Wednesday, July 30, 2014

10 easy steps to convert Manjaro Linux installation back to native Arch Linux


After my previous review of Manjaro Linux Manjaro KDE! An unpromised Release with promised breakages !! things have changed a lot on Manjaro side and it is a much mature project with a huge users numbers and many more release and different versions. The project is much stable and is getting better everyday. I installed the MATE version and used it for a couple of days and it was fun but then I decided to get back the base to native Arch Linux keeping the skeleton designed by Manjaro team as it is.

Here is how I did it and it worked for me perfectly.


1 . Before doing anything else just change the pacman.config settings as below, you can copy/paste these settings if you like to

#
# /etc/pacman.conf
#
#
# GENERAL OPTIONS
#
[options]
SigLevel = Never
LocalFileSigLevel = Optional
HoldPkg = pacman glibc
SyncFirst = pacman
Architecture = auto
Color
CheckSpace
ILoveCandy
#
# REPOSITORIES
#
[core]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
[community]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

2 . Change pacman mirrors to these, again you can copy/paste these settings if you like to keep these mirrors for you

# Arch Linux repository mirrorlist

Server = http://mirror.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://archlinux.polymorf.fr/$repo/os/$arch

3. Open /etc/ with a file manager as root ( I did it as thunar root ) . Manually change these files contents and make one file back as given below

a ) /etc/manjaro-release.bak
b) pacman-mirrors.conf.bak
c) /etc/os-release : change conetnts to these

NAME="Arch Linux"
ID=arch
PRETTY_NAME="Arch Linux"
ANSI_COLOR="0;36"
HOME_URL="https://www.archlinux.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://bbs.archlinux.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.archlinux.org/"

d) /etc/issue : change conetnts to these
change conetnts to these
Arch Linux \r (\l)

e ) /etc/lsb-release : change conetnts to these

LSB_VERSION=1.4
DISTRIB_ID=Arch
DISTRIB_RELEASE=rolling
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Arch Linux"

4 . Do # pacman -Syu and deal with the dpendencies if any arise accordingly , I did not meet any so I did a full upgrade of all the packages without any issue.

5 . Install Arch Linux stock kernel and its headers files

# pacman -Sy linux linux-headers

You have to deal with any dependencies if arise manually yourself.

6 . Install nvidia and its dependencies if any if you are on Nvidia Graphic card like me. Again you would know how to deal with the dependencies if you get any issues.

# pacman -Sy nvidia nvidia-utils

7. Search manually for all Manjaro related packages and remove them.

8. Do # pacman -Syu once again and you will get warnings that some packages installed are newer than the available on mirrors/repositories , you can reinstall them or live with them , I personally removed all those packages and reinstalled them from Arch Linux repositories.

9. You might end up with your mouse freezing up , I tried to know the reason but could not find one but did find a fix which works

a ) Installing the tlp package

b ) $ sudo tlp usb

10 . Remove all Manjaro related wallpapers and eye-candy effects , icons,buttons and you are ready to reboot and enjoy your Manjaro Linux fully converted back to native Arch Linux.




Saturday, July 19, 2014

How to build obmenu-generator for Debian Linux

 obmenu-generator generates a menu with icons for openbox

These are the steps that need to be followed:

1) Dependencies: perl-linux-desktopfiles and perl-data-dump

A) How to download, compile and install perl-linux-desktopfiles:

$ wget http://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/T/TR/TRIZEN/DesktopFiles-0.08.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf DesktopFiles-0.08.tar.gz
$ cd Linux-DesktopFiles-0.08/
$ perl Build.PL
$ ./Build
$ ./Build test
$ sudo ./Build install

B) How to download and install perl-data-dump:

$ wget http://mirror.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/community/os/i686/perl-data-dump-1.22-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
$ sudo tar -Jxvf perl-data-dump-1.22-1-any.pkg.tar.xz -C / --exclude=.PKGINFO --exclude=.MTREE

Then you need to run the following command to find obmenu-generator Data:

$ sudo cp -av /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Data /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/

If the command fails repeat it after installing obmenu-generator.

2) obmenu-generator

How to download, build and install the deb obmenu-generator:

$ mkdir obmenu-generator
$ cd obmenu-generator/
$ mkdir DEBIAN
$ nano DEBIAN/control

Copy paste these contents

Package: obmenu-generator
Version: 1.0
Section: custom
Priority: optional
Architecture: all
Essential: no
Installed-Size: 1375
Maintainer: Daniel Șuteu
Description: Menus generator for OpenBox

Save and close it with Ctrl + O and Ctrl + X

$ mkdir -p usr/bin/
$ wget -nv http://trizen.googlecode.com/files/obmenu-generator
$ chmod +x obmenu-generator
$ mv obmenu-generator usr/bin/
$ cd ..
$ dpkg-deb -b obmenu-generator
$ sudo dpkg -i obmenu-generator.deb
$ dpkg -l obmenu-generator
$ obmenu-generator

For generating a static menu, use:
   obmenu-generator -i -s

or dynamic menu:
   obmenu-generator -i -p

and reconfigure the Openbox, by executing:
       openbox --reconfigure