[Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

rockdie · 2020-04-12 23:33:45

Hi,
I have installed arch on my two systems many times, everything seems fine, but I would like to get an approve for my steps from some experienced users.
Steps I follow:
1) Update the system clock
2) Partition the disks / Format partitions / Mount / Setup mirrors
3) Pacstrap base base-devel linux linux-firmware dosfstools ntfs-3g vim sudo networkmanager
4) Fstab / Chroot / Time zone / Localization / set hosts-hostname
5) passwd
6) install systemd-boot

Post-installation
1) useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash username -- passwd username
2) enable ILoveCandy (mandatory)
3) enable multilib / installing pkgstats
4) makepkg, Improving compile times
5) Install GPU drivers
6) Install DE (eg. gnome)
7) enable fstrim / install mlocate
8) install some fonts

Done.
I don't have any local network. After login I install some music and run games on steam.
Is there any mandatory config that I miss? should I bother with Networking?

Thanks in advance

Last edited by rockdie (2020-04-13 06:42:26)

Trilby · 2020-04-13 01:17:48

Insofar as your bullet points are a concise summary of the installation guide, your steps are "approved". To the degree that they are oversimplified and missing parts of the installation guide, they cannot be "approved". The only approved method of installing arch linux is to follow the installation guide.

Are there (other) post installation steps that are mandatory? Nope, definitely not. None of the ones you listed (even, if not especially, the one you explicitly noted as mandatory) are even mandatory.

Should you bother with networking? That depends, do you want networking?

Really, do you have any non-vacuous questions?

rockdie · 2020-04-13 06:22:26

O tempora o mores. Ah, I love sarcasm.
E.g. what about AppArmor? I said “I run steam”, do you think isn’t GPU drivers mandatory?
I don’t know if I want networking, as a desktop user. Can you help? Or, do you want to help?

Last edited by rockdie (2020-04-13 06:56:32)

jasonwryan · 2020-04-13 06:29:59

You installed NetworkManager, so presumably you do want--and now have--networking.

As to Apparmor, that entirely depends on your threat profile and what you want to do to mitigate those risks.

rockdie · 2020-04-13 06:41:52

Thanks Jason, thats worried me.
As far as I don’t have any critical missed step about security or performance, I will mark that one as solved.

Trilby · 2020-04-13 12:21:40

rockdie wrote:

... do you think isn’t GPU drivers mandatory?

No, it's certainly not mandatory.

rockdie wrote:

Can you help? Or, do you want to help?

Sure I want to help, that's why I'm posting here. But with the way your questions are currently being presented, I - nor anyone else other than a psychic - could help. You detected the (obvious) sarcasm in my first post, but seemed to have completely missed the point of it.

rockdie wrote:

I don’t know if I want ...

We know nothing about you, your goals, what you do with your computer, your environment, or any other relevant information. You kow all of this information and yet you don't know what you want. How is anyone here supposed to know what you should want?

Tell us your goals and we can help you acheive them. But if you don't even know what your goals are, it would be foolish of anyone here to try to provide you the right steps to an undefined goal. At best this would be a thread of every individual blindly posting their own personal tastes with no consideration of others' differences. If you want that, try facebook.

rockdie · 2020-04-13 13:13:25

Ok, now I get it and thanks for your time.
I don’t have any supreme goal, it was my bad to not clarify that.
I am a desktop user, I ran arch about 9 months so far without problems. My main tasks are gaming, documentation for my work and usage of cloud services like nextcloud/google and ebanking.
On my free time and if I don’t game, I’m spending time to forums and tweak my system, mainly for educational purposes. So, because the information is huge, I read somewhere, (I don't remember the post, maybe was on reddit) that arch users should know how to secure their system before use it, because nothing is enabled by default.
As you understand, as a newbie that info made me feel anxious,
and I thought that the best place to get legit info (besides wiki) was arch forums, instead of random articles, threads and videos around the web

Last edited by rockdie (2020-04-13 13:22:51)

Trilby · 2020-04-13 13:34:39

rockdie wrote:

I read somewhere... that arch users should know how to secure their system before use it, because nothing is enabled by default

Ah, that's something: you want to learn more about securing your system. Still a bit vague, but at least that's something to go on. You can get good ideas about security here.

The statement from redit also isn't precise enough to be sure if I really agree or not, but it's a reasonable sentiment. But the fact that nothing is enabled by default is not really a detrminent to security, but rather a benefit. You don't need to know about securing ssh if you are not running an ssh server. Some distros may install and run an ssh server by default and hopefully have some basic security in place for it. In these cases, I'd argue its very important to understand that security otherwise you're leaving your system wide open to attack. In contrast in arch, no ssh server runs (or is even installed) by default. So you need not worry about securing it ... unless you explicitly chose to install and enable an sshd service.

SSH is just one example, but the same logic applies to countless other services. The less you are running, the less you need to be concerned about securing your system. That's not to say less would ever be zero, but a base install of Arch is orders of magnitute more secure than a base install of Ubuntu.

As a point of reference, I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable about arch linux - I've been using it as my sole OS for quite some time. I do not do much of anything in particular specifically for "securing my system" other than keeping it simple (beyond the basics that apply to all computer use like using strong passwords for email and online accounts).

Last edited by Trilby (2020-04-13 13:38:59)

rockdie · 2020-04-13 14:04:39

Wow, never thought of “simple” in that way. Your example about ssh helps a lot.
I would describe it as “less is more”.
You see, I got multiple info about security, services and stuff that I really need, in a solid and minimalist post!

Last edited by rockdie (2020-05-08 07:23:48)

Arch Linux

#1 2020-04-12 23:33:45

[Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

#2 2020-04-13 01:17:48

Re: [Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

#3 2020-04-13 06:22:26

Re: [Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

#4 2020-04-13 06:29:59

Re: [Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

#5 2020-04-13 06:41:52

Re: [Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

#6 2020-04-13 12:21:40

Re: [Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

#7 2020-04-13 13:13:25

Re: [Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

#8 2020-04-13 13:34:39

Re: [Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

#9 2020-04-13 14:04:39

Re: [Solved] Αpprove my installation procedure

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