So in Debian I had the easy to use apt-get install [program name] and after a brief poking about on the internets, I found the basic package management commands for the Arch system. The program that Arch uses for package management is pacman. Who would have guessed… Here’s some of the more important commands:

The list of repositories that Arch will check when you update/refresh is located in /etc/pacman.d somewhere.

Alright, that’s a simple intro. I’ll play around in Arch for a while to see if I like it, but the experience so far has been fun.

Update: Try these ones here as well:

Here’s how to install XFCE, the reasonably lightweight window manager: pacman -S xfce4 but you should have a look at this list of packages (xfce requires xorg):
gtk-xfce-engine – The Xfce-GTK graphics engine
libxfce4mcs – Settings management support for Xfce.
libxfce4util – Non-GUI functions for Xfce
libxfcegui4 – GTK widgets for Xfce
orage – Xfce Calendar
thunar – File manager
xfce-mcs-manager – Settings manager.
xfce-mcs-plugins – Plugins for settings manager
xfce-utils – startxfce4 script, run dialog, etc.
xfce4-appfinder – Application finder
xfce4-icon-theme – Icon theme
xfce4-iconbox – Simple application management, similar to taskbar.
xfce4-mixer – Volume control plugin for the panel
xfce4-panel – Xfce Panel
xfce4-session – Session management
xfce4-systray – System tray plugin for the panel
xfce4-toys – Small toys for Xfce
xfce4-trigger-launcher – Trigger launcher panel plugin
xfdesktop – Allows desktop wallpaper, icons, and menus
xfprint – The Xfce Print package
xfwm4 – Xfce Window Manager
xfwm4-themes – Themes for Xfce Window Manager

I’ll probably end up getting familiar with other Linux system commands after a while, but for now I’ll only be able to provide instructions for Debian systems, and in Debian Links2 is already in the repository, so nothing special is required: sudo apt-get install links2

While I don’t use it, the Fedora/RedHat systems installation appears to be a little more involved, judging from this post (has instructions).

Once Links2 is installed, you can access it from the terminal using this structure: links2 [options] URL (If you don’t specify a URL, Links2 will open to a blank page. Access the menu by pressing Esc)

The [options] you can use are as follows (this list is basically from the links2 --help readout, but explained a bit more):

• -g This runs Links2 in graphics mode. You may be able to browse with graphics without starting X, I already had it installed so I’m not sure what it references.
• -no-g If you are in X it will default to display graphics, but this will tell it to revert to text only.
• -source This one has to be right before the URL (eg., links2 -source URL ). It will output the text source code of the page instead of rendering it as HTML.
• -force-html If a page isn’t understood by Links2, it might not display as HTML, this will force it to try.
• -dump This one also has to be right before the URL. It will render the page as HTML and dump it to the screen, so the program won’t be running.
• -fake-user-string [string] The browser tells the website you visit what browser you are using, that way the server can give you a page ideally constructed for your browser. There is a huge list of strings at this link.

There are actually piles and piles of different options you can change, but if you want to make something permanently changed, you should change the configuration file for Links2, which is located in the file links.cfg

If you installed Links2 in a Debian environment, you can probably find the configuration folder using: cd $HOME/.links2

Make sure to make a backup copy of the configuration file before you change anything! A sample one can be found here, if you want to look at it.

Start up links2 and go somewhere like Life Hacker (notice that Links2 doesn’t require the “http://” prefix): links2 lifehacker.com

Navigation in Links2 is with keyboard shortcuts, the most important ones being these:

I have taken rather fondly to the text-only browser — I’m trying to get Facebook and the WordPress admin page to load correctly, that will be awesome!

Later on I will post some of my findings, but for now I just wanted to point out the helpful command which will list all the packages currently installed: dpkg --get-selection

A word on the commands:
dpkg This is the debian package manager
--get-selection This is the command to list the installed packages

Another trick:
dpkg -L package This will list all the files associated with the package
dpkg --get-selection | grep package The “grep” command will search through the lengthy list and display anything with “package” in it’s name.

This handy command will list every package currently installed, which is super helpful once you’ve generated your custom blend of software but haven’t written down what you installed. Which I obviously did. Many times.

Of course, this list turns out to be a bit lengthy and unwieldy, especially since it outputs the list right in the terminal. Thankfully you can make the list go into a text file by using the command: dpkg --get-selection > filename.txt

The carat symbol, >, will take whatever would have gone to the terminal display, and output it to a file, “filename.txt”.

Note that I stole these instructions mostly from here, but I modified them for my conditions, which were: Minimal installation of Ubuntu, plus IceWM.

First make sure you have the correct software, Samba:
sudo aptitude install samba

Now you need FuseSMB, which is the Linux “File System in User SpacE” for Samba. This is found in the Universe repositories, to enable them, run the following (two) commands, borrowed from the official wikisite:

sudo su -c '\ndeb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty universe >> /etc/apt sources.list'
sudo su -c 'echo \ndeb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty universe >> /etc/apt/sources.list'

Now that the Universe repository is enabled, installing fusesmb is easy:
sudo aptitude install fusesmb

Now you need to add the fuse module to be loaded when the computer starts. Do this by adding the word fuse to the file /etc/modules, either using a text editor or with this command:
sudo su -c '\nfuse\n >> /etc/modules'

At this point you will need to do a full reboot to your computer so the fuse module loads correctly. Make sure to bookmark this page so you can finish the instructions when you come back!

After rebooting, you need to make a folder where Samba can mount: I made mine /media/network for simplicity. From the command line: sudo mkdir /media/network

Now you will need to make sure the folder has the correct permissions. To do this, open Thunar using sudo thunar which will give you administrator rights, so be careful not to do anything other than this. Right click on your folder /media/network and go to properties. You need to set Group “Access” and “Others” to “Read & Write”. Finally, run this command: sudo chown :fuse /media/network

You also need to add the fusesmb code to the folder /etc/init.d which is done by making a script and putting it in that folder. The script is a really simple one, just make a text file on your desktop, name it something descriptive like networkmount, and put this inside:

#!/bin/bash
# This mounts the Samba service to the folder /media/network
fusesmb /media/network

Now make the script executable with this command:
chmod +x networkmount where networkmount is the name of the file
Finally, copy the file into the correct folder, you will need to be an admin, so try this command:
mv networkmount /etc/init.d/networkmount

Now you need to make Samba mount to the correct folder whenever you log in. What I did is add the correct command to the file /home/tobias/.xinitrc , which will run the command when I start X, but you may have a different way. How my .xinitrc file looks now (make sure the exec icewm-session & is last):

fusesmb /media/network &
exec icewm-session &

Now you will need to do a full reboot once more.

That’s it! If you open Thunar and navigate to /media/network it will show you the available Samba networks. Note, however, that the response time is a bit slow, I thought I had done it wrong at first, but I was just impatient. If it won’t load after a while, try logging out and logging back in, or resetting, to see if it will reinstate correctly.

For added navigations, if you are using the “Shortcuts” Side Pane in Thunar (control + b) you can navigate to /media and drag the network folder to the side pane for quick access! Alternately, make a link to it and put the link wherever it’s handy.

This will install VLC:
sudo aptitude install vlc

This bit of shell script will enable the correct repositories, add the GPG key, and then install the required plug-ins for DVD access, as well as DivX, WMV, WMA, and a handful of other popular proprietary plug-ins. The following code was gathered in part from an old version laying around here. Beware of layout changing the font: their are five (5) lines of code to copy+paste here.

sudo su -c 'echo \ndeb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ jaunty free non-free >> /etc/apt/sources.list'
sudo su -c 'echo \ndeb-src http://packages.medibuntu.org/ jaunty free non-free >> /etc/apt/sources.list'
wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install libdvdcss2 w32codecs gstreamer0.10-pitfdll libxinel-ffmpeg libdvdread4

So after I installed all that software, I opened VLC and tried to open a music file. Unfortunately for this article, I didn’t write down what VLC said exactly, but it was essentially saying VLC couldn’t find an actual audio device. Using the command ls /dev/a* I was able to see that an audio driver did exist: /dev/audio

After much poking around in the program aptitude, the Debian software installation program, I realized I did not have the ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) software installed, so I installed a few of them. I know for sure that I installed more than I needed, and I can’t figure out which ones I ended up installing that made it work, but my guess is installing alsa-firmware will install the rest of everything needed.

After that, when I played a tune in VLC it would appear to play correctly, but I could get no sound from the speaker. Well, after stumbling around a bit, looking for more ALSA files I could install, I noticed I had installed alsamixergui, started it, and realized everything was muted! Well, talk about embarrassing, I un-muted everything and realized I had never tried the volume buttons! I thought the volume would be automatically set to some low volume as a default, but it is installed with the sound muted.

Hope you can learn something from my mistakes!

After I installed the base core of Ubuntu, I did this:
sudo aptitude install xorg icewm menu firefox

If you aren’t familiar with the Debian install method, it’s real easy:
sudo To install a program, you need root access.
aptitude This is the program which installs things. You can just run sudo aptitude and it will give you a command line interface.
install This tells the program, aptitude, to install the following list of programs.
xorg icewm menu firefox These are the programs I installed, although I am not sure if I needed the menu, I was following someone else’s instructions.

Now I had a window manager and Firefox, so I could browse around online to figure out how to do other stuff. When you boot up you will end up at a command line, no graphics, and you will need to put in your login name and password. To get the window manager to start, type in: startx

The core Ubuntu, plus IceWM, didn’t install a file manager (in Windows, that is just the normal file browser) so i had to browse around online to find one. I found this news post which helped, but the comments below really helped me decide. I didn’t mind the Ubuntu default of Nautilus, but it was a pretty heavyweight, and I was looking for something really light.

What I decided on were two things: Thunar and Midnight Commander. Thunar is a graphically appealing, yet lightweight graphical file manager, and comes pre-installed on Xfce and on Xubuntu, which is Ubuntu using Xfce4. In this link you can find some screenshots of it, although in my installation I have not configured a MIME applied icon set.

Midnight Commander is one that I can especially appreciate: It is a console file manager, much like the good ol’ DOS based Norton Commander. Two panes of beautiful text goodness, oh yeah! I managed to find a screenshot of it:

Sorry it’s not a very good picture, but I think you can get the idea of it. The comments at this previously linked post give some good ideas as to the power of this program. Also, if you open this within a windows manager, you can interact with it using the mouse as well, although it is designed to use the keyboard of course. I had some real trouble figuring out how to install Midnight Commander, so I will present the way I used:

First, you need to enable the Universe repositories. You can do this using some graphical thing, or you can edit the text file. The following lines need to be added to the file “sources.list”, which is found at /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty main restricted universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty main restricted universe

You will need to change the word “jaunty” to whatever version of ubuntu you are using. One way to quickly append to a text file, from the command line, is this:
echo new text >> file.txt

This takes the “new text” and puts it at the end of “file.txt”, that’s what the >> means. To add the two lines above to the sources list, type these two commands:
sudo su -c 'echo deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty main restricted universe >> /etc/apt/sources.list'"
sudo su -c 'echo deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty main restricted universe >> /etc/apt/sources.list'"

Now you have added the Universe repository, you need to update the list of programs:
sudo aptitude update

And finally, install Midnight Commander:
sudo aptitude install mc

To start Midnight Commander, just type in:
mc

The first two probably work when there are no spaces in the folder names. The last one works even when there are spaces. I will explain all three.

First: rm `find /path -name '*.tmp'`

rm    This is the “remove” command. You would say rm file to remove “file”
`find ....`    Quotation marks are used to wrap things that may be interpreted as two commands. E.g., if you say rm find blah the computer will look for two files, “find” and “blah”. The quotation mark found usually to the left of the 1 key is done to let the computer know you want to pass a command. Try running the find /home/user/path -name '*.tmp' by itself. Let’s pull it apart:
find    This is the command which is self descriptive
/path This is the path where it should start. It will look recursively through all farther out folders.
-name '*.tmp'    The -name is a flag, letting the computer know that the next thing is the file it should look for.
'*.tmp'    Why does this have quote marks? It doesn’t really need it in this example, but if you were looking for a file with spaces in it you would need it.

Second: find /path -name \*.tmp | xargs rm

find /path -name \*.tmp    This command is discussed above, the difference to note is the \*.tmp which I don’t know why it is there. Sorry. Anybody?
|    This is the “pipe” symbol. It takes whatever the left side makes, and passes it to the right side. In this case, the left side finds the file *.tmp and the pipe passes the location of that file to the right side.
xargs rm    The xargs command is basically a way to pass commands, the important thing is that it is passing a command to do rm which will remove the file found on the left side of the pipe.

Third: find /path -name "*.tmp" -exec rm {} \;

find /path    Find in the directory “/path”
-name "*.tmp"    Look for the file with an extension of “tmp”. If you want it to look for “TMP” as well, use -iname which is case insensetive
-exec rm {} \;    The “-exec” is a flag which tells the computer to execute something, in this case the remove command, after it finds a file. Whatever command you pass has to be followed by a semicolon ; So it would be -exec blahblah ; complete with the space before the semicolon. The backslash character makes sure that the computer knows it is done doing whatever command it was supposed to do, in this case remove the file.
rm {}    The rm command removes (deletes) a file. The brackets are a recursive thing, to the computer they mean “Whatever you just found”.