User Tools

Site Tools


livedistro:jn170424

This is an old revision of the document!


Configuring Arch for a graphical interface

The base iso comes up in a terminal. We want some sort of graphical interface. My (JN) preference is Openbox with tint2 and conky and nitrogen.

  • Openbox: a window manager
  • tint2: a system tray, a task list, a battery monitor and a clock
  • conky: system monitor software for the X Window System. It allows a quite nice display of keyboard shortcuts
  • nitrogen: lightweight desktop background browser and setter.

The above was the approximate configuration of Crunch-Bang linux and its successor Bunsenlabs-Hydrogen, which are Debian based. Archanywhere and Revenge seem to make it easier to install and use XFCE, so those have been tried first.

170429 ArchAnywhere attempts

170319 (trying with Revenge and Arch Anywhere)

Downloaded archanywhere dual and revenge installer 32 as per Scott's notes. Note that revenge was put in a file that was NOT labelled ISO.

Created and installed (chose openbox, but that's maybe a poor idea – XFCE may be easier).

Then tried to run alsaplayer to play music. (alsaplayer is rather dated, but it has nice keyboard shortcuts that are familiar to my dancing colleagues. Moreover, it can slow down or speed up tunes via a keyboard shortcut.)

Note need to create vmshare dir and mount it so I had some mp3 files.

 sudo mount -t vboxsf vmshare vmshare  # from home dir in guest

audacious plays, alsaplayer does not.

To get VBox Guest additions, had to mount /dev/sr0, install gcc and make from base-devel and run the VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

Managed to mess up arch anywhere.

Try again with Arch Anywhere

Redo with xfce, changing to ALSA audio driver in VBox settings.

Change back to pulseaudio as no sound.

Reboot, but now file manager not working???

Could not get pacman to find mp3 stuff. And some apps not responding.

Try again with Revenge

Choose pulseaudio. LXDE

Tried to insert and run VBoxLinuxAdditions.run but no linux-headers.

  pacman -S linux-headers # worked!

reboot

vboxadd.service failed and locked at end “Reached target Graphical Interface”.

reboot

No good. So try again to install.

Choose:

 linux-lts kernel
 lxde
 internet chromium
 media audacious
 utilities virtualbox leafpad ntfs-3g

Then insert VBox Guest Additions iso, open terminal and

sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

Seems OK. So reboot.

Yes, screen sizing works. Mounted vmshare after creating. And audacious plays tunes.

pacman -S alsaplayer

does not work, but install implied MPEG support needs libmad.

pacman -S libmad

alsaplayer works!

Try Archanywhere again.

adding libmad got alsaplayer working.

Slightly different interface to revenge.

livedistro/jn170424.1493930059.txt.gz · Last modified: 2017/05/04 16:34 by jcnash