After some tests on opnBSD/FreeBSD/TrueOS (the 2 last for zfs usage) I need to have a working laptop with Rolling Release method, simple to tweak and maintain. I will use archlinux-2016.12.01-dual.iso, install with btrfs and switch to openrc instead of systemd Process is painful… an easier way would be to use archbang Linux…

I enhanced the almighty Thinkpad with a Crucial M4 mSATA Drive of 256GB I intend to put the system on this SSD and home, swap and /var on the spinning 500GB disk :) like so:

Simple

• Installation guide
• Thinkpad x230

ssh root login is already allowed grab the ip

ip addr show

Start sshd

systemctl start sshd

change root passwd

passwd

Now you can connect remotely from another host set the partition using cfdisk like displayed in the table above

Let's format all these partitions in btrfs/swap format with LABELS!!.

mkfs.btrfs -L ARCHROOT /dev/sdb1
mkfs.btrfs -L ARCHVAR /dev/sda2
mkfs.btrfs -L ARCHHOME /dev/sda3
mkswap -L SWAP /dev/sda1

mkdir /mnt/{home,var}
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/var
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home
swapon /dev/sda1

Check all is fine:

mount

Thank you systemd for this horrible output….

Then install base packages plus base-devel packages

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

For SSD tweaks and to make it shine: SSD

• generate fstab

genfstab -L -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Yes I use Labels, UUID sucks

• check fstab for options and label in place (for me it did a good job)

I use Syslinux since it does its job well and didn't fall into useless overkill configuration files and tools! Syslinux

pacstrap /mnt syslinux

Let's go to our new system!

arch-chroot /mnt 

• /etc/hostname

 echo 30L3 > /etc/hostname 

• /etc/locale.gen

I'll use en_US.utf-8/iso8859 so uncomment:

en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_US ISO-8859-1

The generate locales

 locale-gen 

• /etc/locale.conf Locale

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
 
# Keep the default sort order (e.g. files starting with a '.'
# should appear at the start of a directory listing.)
LC_COLLATE="C"

• /etc/vconsole.conf

Default keyboard in console (US variant international … with a different mapping than on X11! Well done)

echo "KEYMAP=us-acentos" > /etc/vconsole.conf

• /etc/localtime

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime

• /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

Double check the content, then just regenerate it in case …

mkinitcpio -p linux

got scary:

==> ERROR: file not found: `fsck.btrfs'
==> WARNING: No fsck helpers found. fsck will not be run on boot.

• /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg

I left it by default (for now ) WARNING: No fsck helpers found. fsck will not be run on boot.
Check that Linux start from /dev/sdb1 not sdaX … Then the magic:

 /usr/sbin/syslinux-install_update -i -a -m

output:

Syslinux BIOS install successful
Attribute Legacy Bios Bootable Set - /dev/sdb1
Installed MBR (/usr/lib/syslinux/bios/gptmbr.bin) to /dev/sdb

if errors, install gptfdisk package or what's required :)

• root password

passwd

First use Ctrl+D to escape from the chroot
then:

umount /mnt/var /mnt/home /mnt

Now is the time to light a candle and type

reboot

Access remotely:

 pacman -Sy openssh 

Enable it at boot

useradd -g users -m -s /bin/bash warnaud
passwd warnaud

use visudo to set appropriate rights for the user

pacman -S xorg-server xorg-apps xorg-fonts xorg-fonts-100dpi xorg-fonts-75dpi xorg-twm xorg-xclock xorg-xinit xorg-xdm xterm xf86-video-intel xorg-xmessage xorg-xcalc xorg-xfontsel xorg-utils vim We have intel video card so we need to add some modules at boot for KMS

vi /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

...
MODULES="i915"
...

Acceleration method

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "intel"
   Option      "AccelMethod"  "sna"
EndSection

 vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf 

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev keyboard catchall"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
        Option "XkbLayout" "us"
        Option "XkbVariant" "intl"
EndSection

Reference: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XDM

pacman -S xorg-xdm

Enable systemd service

systemctl enable xdm.service

Power consumption for Intel Graphics:

vi /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf

options i915 i915_enable_rc6=1 i915_enable_fbc=1 lvds_downclock=1

Rebuild the kernel:

mkinitcpio -p linux && mkinitcpio -p linux-ck

Reference: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wacom Install the driver:

pacman -S xf86-input-wacom

la suite …

Deactivate the useless touchpad:

 vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf 

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev touchpad catchall"
        MatchIsTouchpad "off"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Check alternate solution:https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Synaptics_Touchpad

This hack will enable scrolling using the middle button + the TrackPoint™®©

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-thinkpad.conf

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier	"Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
    MatchProduct	    "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint|ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint|USB Trackpoint pointing device"
    MatchDevicePath	    "/dev/input/event*"
    Option		    "EmulateWheel"        "true"
    Option		    "EmulateWheelButton"  "2"
    Option		    "Emulate3Buttons"	  "false"
    Option		    "XAxisMapping"	  "6 7"
    Option		    "YAxisMapping"        "4 5"
EndSection

We need yaourt to install a bunch of aur packages for openrc

vi /etc/pacman.conf

...
[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch

\o/ No signature

pacman -S sudo

visudo

...
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
someuser ALL=(ALL) ALL

Just add the 'someuser' line and change by the user you need

just for fun not really mandatory Reference: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Makepkg.conf

vi /etc/makepkg.conf

Modify CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS:

# -march=native also sets the correct -mtune=
CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

Modify MAKEFLAGS (4 = output of nproc)

MAKEFLAGS="-j4"

WORK IN PROGRESS

bye bye systemd!

yaourt -S openrc-sysvinit

This will install sysvinit also. This will conflict with systemd crap, remove it:

Remove systemd-sysvcompat? [y/N] y
 
 yaourt -S openrc

use openrc-git to be super bleeding edge :) </code> Next, install some arch services + network service tools

 yaourt -S openrc-arch-services-git net-tools

I use syslinux, the trick is to add init=/usr/bin/init-openrc to the kernel parameters of your bootloader configuration file for me on /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg:

LABEL arch-ck
        MENU LABEL Arch Linux CK
        LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux-ck-ivybridge
        APPEND root=/dev/sdb1 ro resume=/dev/sda1 vga=792 init=/usr/bin/init-openrc
        INITRD ../initramfs-linux-ck-ivybridge.img quiet vga=current ipv6.disable=1 elevator=bfq pcie_aspm=force acpi_backlight=vendor

After a reboot, systemd is gone

rc-update add udev sysinit
rc-update add dcron default
rc-update add dbus default
rc-update add alsa default
rc-update add syslog-ng default

Then it is safe to reboot ;)

Nightmare after reboot, first xdm do not work/start… second network card naming is the same as systemd…

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/OpenRC
• https://blog.notfoss.com/posts/openrc-on-arch-linux/
• https://github.com/throwawaygh/arch-openrc-guide
• Overview my previous install

# rc-update add dcron default