Arch Linux

juggz

Member

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 18

Problems!

Hello all,

Although I have used quite a few linux distros before, this is my first experience trying a distro such as Arch. I was going to do an installation of Gentoo but decided that I didn't want to waste my life compiling stuff :-) So far I am really liking Arch, I have learned more in the two days trying to get stuff to work in Arch than in my two years tinkering with other distros. Anyhow, on to the real issues:

1.) I installed the .6 ISO with the extra packages since I have a bandwidth limit and cant afford to get the extra stuff from the repositories. During the installation I selected X11 (or the category with X, forgot what it was called) and installed all the packages in that directory, however it doesn't seem to have installed XFree or X.org. Did the installer forget something or are these not even included on the CD? When I do 'startx' it gives me an error saying something about not being able to find the config file.

2.) How can I get my network set up? I searched these forums and read through the relevant issues but I still can't seem to get my RealTek 8029 card working. I have added both the 8139cp and 8139too modules to modprobe.conf. Also, wouldnt this simply get my network card detected.... how do I actually get Arch to use DHCP and get me online?

3.) Once I get online to install the latest KDE would I just do a "pacman --refresh, pacman -S pacman and then pacman -S KDE"? Does the '-s' option mean that its going to build from source and if so what would the command be to just get binaries and install them?

4.) I have an Promise TX2 Plus SATA/PATA PCI card which Ive been having problems with. While the SATA drive works fine, I also have an IDE  (PATA) drive connected which I don't know how to get working. During the install it wasn't shown as an option to format and install on.  lspci does show the card but I don't think it detects it properly. I am not at that computer right now but will post the output of lspci once I can get back to it.

Thx for reading. I have a strange feeling these boards [and especially the Newbies corner] are going to be my new best friend for a while :-P

dp

Member

From: Zürich, Switzerland

Registered: 2003-05-27

Posts: 3,378

Website

Re: Problems!

1)
i guess, that it installed X (you can run startx) but X is not yet configured - you need to configure X before being able to use it

2)
try loading the module by hand (as root do: modprobe YourModule) and watch the output ... if this do not helps, then check dmesg
.... this will not get your card detected! you must know in advance your card chipset or use knoppix or hwd (in extra) to find it out
--- how to start network? add "network" to /etc/rc.conf::DAEMONS

3)
once, your system has internet access, you would first want to update your system fully (the 0.6-ISO is really outdated and almost any pkg needs to be downloaded + updated) --- this is simply done by running "pacman -Suy" as root

when your system is up-to-date, you can run "pacman -S kde" to install kde ... note that the S stands for SYNC and not for source! archlinux is a binary-based-distro! pacman will never want to compile something for you! (building pkgs is done with makepkg and the ABS ... or the inofficial "srcpac")

4)
sorry, on this point i don't know a solution per se ... i would first bring my system -Suy and then install "hwd" from extra and watch, what it says about your additional hardware ... maybe it tells you what module you need (if you are lucky ;-) )

good luck!

---

The impossible missions are the only ones which succeed.

xerxes2

Member

From: Malmoe, Sweden

Registered: 2004-04-23

Posts: 1,249

Website

Re: Problems!

hello,

here is a wiki page with the steps to take for getting your desktop up
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Desktop%20Arch

here are also a few direct ones,
1. wiki->howtos->X Window->Install and .....

2. wiki->howtos->Network..->Static ip...

3. wiki->howtos->Pacman

you also got "# man pacman"

Here is the basic pacman commands:

"pacman -Sy" syncronise the servers

"pacman -Su" updates all your packages

"pacman -S xorg" installs xorg with deps,

good luck 
if you got dialup you gonna need it, because arch is made for running uptodate so you can be in trouble if you stick with older packages,

---

arch + gentoo + initng + python = enlisy

cs25x

Member

Registered: 2004-05-04

Posts: 150

Re: Problems!

run hwd first, it will tell you what modules you need to load for your hardware.
your modules and daemons and just about everything is loaded via /etc/rc.conf.
you need to add the name of whatever it is in the MODULES line for a module, and in the DAEMONS line for software services. This is also where your DHCP is fired up..

xorg is on extra in the 6.0 iso, i think, and it configures itself ( mostly ) but you can copy your xf86 ( whatever it used to be called ) to xorg.conf. hwd will also generate a config file for you that will work in most cases
This config lives in /etc/X11

There are bigggggggg differences between 6.0 and the 7 RC, I think 7 is worth the 200M download and burn, just to get xorg and udev.

---

--(*(cs25x--));

juggz

Member

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 18

Re: Problems!

Hello again guys,

I've had partial success with the tips you guys gave me and through scouring through the forums. By using the hwd script I found out what module I needed to load and I think Arch is now aware of my internet card and starts it up, a step up from before. However I am only able to ping IP addresses 'close' to me on my school network. Ie if my ip is 199.199.199.207 I can ping and get a response from 199.199.199.205, and other people on my [subnet?]. But, I am still unable to ping outside IP addresses or even addresses such as 199.199.198.201. I think DNS is working because I can type 'ping www.google.com' and it will translate that into an IP and try to ping it. My school network is configured such that our internal IPs are not visible to people outside, our external IP address is totally different from our internal one. I have configured the default gateway and made sure there is no ! before the proper line in rc.conf. Is there something else I need to do or is there some sort of firewall installed with the base install?  Sorry if this sounds totally stupid but im pretty new at all this configuring by hand stuff :-)

BTW... I upgraded to Arch 0.7 base2 beta so I should be on the same page as all of you.

Thanks for your helpful tips so far!

Lugash

Member

Registered: 2004-11-05

Posts: 14

Re: Problems!

Hello all,
1.)When I do 'startx' it gives me an error saying something about not being able to find the config file.

Check /var/log/x.org.log.0 or /var/log/XFree.log.0 for errors. If you can run "startx", XFree / X.org is probably installed. You still need to configure it tho: check the file /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/X.orgConfig (?). It's well commented so you should be able to edit it with a text editor if you know your hardware specs.

2.) How can I get my network set up? I searched these forums and read through the relevant issues but I still can't seem to get my RealTek 8029 card working. I have added both the 8139cp and 8139too modules to modprobe.conf. Also, wouldnt this simply get my network card detected.... how do I actually get Arch to use DHCP and get me online?

modprobe ne2k-pci
dhcpd eth0

The older Realtek 8029 (10 MBit, right?) uses the ne2k-pci module. The 'dhcpcd' command launches a DHCP-client on interface eth0 (your Realtek 8029 if there's only 1 NIC).

3.) Once I get online to install the latest KDE would I just do a "pacman --refresh, pacman -S pacman and then pacman -S KDE"? Does the '-s' option mean that its going to build from source and if so what would the command be to just get binaries and install them?

man pacman
pacman --help
pacman -Sy kde

'pacman -Sy' will download and install the latest KDE.

4.) I have an Promise TX2 Plus SATA/PATA PCI card which Ive been having problems with. While the SATA drive works fine, I also have an IDE  (PATA) drive connected which I don't know how to get working. During the install it wasn't shown as an option to format and install on.  lspci does show the card but I don't think it detects it properly. I am not at that computer right now but will post the output of lspci once I can get back to it.

Could you paste the /dev-name of your SATA-disk? Changes are the name of your PATA-disk is very similar since it's connected to the same controller but probably to a different bus/controller.

Thx for reading. I have a strange feeling these boards [and especially the Newbies corner] are going to be my new best friend for a while :-P

Don't forget Google! Esp the usenetsearch.

juggz

Member

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 18

Re: Problems!

Lugash,

Thanks for your lenghtly and detailed reply. I should have posted earlier but, with the help of some people from #archlinux I figured out nothing was awry with my network configuration, I was just not using the correct pacman command. [duh!] I was then able to get KDE, pacman (and not to mention, a whole bunch of other packages) and they installed fine. I used hwd to generate a Xorg.conf file and that worked fine as well. I did have a few more issues though regarding:

1. KDE not updating the K menu when I install new packages?
2. Some packages just dont start (mplayer and dcgui-qt). For mplayer - when I try to start it from KDE, nothing is displayed, I dont see a window quickly pop up and then disappear, simply nothing shows up.......... maybe I need to recompile with mplayer-gui? I'll read up on this when I get a chance. When starting dcgui-qt  from KDE I get its bootsplash displayed in strange colors and then it disappears. Running that from the console gives me: 

"Checking xml version ...
Compiled for '20609' using '20615'
Checking dclib version ...
Using '0.3.3'
Checking qt version ...
Compiled for '3.3.2' using '3.3.3'
Checking qt privates ...
private test ok !
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/juggz/.dc/dclib.cfg"
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/juggz/.dc/dcgui.cfg"
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/juggz/.dc//emoticons.xml"
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/usr/share/dclib/icons/emot/default/emoticons.xml"
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/juggz/.dc/dcprof.cfg"
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/juggz/.dc/dchub.cfg"
CListenManager: start listen
CRASH CRASH CRASH
crash"

3. The SATA issue I mentioned still remains. The device points to /dev/discs/disc0/ which seems to actually be some sort of link to /dev/scsi/host2/bus0/target0/lun0 . I did some looking around the directories but I dont see any other device which strikes me as being the IDE device. Do you think it would be this straightforward? I ask because all the other distros I've tried have done the same thing. It's as if the device didn't exist at all. So far it has only worked correctly in Windows. Maybe I need to recompile the kernel with some special modules/drivers? I don't quite know how to do this but I guess I'll read up on it and add it to the list of things I've learned since using Arch :-) I sorta wanted to learn how to recompile anyhow b/c Arch seems to load up a lot of things which are not useful for me (or so it seems from the bootup messages). Is there some way I can figure out which module/driver i need to compile for it to work?

Thx again