Archlinux on Chromebook
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.
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.
Tips
A few notice the guide does not mention put here:
- 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 thegenfstab
command. Well to know that if you mount this partition to/boot
, the size of this partition needs to be at least 200M, since theinitramfs-linux
,vmlinuz-linux
, andgrub
files are put to this partition as well. - 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
. - 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
. - Follow lxqt guide and install the lightest lxqt desktop environment:
pacman -S xorg lxqt
. - 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. - If you have issues with showing some special characters properly, try to install fonts:
pacman -S noto-fonts noto-fonts-emoji
. - To show archlinux logo instead of the command screen while you are starting your system, check the Plymouth project.
- Uncomment
Color
andILoveCandy
in/etc/pacman.conf
for a better output ofpacman
. - Place icons to
/usr/share/sddm/faces/yanying.face.icon
to show it as the user icon in the login screen. - Check IOS wiki to connect and transfer files with iPhone.
- Follow Waydroid wiki to run android on Archlinux.
- swap ctrl and search key: modify
/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/pc
with:key <LWIN> { [ Control_L ] };
andkey <LCTL> { [ Super_L ] };
. More: https://askubuntu.com/questions/33774/how-do-i-remap-the-caps-lock-and-ctrl-keys - function keys of volumes and backlight: https://github.com/yanyingwang/CBFixesAndTweaks
- insall adb tools:
pacman -S android-sdk-cmdline-tools
andyay -S android-sdk-cmdline-tools-latest
pacman -S bluetooth
andsudo systemctl disable bluetooth.serrice
andsudo systemctl status bluetooth
- Turn on 150% scales for display:
gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"
- 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
) - Make
alt + tab
to swich windows instead of swith apps: opendconf-edit
and change the shotcut keys in:org/gnome/desktop/wm/keybindings
Beyond chromebook
- For other PC not chromebook that use sof audio card, you may need to following this link and install:
sof-firmware
andalsa-ucm-conf
- To show the minimize windows button, use
gonme-tweaks
and turn on it inTitlebar Buttons
- For firefox alt menu, following this link and change
ui.key.menuAccessKeyFocuses
tofalse
inabout:config
to disable it. - To use gnome extensions,
yay -S chrome-gnome-shell
,yay -S extension-manager
- Gnome Extensions: Dash to Dock: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/307/dash-to-dock/
- To input Chinese, you need to following link and install
fcitx5 fcitx5-chinese-addons fcitx5-pinyin-sogou