Details of this release and download links can be found on the Kubuntu website.

All you have to do is delete pulseaudio.desktop from /etc/xdg/autostart

sudo rm /etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop

To be on the safe side, I would advise keeping a copy somewhere, for example

sudo mv /etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop $HOME/Downloads

You should then notice an improvement in startup time.

Create a new file called index.theme in /usr/share/icons/default (typically the default folder does not exists, so you will need to create that too) and enter the following

[Icon Theme]
Name = Oxygen White
Comment = Oxygen mouse theme. Oxygenize your desktop!
Inherits = Oxygen_White

If you do not what to the use the Oxygen White theme replace Oxygen_White with the name of your prefered theme (listed in /usr/share/icons).

An error occurred and your name had probably not been changed. The error message was: chfn: Permission denied.

To fix this, edit /etc/login.def and replace

CHFN_RESTRICT rwh

with the following

CHFN_RESTRICT frwh

Save and close the file, then you should be able to edit your user information.

More information can be found on the Arch Linux ARM website.

The simplicity of Arch Linux make it the perfect OS (I feel) for the Raspberry Pi. Now, I just need my Pi to turn up.

When editing the /etc/inittab file from the KDE guide, uncomment the gdm line and not the kdm one

# Example lines for starting a login manager
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon
x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/kdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/slim >/dev/null 2>&1

Then, instead of installing KDE (kdebase, kde-l10n-en_gb, phonon-gstreamer and aspell-en), install GNOME

sudo pacman -S gnome gnome-extras gdm

Finally, instead of the KDE network applet (kdeplasma-applet-networkmanagement), install the GNOME equivalent

sudo pacman -S network-manager-applet

You can now follow the rest of the guide and you will have an Arch Linux GNOME system.

Please note that you may not want to install the native KDE applications from the KDE guide and rather install some GNOME one, the native KDE applications are:

• kdemultimedia-kmix
• kdemultimedia-ffmpegthumbs
• kdeartwork-kscreensaver
• kdegraphics-gwenview

You also do not need the oxygen-gtk2 and lxappearance packages as those are only required to make GTK applications look nice in KDE.

Hope this helps, however if you have any questions, please let me know and I will try to help where I can.

The default desktop environment for Ubuntu has always been GNOME, so I decided to install KDE, this guide will step through what I did to install Arch Linux and then install KDE on my system.

I have used KDE before via Kubuntu, however I thought I would try Arch Linux becasue as they say, it’s a lightweight distrobution that keeps things simple

You’ve reached the website for Arch Linux, a lightweight and flexible Linux® distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.

This means I can install a clean copy of KDE and install only the applications I want.

First off, grab yourself an ISO from your closest mirror

archlinux-2011.08.19-netinstall-dual.iso (latest at time of writing) is recommended, burn the ISO and then boot your system from the CD

Please note that I have downloaded the netinstall ISO, this version requires your system to have a internet connection as everything will be pulled down from the internet during install, for offline installs, you will need to download archlinux-2011.08.19-core-dual.iso (latest version at time of writing)

Boot from the CD and select the architecture that matches your system

Once booted you have the opportunity to change the keyboard layout, the default is English US, to do this, type km and select a new layout, once ready, start the Arch Linux installer

/arch/setup

Press enter to go to the main menu

It is advisable to run though the step in order, to select an install source, highlight Select source and press enter

Select with repositories you want to enable, I accept the defaults and press enter

Select a mirror to install from, again, select the closest one to you

Before connecting, the install with bring up your network interface

Select the interface you wish to activate

Press enter to obtain an IP address via DHCP

Your connection should now be active

Back at the main menu, select an editor (Set editor) and choose nano (like it says, it’s the easiest one to use)

Set your clock from the Set clock menu using your region and location and also your time and date

Now it’s time to partition and format your hard drive, THIS WILL WIPE YOUR HARD DRIVE, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BACKED UP EVERYTHING YOU WISH TO KEEP, you will NOT be able to recover anything lost

From the Prepare hard drive(s) menu, select Auto-Prepare and accept all the defaults (my system only has one hard drive)

Select your filesystem of choice, I use Ext4

Then select Yes to FORMAT AND COMPLETELY WIPE EVERYTHING FROM YOUR HARD DRIVE

Once you are back at the main menu, choose Select packages, accept all the defaults until you are once again back at the main menu

Select Install packages and your system will download and install all the packages your system needs

Once everything has been downloaded and installed, you will need to edit some configuration files, select Configure system and start of with System Config

At this point, the only setting you really need to change is HOSTNAME, enter here what you would like your system to be called, to save and exit files in nano, hold Ctrl and press O to write the file, then Ctrl then X to exit nano

From the Glibc Locales menu, remove the # from the beginning of all the locales you want your system to use, above I have enabled en_GB, save and exit the file

Edit the pacman.conf file and at the bottom add the following

[archlinuxfr]
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch

This will enable the archlinuxfr repository, witch will come handy handy later

Edit the Pacman Mirror List and comment out the Mirror selected during installation, by putting a # before Server (not actually sure if that is needed)

Then, find your country and uncomment all the server beneath it

Create yourself a root password and then go back to the Main Menu

The initicpio images will be rebuilt at this point

Enter the Install bootloader menu and enter vga=773 at the end of each kernel line, this isn’t necessary, but it will configure your system to boot up with a nicer 1024×768 resolution

Select the your boot device (you should only have one option if you have one hard drive)

You can now exit the installer and reboot your system

reboot

Once rebooted you will now be able to log in with your root account

The first thing you will need to do is to create your own user account, running as root really isn’t a good idea

adduser username

Press enter to accept all the defaults apart from when asked for additional groups, here, enter the following

audio,lp,optical,storage,video,games,power,scanner,wheel

Press enter until you are asked for your password

While still logged in as root, install sudo, this will allow you to run root commands when logged in with your own account

When using pacman for the first time, you will need to tell it to synchronize its repository databases

pacman -Syy

Then you can install sudo

pacman -S sudo

Once installed you will need to allow the sudo group (wheel) to use sudo

visudo

Remove the # before the following line by moving the cursor down to the below line and pressing X to delete characters at the start of it

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Hold down Ctrl and press : then type wq! to save and exit the file

You can now log off as root and back in as your new user

Once logged in, it is time to start installing everything you need, first off is the X window system

sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-utils xorg-server-utils

Then install 3D support

sudo pacman -S mesa

You will now need to install video drivers for X

sudo pacman -S xf86-video-intel

I have selected xf86-video-intel as my system has an Intel on board graphics chipset, for NVIDIA cards install xf86-video-nouveau and for ATI install xf86-video-ati

If you don’t have an Intel, NVIDIA or ATI graphics card, there is xf86-video-vesa which supports a large number of graphics cards, but does not have 2D and 3D acceleration.

If you are installing Arch Linux on a laptop, you will need to install input drivers for X

sudo pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics

Synaptics (and ALPS) touchpads found on most laptops

After installing X you will need to configure your system to boot it instead of the default bebahour of boot to a console, to do this you will need to edit you inittab file

sudo nano /etc/inittab

Add a comment to id:3 and remove the one from id:5, like below

## Only one of the following two lines can be uncommented!
# Boot to console
#id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
id:5:initdefault:

While we’re there, we will tell the system to start the KDE login manager (KDM) after booting to X by adding a comment to the XDM line and removing the one before KDM

# Example lines for starting a login manager
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon
x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/kdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/slim >/dev/null 2>&1

Save and close the file

Then install the D-Bus messaging system

sudo pacman -S dbus

Once you have installed all the system components, it is a good idea to edit your rc.conf file

sudo nano /etc/rc.conf

Start off by adding dbus to the [DAEMONS] sections, like below

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng !network crond dbus)

It is also a good idea to disable the network daemon if you are installing Arch Linux on a laptop as you may not have a connection when booting, the wireless components in KDE (along with networkmanager) will take care of this once you log in, to do this add ! at the beginning of network.

Now it is time to start installing KDE. I like to install a minimal copy of KDE and then add the components I want after

sudo pacman -S kdebase kde-l10n-en_gb phonon-gstreamer aspell-en

Above I have installed the base KDE package with the English UK language pack and the GStreamer audio framework, I have also installed aspell-en for English UK spell checking support for KDE

After installing the GStreamer backend for KDE, its a good idea to install some plugins for audio and video playback support

sudo pacman -S gstreamer0.10-plugins

Audio works out of the box after installing X, however it is worth installing a few utilities that will allow you to unmute your audio devices (audio is muted by default)

sudo pacman -S pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa alsa-utils

KMix (installed later) will allow you to easily unmute your audio devices.

You will also need to add alsa to the [DAEMONS] section of your rc.conf.

You will want to install some fonts, ttf-dejavu is required (system fonts will be pretty ugly with out it)

sudo pacman -S ttf-dejavu

Another set of fonts that are good for web rendering (making website look nice) are the Microsoft’s TrueType core fonts. These fonts are available from the Arch User Repository (AUR) and the archlinuxfr repository contains a handy tool called Yaourt that allows you to download and install packages straight from the AUR.

Before installing Yaourt you will need to install the base-devel group package as it contains tools required by Yaourt

sudo pacman -S base-devel

Once installed you can install Yaourt

sudo pacman -S yaourt

Now that Yaourt is insatlled, you can ask it to download, compile and install the MS fonts

yaourt ttf-ms-fonts

Yaourt will now search the AUR and present you with a list of packages

1 aur/fontconfig-ms-fonts-zh 1.0-1 (0)
Font configuration using ttf-ms-fonts-zh
2 aur/ttf-ms-fonts 2.0-9 [installed] (1570)
Core TTF Fonts from Microsoft
3 aur/ttf-ms-fonts-zh 1.0-1 (2)
Chinese TTF fonts from latest microsoft windows installation
4 aur/ttf-ms-fonts-zh_cn 1.1-2 (46)
ms fonts
==> Enter n° of packages to be installed (ex: 1 2 3 or 1-3)
==> --------------------------------------------------------
==>

The package we want is the second one, so type 2 and press enter

==> Edit PKGBUILD ? [Y/n] ("A" to abort)
==> ------------------------------------
==>

I always say no here

==> Edit ttf-ms-fonts.install ? [Y/n] ("A" to abort)
==> ------------------------------------------------
==>

Again, I say no

==> Continue building ttf-ms-fonts ? [Y/n]
==> --------------------------------------
==>

Then yes, Yaourt will now download, compile and ask you to install the package

==> Continue installing ttf-ms-fonts ? [Y/n]
==> [v]iew package contents [c]heck package with namcap
==> ---------------------------------------------------
==>

Type Y and press enter, you may be asked for your password at this point

Targets (1): ttf-ms-fonts-2.0-9

Total Installed Size:   5.46 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:       0.00 MiB

Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

Type Y, press enter and the MS fonts will be installed.

I also recommend wqy-zenhei for Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters and lohit-fonts for Indic TrueType fonts

sudo pacman -S wqy-zenhei

yaourt -S lohit-fonts

While we are on the subject of fonts, and this step is totally optional, you may want to install ttf-indic-otf, again, totally optional, I won’t judge ಠ_ಠ

sudo pacman -S ttf-indic-otf

So, quick recap, X (with drivers) is installed and configured to boot up then run KDM at start up and KDE is installed, with your required language support. Before rebooting, and into KDE, there are some other packages I like to install.

KMix is application that allows you to control your sound card, it also comes with an applet. ffmpegthumbs to enable video thumbnail support in Dolphin (the default KDE file manager)

sudo pacman -S kdemultimedia-kmix kdemultimedia-ffmpegthumbs

For network management (including wireless support) the KNetworkManager front-end is available as a widget

sudo pacman -S kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement

KNetworkManager will also install the networkmanager package and you will need to start it when your PC boots, to do this, open your rc.conf file and then add networkmanager to the [DAEMONS] sections

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng !network crond dbus networkmanager)

Also, becasue the the copy of KDE we have install is so minimal, it doesn’t come with any screensavers, to install the default ones you will need to install then

sudo pacman -S kdeartwork-kscreensaver

Save and close the file and you can now reboot your system

sudo reboot

After rebooting you should be presented with the KDE login manager, enter your username and password and enjoy your new system with KDE.

If you have any issues and you are keen to learn or improve your Linux skills, the Arch Linux Wiki and forum are an invaluable resource of guides, how to’s and end user support.

Once I have KDE up and running I always like to install my favourite web browser, Chromium

sudo pacman -S chromium flashplugin

After installing Chromium, if you start it up you may notice that the look and feel of it’s menus and dialog boxes do not match that of your KDE desktop (as it uses GTK2), to fix this you can install an Oxygen (default KDE theme) GTK2 theme, you can also install a nice GUI tool to easily allow you to change what GTK2 theme KDE should use

sudo pacman -S oxygen-gtk2 kde-gtk-config

To change your GTK2 theme, click the launcher menu and under Settings, System Settings, Application Appearance, select Gtk Configuration

Installing Chromium is optional of course, Rekonq is native KDE web browser and is based on Webkit, the same as Chromium, however other popular browsers like Firefox and Opera are also available and easy to install.

Other applications I recommend are VLC for playing video

sudo pacman -S vlc

Clemetine for playing and managing music

sudo pacman -S clementine

and Gwenview for managaing and viewing pictures (with plugins)

sudo pacman -S kdegraphics-gwenview kipi-plugins

KWallet is also recommended for managing your passwords

sudo pacman -S kdeutils-kwallet

Keeping your system up to date is done via pacman

sudo pacman -Syu

Pacman is a very powerful tool, and it worth familiarizing yourself with it, the Wiki entry is a good place to start.

You can also use Yaourt to update your system by checking the AUR for updates

yaourt -Syua

I hope you find this guide useful, and would like to hear from you if you did.

My main reason is to run one as a media box plugged into my TV via the Raspberry Pi’s HDMI port, and last week the XBMC team released a video of their software running on a Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pi is capable of decoding 1080p video and with it’s HDMI port make it a perfect media streamer.

The SoC is a Broadcom BCM2835. This contains an ARM1176JZFS, with floating point, running at 700Mhz, and a Videocore 4 GPU. The GPU is capable of BluRay quality playback, using H.264 at 40MBits/s. It has a fast 3D core accessed using the supplied OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG libraries.

Raspberry Pi’s should hopefully start shipping late Janusry, early Februrary 2012, and I cannot wait!

* Prices are an estimate based on current conversion rates.

As my article on installing MiniDLNA on Ubuntu is so far my post popular, I though I’d document how I installed and configured it on Arch.

There is a MiniDLNA package for Arch in the community reposotory, meaning it can be installed very easily via Pacman (the following commands have been run as root, add sudo to the beginning of them if you have installed and configured it)

pacman -S minidlna

Once installed, edit the MiniDLNA configuration file and enter the paths of the media you wish to share, and, if you wish, rename your server.

I prefer to edit text files with nano, however you can swap nano for your editor of choice

nano /etc/minidlna.conf

Once you have configuration file open for editing add the following, remembering to update the paths

media_dir=A,/media/storage/Share/Music
media_dir=P,/media/storage/Share/Pictures
media_dir=V,/media/storage/Share/Videos

You can rename the name of your server by removing the the # from friendly_name and changing its name, for example

friendly_name=SERVER

Save the file and you are done, you can control the service using the initscript in /etc/rc.d, and you start MiniDLNA at boot my adding minidlna to you list of daemons in /etc/rc.conf

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network crond dbus gdm networkmanager minidlna)

The MiniDLNA ArchWiki entry has an additional step that is optional which is to enable the MiniDLNA cache feature (a feature I do not use myself), this allows the database and album art to be cached.

mkdir /var/{cache,log}/minidlna
chown nobody:nobody /var/{cache,log}/minidlna

This will create the required directories and also set their permissions, once created you will need to add the paths to your minidlna.conf file

db_dir=/var/cache/minidlna
log_dir=/var/log/minidlna

Happy streaming.

Installing MiniDLNA is available in the default repositories if you are running Ubuntu 11.10 and it can be installed by running the command

sudo apt-get install minidlna

If you are using a version of Ubuntu older than 11.10, you will need to add the stedy-minidlna PPA (view this post if the command below does not work)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stedy6/stedy-minidna

Then you can install MiniDLNA

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install minidlna

Once installed, all that is left is to edit the configuration file

sudo nano /etc/minidlna.conf

Add the following to your conf file, remembering to update the paths to your media

media_dir=A,/media/storage/Share/Music
media_dir=P,/media/storage/Share/Pictures
media_dir=V,/media/storage/Share/Videos

And finally, and this is totally optional, if you wish to rename your server, remove the # from the friendly_name line, and enter your chosen name, like below

friendly_name=SERVER

MiniDLNA is now configured to share your media, to force a database rescan run

sudo minidlna -R

You can also restart the service using the command

sudo service minidlna restart

For anyone interested, I have also published an Arch Linux version of this guide here.