Arch Linux

I use Arch Linux (or the spinoff ARM version) on practically all my machines.

Download

You can download Arch here

Basic commands and usage

Before going through the install guide you really should know these.

Lower/upper case is important in linux.

You can use arrow keys to navigate through your previous commands.

CTRL+ALT+F1-F12 - key combination for switching between terminals

cd DIRECTORY - for example cd /home/baf/Downloads - chooses directory

nano FILE - edit a text file

CTRL + C - break from a command, for example a ping

lsblk - lists all your drives and their partitions.

elinks - tool you can use to view webpages from the CLI

irssi - IRC in the CLI in case you get lost, #archlinux on Libera should help you out if you ask nicely.

Installing GPU proprietary drivers

Nvidia

sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf - uncomment [multilib] and the line below it. This is required for 32bit applications.

sudo pacman -Syu - synchronize the repository databases and update the system's packages

sudo pacman -S nvidia nvidia-libgl lib32-nvidia-libgl nvidia-settings

reboot

AMD

Do not use Catalyst. If you think you have to, rather get another GPU.

Table of hardware with needed drivers is here.

Installing packages from AUR

You can download user created PKGBUILDs from the AUR.

Package managers

Pacman

Usage: tldr pacman + the rest of this page:

-S has a useful --ignore packagename flag, which lets you ignore a broken package when doing a full update for example. Use multiple times when you want to avoid installing more packages. There's also a --noconfirm flag, which ignores confirmation of actions.

pacman -Qm - List packages installed locally.(that includes AUR)

You can get to the package cache via this command cd /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ and then use pacman -U packagename to downgrade/reinstall a package.