The Desktop
The Computers
Installing Archlinux
I am an Archlinux user and my purpose behind creating this web site is to start documenting some things like how do I an install and how I setup and maintain my archlinux system. My memory is not what it used to be and I myself will be able to come back here and refresh my memory on something I fathomed out before but can’t remember how I did it.
I run what I consider to be a very slick and minimal archlinux system. Speed, ease of use and keeping it simple are the key things.
My system boots in a few seconds (4.5 seconds currently) and runs very fast and I try hard not to settle for anything less, here are a few of the highlights…
My desktop/window manager is Openbox and I do not use a panel or system tray at all, I use Conky for time and date plus cpu & io graphs and also network throughput.
My file manager is Xfe and it was chosen for its sheer speed and power, nothing else comes even close, the load time for Xfe is so fast it appears to be instant.
In fact the only main application I use that isn’t so blindingly fast is Chromium but it is the browser I prefer, there are occasions when I need to use Firefox though. Sometimes I have to sacrifice speed for a slower but more useful app.
I use the Medit text editor and these web pages are being created with SeaMonkey.
Xmms and Mplayer are my prefferred media players.
For me it is always a case of striking a balance between speed, power and usefulness.
I have no use for eye-candy and flashy crap for the sake of being flashy. My desktop needs to be functional and useful. I do not require the applications on my desktop to follow some theme, in fact I prefer the individuality of the applications.
Anyhow over the following posts I am going to document some of my archlinux system showing things like how I get it installed right up to how I carry out the various tasks of my day to day computer use.
Any documentation here is 'as-is' for my own use but by changing things like location, names and packages where required you could adapt any of this for your own use. The way I have done things is not necessarily the best way to do something but it is 'what works for me'.