions about Linux and Linux desktop software, the Arch wiki comes up very often, and is nearly always helpful.)

Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#88

Post by kelnos »

maleldil wrote: post #67
Keppl8R wrote: post #3

ArchWiki: your source for Arch Linux documentation on the web. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page

Not just Arch documentation. It often has general use information, too, applicable to other distros and Unixes.

Agreed! I've never used Arch, but the Arch wiki often comes up in search results when I'm looking to solve a problem, and it's usually very helpful.

Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#89

Post by kelnos »

geoka9 wrote: post #17
yndoendo wrote: post #12

I've had the same Arch installation between four laptops over 12 years. Boot from a USB Linux distro and enter command line. Partition the new laptop, setup disk encryption, rsync the file system via USB external enclosure, modify the ftab, crypttab, and refind.conf, reboot. Don't have to re-install any software or re-setup and sync any accounts.

Same, but with Debian for almost 20 years. Don't remember how I did it before, but the last few migrations were just `dd if=/dev/sda.old of=/dev/sda.new` and then gparted to enlarge the root partition to fill out the new disk.

Debian too, but for some reason I just feel good about doing a fresh install whenever I get a new laptop. I do rsync over my home directory and a few other things, but it just feels nice to have a fresh machine with a minimal amount of packages on it, where I can install stuff as I need it, and leave out anything I haven't used in a long time and have forgotten I'd even installed.

Re: Installing Arch Linux on a Laptop

#90

Post by kelnos »

elcapitan wrote: post #5

What's everybody's favorite distribution on the Frame.Work 13? Getting it next week, and toying around with Arch/Debian/Ubuntu/Suse/NixOS/etc in VMs while waiting for it. I think I'll have to throw a coin (or just take Debian).

Debian (stable or testing, depending on your taste).

I hope your experience is better than mine, though. I've had mine (12th-gen Intel) for 2 years now with a terrible thermal throttling issue, and support alternates between asking me to do the same things over and over, and ghosting me for months at a time. Judging by the community forums, it's a common-enough problem too.

I assume you're getting either the Core Ultra or whatever the current AMD board is... hopefully they're better.

If they come out with a new mainboard next year, I feel like (after 3 years of owning the 12th-gen) I can justify a mainboard upgrade (though I guess it'll also mean new RAM, ugh), and pray that it's actually a hardware problem (and not a problem with the embedded controller's firmware), and that it's been quietly fixed.

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