Arch Linux Installation Guide
Submitted by srlinuxx on Mon, 07/23/2007 - 15:16.
This is going to be my attempt at a newbies installation guide for Arch Linux. This will be a "take you by the hand and lead you through it step by step" approach. Unlike most lead you by the hand guides that tell you to do this, and do that, I intend to also tell you WHY you are doing what you're doing. Hopefully this will be a combination of an installation guide, an Arch Linux guide, and maybe a general Linux guide.
As you delve into Linux, you will find it is TOTALLY flexible and customizable. You can make it anything you want. Well, almost. This total flexibility is the greatest thing about Linux, and it's the worst thing about Linux. When you get to the point that you understand Linux, that flexibility is great. For the Linux newbie however, the myriad of choices and options are overwhelming. This guide will help you install what I think is the best Arch Linux personal desktop solution for a beginner that's coming from a Windows environment
Weak on understanding of linux partitions ?
Partitioning is one of the most important installation step in Linux.
Newbies have to understand physical(first) and logical(second and beyond) partitions in hdd. Then the partitioning methods of Linux including Fdisk(Slackware), partition magic, etc.
All Linux distros use lilo or Grub for bootloader to put the distro in the correct partition; which can do windows dual boot or multiple Linux boot.
Often Linux with file system uses ext2, ext3, or reiser4fs as a partition(file with FAT table) residing in the same windows physical partition. If you only have Linux(physical partition) in your computer, second linux distro must be installed in a logical partition. Otherwise the file system(same file name) of both distros may be corrupted during installation to the hdd.
This means you have to avoid using the same file system when two linux distros reside in the same physical partition or logical partition. If one uses ext3, then the other should use ext2 or reiser4fs?
Too many logical partitons on the hdd(terabyte size), may create problems for lilo or grub to racognize all the logical partition on your hdd. Lilo or grub had to be modified to do more then a few logical partitions for multiboot selection.
Weak on understanding of Linux video drivers ?
Linux video drivers are based on VGA and SVGA(higher resolution and colors) video cards.
Kudzu uses Xvesa drivers in /dev, which is mostly S3(Via) chipsets on video cards. All other video cards such as Sis, Trident or STI had to use VGA=791/792(1024x768, 16 bit colors) for text and pictures, but not other hardware display enhancements(3d, etc.).
Then along came Xorg drivers in /usr. which is capable of using udev to do ambiguous firmware for DSP(analog devices) video chipsets such as in Intel extreme video. It can also do Nvidia video cards. Many other video cards however falls back to VGA=791/792. Once Xorg is installed by kernel 2.6.x , Xvesa drivers and config is over written, Going back to Xvesa needs bug fixing of bindings to /dev files.
When you use the new ATI linux video drivers, it has to avoid conflicts with Xorg drivers. ATI video is famous for its speed, not its hardware display enhancements like Nvidia(flavored display).
Weak on understanding of cpu platforms ?
Slackware is still on i386 cpu platform. They can still do 16 bit software. i386 cpu is 16 bit ALU, no FPU, and small L1 cache, with no L2 cache. It can run 32 and 64 bit software in more steps, but is backward compatible with i486, i586, and i686 cpus.
i486 is 32 bit cpu, some with FPU(floating point unit) to calculate math separately from ALU registers. i586 is very much the same as i486 with FPU, except hardware will do hdd write back operation instead of write thru as in i486, and L2 cache is larger.
i686 is 32 bit cpu, with predictive branching(PentiumI) which has internal operation of 18 stages to do predictive branching to operate with long instructions for faster computer speed. The L1/L2 cache is doubled over i486/i586 cpus. Speed increased 20%. I686 handles 32 bit cpu cores linking two to run 64 bit software by emulation. Both AMD and Intel 64 bit cpus are two 32 bit core structure.
All cpus are designed to have backward compatibility with previous cpu designs. But some older software may only use the meager instruction sets of i386. They don't always work well with i586 or i686 cpus. So, the applications may have to be selected to run i686 instruction sets for best performance.