Arch Linux installation notes

Some random notes I am taking while installing / maintaining Arch Linux on a Lenovo T14s.

Basic setup steps

Partitioning

It's just horribly painful.

UEFI

Boot directly into the kernel, no GRUB etc. Took a while to remove the Windows bootloader and recovery partitions, too.

Dropbox

So painful.

Need to enable Gnome Shell Extensions and then install the app indicator to get the Dropbox "tray" icon.

gsettings set org.gnome.shell disable-user-extensions false
sudo pacman -Su gnome-shell-extension-appindicator

Getting external sound to work

I had to install the sof-firmware package to get the external speakers to work on a T14s.

Frequent Commands

Suspend to disk

sudo systemctl hibernate

Suspend to RAM

sudo systemctl suspend

Full system upgrade

sudo pacman -Suy

Pacman cleanup - Remove orphaned packages

sudo pacman -Qtdq | pacman -Rns -

AUR packages

This is simple. Just git clone the AUR package, then cd into the directory and run:

makepkg
sudo pacman -U <package file>

CPU Frequency scaling

Monitor CPU frequency in real time

watch cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-9]*/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

Intel performance and energy bias hint

Watch

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/power/energy_perf_bias

Set

echo epb | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/power/energy_perf_bias

Control Fan Speed

Enable kernel driver option:

echo 'options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.conf

Check success:

cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

Set levels

echo 'level 4' | sudo tee /proc/acpi/ibm/fan echo 'level auto' | sudo tee /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

bwv988/archlinux_notes