the Arch Linux thread

[red_devil]

..

1. LXDE will work fine. You just need to choose which DE you want to load from the login screen. I have both KDE & GNOME installed and both work well.

..

How did/do you switch between KDE and GNOME? I have GNOME installed but now want to try out KDE so I want to know if there is a way to switch between the 2 at log on. {something like selecting OSes at boot}

btw do you use GDM/KDM/SLiM or something else?

 

[skeletor]

you can always switch at _log on_. You get the option of which session you want to choose when you login from kdm/gdm.

 

[iTwenty]

With proper configuration of .xinitrc and .bash_profile, display managers aren't even necessary
I have following in my .xinitrc:

# Start KDE
# exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch startkde

# Start dwm
 exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session ~/.dwm/autostart.sh

# Start compiz
# exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session ~/.compiz/autostart.sh

# Start xmonad
# exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session ~/.xmonad/autostart.sh

.zprofile (.bash_profile for bash users):

if [[ $DISPLAY = "" && `tty` = /dev/tty1 ]]; then
 exec xinit > /home/itwenty/.xinit-log 2>&1
fi

/etc/inittab is set to boot to runlevel 3. If I login from tty1, my .zprofile starts an X session with the DE/WM I have uncommented in my .xinitrc

 

[skeletor]

^ well, that is true too. I gave him a more newb friendly answer.

 

[skeletor]

Information for AMD/ATi users annoyed by the fan speed and noise: *wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI#Powersaving

 

[Krow]

I have the core image loaded on a pendrive. Saw a text input based install system. Typed restart and moved on to Win. The problem is that I have Ubuntu on dual-boot. Need to remove that before I try an install. Let me see how it goes. Finding time for these things has become so difficult.

 

[doomgiver]

what? i find text based installs faster and more "enjoyable" than gui installs.
i feel safer using the command line, dunno why.

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Hey guys I installed Arch and Gnome. Now when I start gnome it says "Oh no, gnome failed to start properly, please logout and try again."

I tried /usr/sbin/gdm, it says /usr/sbin/gdm-binary symbol lookup error /usr/sbin/gdm undefined symbol g_cclosure_marshal_generic

Any ideas??

 

[nims11]

is the X starting?

 

[hellknight]

^^Reinstall GDM.. error with binary may be rectified via re-installing..

 

[skeletor]

A small note for Arch users using HP printers.

If you'll try using hp-setup to configure your printer after installing hplip, you'll face problems because for Arch /usr/bin/python is for Python 3 now. /usr/bin/python2 is for Python 2.7.

A year hence, and you'll still face this problem while installing proprietary plugin for hplip.

Solution?

Just a while before installing the plugin, rename /usr/bin/python to python4lol. Rename /usr/bin/python2 to python. And continue installing. Rename them back to normal afterwards.

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Sorry guys, I forgot to update, I solved the problem, I just updated the OS and it got solved automatically. pacman -Syu

 

[MetalheadGautham]

ROFLMAO

:: Retrieving packages from multilib...
error: failed retrieving file 'wine-1.3.35-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz' from mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in : Success
warning: resuming download of wine-1.3.35-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz not possible; starting over
 wine-1.3.35-1-x86_64                                                          26.6M   25.1K/s 00:18:09 [#############################################################] 100%

if you did not find the above funny, scroll to the right and read the second line properly

 

[nims11]

the iitk repo mirror can be really crappy sometimes(especially because of its lack of resuming), so i don't use it.

 

[skeletor]

I use Finnish mirrors. Scandinavian mirrors are the best.

 

[MetalheadGautham]

Well, why is "failed to retrieve" termed as a "success" ?

 

[hellknight]

So.. anyone tried teh Arch Build System. It compiles the packages like Gentoo and then installs them. Try it out..

*wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Build_System

 

[skeletor]

^ yea. I've used it.

 

[hellknight]

^^So, how was the response? And what do you prefer? Installing or compiling+installing?

 

[MetalheadGautham]

ABS is sweet if you wanna install stuff that is not there by default. Problem is sometimes when installing software from AUR you end up having to take care of a lot of dependencies. This mainly happens when installing development tools and libraries that are not present in official repositories (android related, embedded systems related, etc).

If my laptop did not have a 1GB RAM bottleneck I would probably have switched to Fedora, which I think is the most developer friendly distro.

Having said that, Yaourt clears most of the problems with dependencies but I wish Arch had something as efficient as emerge/portage of gentoo