v21.03 = no xf86-video-intel on iso
v21.01 = xf86-video-intel on iso
No deepin this month
Someone reported on the forum that REMOVING xf86-video-intel made the system boot up again. We created therefor the next version for March to exclude that package. So far the results are promising. All installations were succesful without the package. If you see the graphics are not perfect on your intel graphics card install the package and you will be fine.
In the same time we took a look at xfce and thunar packages. Some isos will no longer include them by default. You will have to select them during the installation process in Calamares.
CWM is our latest desktop
Thanks to the persistence of John we can now enjoy Cwm as a new desktop. It feels like a tiling window manager but it is not one.
Read more on the ArchWiki.
color the arc folders anyway you want
Horst3180 did a great job creating the folders for any filemanager on Linux. We are reusing the scripts from Linux Mint to be able to color the Arc folder and add our own icon expertise to make them nice on any of our 21 desktops.
nvidia tutorials
We have added many video tutorials on how to install the Nvidia drivers for your computer and explain in several videos how to overcome the message “Failed to start light display manager”.
Here is the playlist on Youtube.
new conky
Since we were making so many tutorials about Nvidia we wanted to display some information about our graphical card.
Creation of AUR-Nvidia
ARCOLINUXD – right mouse click open terminal
Our ArcoLinuxD iso is the most ‘bare’ iso we can give – only 7 ArcoLinux packages are on there.
We had to add xfce4-settings to be able to right mouse click and open a terminal on the live usb. Xfce4 provided us a major update and we adapted. It is removed thereafter by Calamares.
Extra EFI line for nomodeset
After creating the video how users can add nomodeset behind the UEFI lines to boot up, we added an extra line to our iso for convenience sake.
You can see the text ‘nomodeset’ in the image below.
automatic update-grub
If the user installs one of the Arch Linux kernels on ArcoLinux Grub will be automatically updated. See image line (5/5). If you are on Arch Linux you will have to remember to update your Grub.
- linux
- linux-zen
- linux-hardened
- linux-lts
carli project – calamares design
We created a new design for Calamares on ArcoLinux. Time to create one for Carli.
carli project – calamares design
Archiso is the package to build your very own Arch Linux based system. We need Carli to be able to use version 50.1-1.
Calamares added extra installation options
We added software you may need later for your Nvidia drivers. You can now select them during setup. It is recommended to read the ArchWiki to see what needs to be done for your hardware. We have added the choice to download the headers as well as extra Nvidia related software.
New Calamares configuration
You can style Calamares in many ways. There is currently little documentation on its possibilities. After looking at the code of our friends at EndeavourOS I was able to do the following changes:
- fonts are bigger everywhere
- images are now resized to the size of your display – ideal for Tiling Window Managers
- color accents in buttons, sliders and selections
- last but not least – new images and text
archiso
All our scripts are adapted to the latest archiso version (50.1-1).
UKUI tutorials
We have created two videos containing all the info you need to start using Ukui.
Spectrwm Tutorials
We have created several spectrwm tutorials to get you started on that tiling window manager.
dwm tutorials
We have created 15 videos for you to get started on DWM.
Arcolinux spectrwm
When maximizing your window the standard spectrwm bar is now gone. You will have to press Super + Y to remove the polybar.
As a result, your application will now run full screen.
Arcolinux mimeapps.list
We would like to have one mimeapps.list for all desktops we have.
We would like to minimize maintenance for this file in ~/.config. Now every iso has a separate file.
No frustrations like jpg being opened with Gimp because Nomacs changed their .desktop file.
Atom loading takes longer than Sublime-text so we have set sublime-text as the first choice to open files.
We have tested this on our flagship ArcoLinux iso, and for this we have created a separate package to test it out.
arcolinux-config-all-desktops-git
At the moment only the mimeapps.list is in there. There are candidates to be included in this package as they apply to all desktops.
That is for next release.
Arcolinux default wallpaper
A new year, a new wallpaper as default wallpaper was our thought.
All credits to Jan Styblo.
Arcolinux flagship
We have added our applications to communicate with our users :
- discord
- telegram
We have added more support for Vivaldi to the flagship iso.
- vivaldi-widevine (netflix)
- vivaldi-ffmpeg-codecs (youtube)
Calamares 3.2.35.1
Calamares released a new version. More info here.
We have added emacs to the development list.
reflector – 2 extra scripts
Beginning December 2020 reflector gave us issues with the long waiting time.
We created one script to have osbeck as the default server and one script to experiment with the settings.
But downgrading was essential in order to get a fast response.
new structure + cleanup
Scripts that are no longer needed have been removed and scripts that are left go in a directory.
Fun script has been replaced with a package
sudo pacman -S arcolinux-meta-fun
Using all cores is handled in Calamares.
This is done via the arcolinux-bin-git package.
intel-ucode and amd-ucode
When removing and installing these two packages we have to remember to update Grub with this alias
update-grub
We have created a pacman hook to ensure that Grub will be updated automatically.
In this video we discovered this issue and now a simple solution has been implemented.
I had removed intel-ucode and forgot to update Grub.
Then booting up gave this nice message:
error: file /boot/intel-ucode.img is not found
and I was stuck. The video shows you how to solve that issue.
Improving /etc/pacman.conf
Arch Linux is quite fast in updating their packages. In 2 or 3 days the package will be updated when it has been flagged out of date by its users.
However sometimes a package is essential for a distribution. Discord is such a package for ArcoLinux.
By changing the sequence of the repositories in /etc/pacman.conf we made sure our ArcoLinux repositories are at the top (see image).
That is how we can have the latest build of Discord and Variety before the users of Arch Linux.
In your hidden folder .bin in your home directory you will find a script to stay rolling and get the last pacman.conf in.
ArcoLinuxD and Arch Linux users install arcolinux-bin-git.
Awesome
We have removed mpd from the menu bar in all themes. The code is still in there but hashtagged out.
Cups or printing
Arch Linux changed the names of some services. Follow this tutorial to be able to print again.
BSpwm and gaps
Thanks to a tip from a user on Telegram we can now make the gaps bigger and smaller with the scroll of the mouse.
Press Super or Super + Ctrl and scroll the mouse.
Calamares and the use of a swapfile
In the current version of Calamares you can also decide to use a swap file instead of a swap partition.
While the Calamares team is now thinking how to make a GUI for the size of that swapfile, we have created a script to increase that swapfile from the standard 512MB to anything between 1 and 32 GB.
The script will be in your .bin folder if you have the arcolinux-bin-git package installed.
Calamares installation of EXTRA packages
After testing out snapd and flatpak on ArcoLinux it made sense to also add them to Calamares.
If users want to install it, they select it during the Calamares installation.
Underneath you can find the playlists about the packages.
Calamares installation of extra packages
After input from users we have added ‘htop‘ to the ArcoLinuxD Calamares choices.
Htop is installed by default on ArcoLinux and all ArcoLinuxB isos.
We also got a tip to add Gimp and Inkscape to the Calamares installer for ArcoLinuxD and all the ArcoLinuxB isos. It is installed by default on ArcoLinux iso.
We have removed riot-desktop from the Calamares installer.
To DO CWM tutorials
what is new
How to stay rolling
We have dedicated an article to this particular topic since it is probably FAQ number 1.
Full package list
The full package list of the latest isos can always be found on github at this address :
ArcoLinux : https://github.com/arcolinux/arcolinux-iso/blob/master/archiso/packages.x86_64
ArcoLinuxD : https://github.com/arcolinux/arcolinuxd-iso/blob/master/archiso/packages.x86_64
More detailed information can be found in the
beta links in the arcolinux.info menu
and of course in the commits
On github.