The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 68,000 times in 2010. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would have performed about 3 times.

In 2010, there were 17 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 63 posts. There were 23 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 27th with 951 views. The most popular post that day was [testing] ArchBang 2.00-RC1.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were bbs.archlinux.org, tuxmachines.org, wiki.archlinux.org, linuxquestions.org, and ubuntuforums.org.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for archbang, grub2 howto, xbmc ubuntu 10.04, gentoo, and slackware 13.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

[testing] ArchBang 2.00-RC1 February 2010
29 comments

GRUB 2 [howto] August 2009

XBMC in Ubuntu [howto] August 2009
2 comments

[howto] Add extra repositories in Ubuntu/Debian August 2009
3 comments

[Tutorial] Easy Arch linux Setup Guide [USB included] September 2009
15 comments

ArchBang is now Arch Linux + LXDE. We feel that LXDE is more appropriate and provides a wholesome lightweight desktop environment with much more functionalities than plain openbox.

Recently Gitorious failed on me and I had to move all the codes to Github. So our new ArchBang Git repo is now in: http://github.com/archbang

Now this blog can be accessed using: http://archbang.co.cc

64Bit: http://db.tt/ZdFxcr
MD5sum:539761ae4df89789a3fecb2beb041b9d

Mirrors/torrents are welcome!
Currently the website is having issues so couldn’t update there.

Enjoy this release!

Will announced it here: http://archbang.47.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&p=1640

In other news, our latest GIT development is quite amusing. It works great and is quite fast and stable. We have changed massively from 2010.05! If you want you can build your own ISO from GIT or wait till 2nd June for 2010.06 – Monthly GIT build.

Regards

sHy

Ubuntu 10.04

Download Ubuntu from: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

If you want to have a nice grub2 theme then install gimp. Open the image you want to have as your grub background and set the image canvas size according to your monitor’s resolution [e.g. for me it's 1366x768]. Then save the image as .tga file in /boot/grub. Edit /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme and set the Wallpaper line to /boot/grub/image.tga and you may also want to change the highlight/background colors, then run:

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Enjoy!

ArchBang logo by Zwopper

Check out the tutorial posted by MikeT here.

This will help save your time downloading each build and save our bandwidth as well. You can report bugs in the bugtracker. Also you can join us in the forum and give us your feedback and suggestions!

Regards

sHy

You can find the ArchBang 2.01 Alpha1 here.

Major changes: Grub2 replaces grub-legacy and firefox instead of chromium. Also slim is added.

Test and report.

Regards

sHy

Download info: archbang.org

List of Changes: http://archbang.org/Main/Changelog

Release Notes: http://archbang.org/Main/ReleaseNotes

Screen:

ArchBang 2.00 RC2

Regards

sHy [PDG]

Also join our forum to chat or if you need any support: http://archbang.x.am

Just noticed today that ArchBang was recently submitted to Distrowatch by someone. They have a minimum waiting period of 3months before a distro is considered for addition to their main list. Hence, I guess we’ll have to wait.

Regards

sHy

Just 2 months back what had started out as a forum thread in Arch Linux Forum, now we have:

Website: http://www.archbang.org [A simple KISS design]

Forum: http://archbang.x.am

Git: http://gitorious.org/archbang

IRC: Server: irc.freenode.net Channel: #archbang

We are slowly but steadily progressing! Even though we are understaffed, the developers who volunteered to contribute towards this project are enthusiastically driving it forward. Some great improvements and new changes have occurred in the development as well as management side! I’m excited about the future releases of ArchBang!

Thanks to the users and supporters as well, we love you. And to the people “who don’t get the point”, we love you too.

Regards

sHy

Due to requests, I decided maybe it’s time to have a roof of our own? Give the Arch Mods some rest. So went ahead created a forum: http://archbang.x.am

Post all your future ArchBang Related queries/bugs/feedbacks/suggestions/whatever there.

So far a few members have volunteered to sail the ArchBang ship forward! Thanks to them! Here’s hoping to a great future for ArchBang!;)

Regards

sHy

First of all a huge thank you from me [sHyLoCk] and Will [willxtreme] for your support,suggestions, feedbacks regarding ArchBang. We now have a little problem. Although it is not going to disrupt the project in anyway,in-fact it will do the project good!

While Will is busy with his studies and also got a job, I may have to leave soon as well and start my uni! We are both going to get very busy from the coming months! Despite the time problem we are going to stay attached to the project and try to work on it and make it better for everyone. Arch Linux as you know is a rolling release distro and ArchBang is nothing but openbox on top of it.While this may not sound like a “big deal” to most but here’s why we do it:

• Arch Linux ISO releases are slow and has no static timeline. They try to release twice a year but that’s not a thumb rule. So using an old ISO [incase of a fresh or new install ] means older packages. You can always do a “bulk upgrade” using pacman -Syu, however the download size will be huge and also might be troublesome for many! Not everyone cares to read the announcements before updating and hence might get confused. [E.g.-> klibc-> busybox update]
• Larger upgrades = More chance of breakage!
• Provides a Live Desktop Environment to Arch Linux.
• Installable since 2.00.Although only RC1 is out now. The installer is the simple Arch Linux installer.
• Very fast and light being based on Arch and openbox, can be even copied to RAM and used.

We have received a huge response from not only the Arch Community but Crunchbang,Ubuntu and even LQ forum! We want this project to grow. That’s why we need your help! If you would like to participate in the following please let us know:

• Developing
• Documenting

So far we have 6 members in our team. 2 of whom help us with hosting.While Mr.Green and akurei have offered help we need more developers! The reason again being the darn time factor as akurei also will be busy in a few months. If you would like to help out in our project please leave a comment here along with your email address in this format [name at email dot com] to avoid spammers! If you know my email address or you are a member of ArchLinux forum then you can mail me, remember mail me [sHyloCk] and not Will [willxtreme]! He is very busy and offline for a while and won’t be able to reply you!

You should have knowledge about Arch Linux. Developing is not a challenging thing as it sounds, as long as you know a little bash and unix. As a developer you will decide what goes where and how to do things better! As a documentation writer your task would be to write README and CHANGELOG files for each releases and also to announce in various places.

It would be awesome to have a website of our own like ArchServer does the Arch Linux style,but no clue how to do that! Anyone?

Take Care and Have Fun!:)

Regards

sHy

ArchBang now has an installer! That’s right! Besides copy2ram, we are introducing an installer with which you can install it on your hard disks! Did we n00bify it? Are we trying to re-invent the wheel? Are we making Arch “easier for the masses” like most graphical distributions? Heck no! We are keeping Arch as it is! K.I.S.S all the way! That old and familiar ncurses based installer,we can’t live without it! <3

We need your help in testing this release! Do test it and give us your feedback. Please understand that we are short on staff, just two developers, so any voluntary testing and feedback will help us progress further.  :)

Download: 32 Bit md5sum: d00be4c07ae844adbe26b8701a856d7e

Mirrors: 32Bit 32Bit 32Bit Torrent: 32Bit

Download: 64 Bit md5sum: be1e261b94a3e3b28e0a285708b7a423

Mirrors: 64Bit 64Bit Torrent: 64Bit

Boot

Desktop

AB-Install

Welcome

Menu

Partition

Installation

Configuration

Create User

Arch config

Mkinitcpio in action

Grub

Fixes:

NVIDIA Users:

After install, if you can’t login to X,then re-install nvidia in following way:

pacman -Syy && pacman -Sd nvidia nvidia-utils --noconfirm

If you would just like to get to the desktop and you are ok with using the “nv” driver then:

X -configure && mv xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf && sed -i -e "s/nvidia/nv/" /etc/X11/xorg.conf

click to enlarge image

Download: 64Bit [484Mb]

We have been working on this for weeks now! Both I and Will were busy irl with various issues,from acads to social events. So we apologize for the delay.

What changes:

Please note that we would like to say a BIG BIG THANK YOU to everyone for their wonderful suggestions and feedbacks which is reflected in this release. While we try to consider everyone’s suggestions, sometimes they conflict with each other’s opinion! [like chromium and firefox ] Anyway, here are a few changes off the top of my head:

- Copy2RAM, persistence added

- Chromium replaced by Firefox

Reasons: a) Namoroka rulez! b)arch-firefox-search c) No ootb issues with xcompmgr

- xorg-video-drivers added to cover a wide range of video cards! Nvidia users, do not worry, we won’t force you to use the “nv” driver, we have also added nvidia driver which will ask for your confirmation at the boot time.

- xfce4-power-manager and vattery applet added.

- wicd, netcfg and wvdial added by request!

- weechat replaces irssi

- rtorrent and searchmonkey back!

- xpdf & abiword added

What stays:

- thunar, even though there have been countless suggestions for pcmanfm, we found it pretty useless and annoying. Don’t even get me started!

- packer, no bauerbill, sorry Xyne! Someday when I personally try out bauerbill,maybe I’ll consider it.

Hopefully, this release will be super-awesome as our main objective was to bring out a release with a finishing touch to ArchBang 1.xx series, incorporating all the good suggestions and feedbacks we received and trying to address all the past issues. We have started working on an installer and it works in vbox!  No real testing made yet! Since this involves your hard disks and partitions and important data , we don’t wanna rush and fry up your hard disks and ours in the process! Lol!

Hope you will be enjoying this release.

Fixes:

Please run this before upgrading your system, will be fixed in future:

sed -e 'N;$!P;$!D;$d' /etc/pacman.conf > temp ; sed -e 'N;$!P;$!D;$d' temp > temp ; sudo mv temp /etc/pacman.conf

Or just comment out custom repo from  /etc/pacman.conf

Regards

sHy [aka PDG]

ArchBang 1.04 is out in the wild both 32bit & 64bit versions!
Please check your ISO’s md5sum
Changes:
-We went “lite mode” by stripping off packages so the iso just 445MB [x86] and 464MB [x64].

-Floppy disabled in modules

-USB delay changed from 5 to 8
-Chromium instead of Firefox
-New look
-Added Centerim & irssi & catfish
-leafpad instead of gedit

ENJOYYYYYYYYY and give us your feedback!

For the next releases:
-An installer
-Your comments will help us see what else could be improved

And there’s now a wiki entry.

ArchBang LIVE CD  = Arch Linux w/ OpenBox (inspired from #!) so ArchBang!!!

Project started by: Willxtreme

Project Thread:  http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=89627&p=1

My contribution: Building the x86_64 version.

Currently we are planning on 1.04 release where we want to present an installer. So, for now it’s just a Live CD which you can use in USB Key as well. Please read the thread to know how to do that!

Download 32bit and/or 64bit .

I am using the following: Compiz, tint2 and 2 conkys. That’s it!

Here is the top conkyrc :

http://s2.sigmirror.com/files/52625_dqs9e/conkyrc

And the right conkyrc:

http://s2.sigmirror.com/files/52626_fkdnz/.conkyrc2

I’ve not written the gmail, weather and calender scripts and have not shared.

You can Google them easily!

Regards

I will be writing this guide as a part of my upcoming “Arch System Maintenance Guide”. When you are using Linux, you should always take regular backups. It is secure, it is stable and all that, but backup is very important to aid you in case you make a mess of your system. I will be writing the script to backup the entire system, excluding a few folders/files,etc. So here is the script.

mkdir ~/.rsync && cd ~/.rsync
wget http://s2.sigmirror.com/files/53582_x8b8x/rsync.sh
wget http://www.sigmirror.com/files/50262_e92yu/exclude
wget http://www.sigmirror.com/files/50261_xjpd3/warn

Now, make sure you have rsync and zenity installed. If you are using Gnome, zenity should already be installed but just in-case, if you are using a Debian-based distro like ubuntu, or even Debian do:

sudo apt-get install zenity rsync

Rsync is already present there for Slackers, check out zenity at Slackbuilds. Note: This will require a few Gnome dependencies, so  you can use xdialog or a Qt equivalent tool.

If you are using Xdialog instead, open the warn file and replace the zenity line with:

 Xdialog --msgbox Plugin\ Your\ Backup\ Drive 10 50

Save it and exit. If for some reason cron fails to launch the Warning message box, put “DISPLAY=:0″ in front of zenity or Xdialog line.

Now, in my script I have started backup from root, excluding a few directories like /proc, /dev , and a few of my personal files. So you need to edit that file. Open the exclude file with a text editor [nano], and remove my folders [I kept them intentionally to make you do some work, lol ] and add whatever files or folders you would like to exclude from Backing up. We also exclude all .bak and .~ files from backups.

Edit the rsync.sh file to specify what drive path to use for backup. I use /media/backup in my External HDD.  So replace that accordingly.

Now it’s time to edit your cron.

sudo nano /var/spool/cron/your-user-name-here

10 8 * * * ~/.rsync/warn 1> /dev/null
sudo nano /var/spool/cron/root
15 8 * * * /home/username/.rsync/rsync.sh 1> /home/username/cronlog

Set the backup time according to your preference. The first field is minutes and the next one is hours. So cron warns me with a popup message box warning me to Plugin my External HDD for Backup and 5 minutes later my Backup starts. If you want to keep a weekly or monthly [not recommended!] backup instead, create your cron line easily using this.

After this save it and exit, check if the entry was created:

sudo crontab -l $USER

You may need to restart cron daemon:

sudo /etc/rc.d/crond restart

Or init.d, whatever your system uses. You can even reboot if you want to.

Also make sure all the scripts have execute permissions on them:

sudo chmod +x ~/.rsync/* 

Enjoy!

Unlike every other distro, Slackware doesn’t brand anything. Everything is vanilla. So when you boot, you see the original linux penguin logo at the top of your screen.

Download the latest kernel source from kernel.org. I’ll be using here kernel 2.6.32 source and 2.6.32.1 patch. So you understand that you don’t need to download the whole kernel source every-time a new kernel version is released. If you have the previous source or a kernel source which is older, say 2.6.31, then you will need all the subsequent incremental patches from 2.6.31.1 to 2.6.32.1 and you will need to apply them one by one to the kernel source. I’ll just be showing one.

First download the source from kernel.org and the subsequent incremental patches. I just need patch 2.6.32.1. Now get root privilege using “su” or if you prefer to use “sudo” then put that in front of every code. Move the downloaded kernel source to /usr/src. I have been hearing people say that this old method of kernel compiling at /usr/src is outdated and frowned upon, usually /home is preferred nowadays, well not for me. I like the traditional way.

mv /path/to/linux-version.tar.bz2 /usr/src

tar xvjf linux-version.tar.bz2

rm -r linux  [if any]

ln -s linux-version linux

mv /path/to/patch-version.bz2 /usr/src/linux

bunzip2 patch-version.bz2

patch -p1 < patch-version

Note: Replace the “version” accordingly. An useful tip: Use tab completion to save time typing.

Now, it’s time to get the logo. I’m going to upload a ready-made logo for the fellow Slackers, but if you want some other logo then download/create a png image.

Step 1: Open the image in gimp or wherever.

Step 2: Scale the image to 80×80

Step 3: Save the image back to png  format. Name it logo.png.

Now open terminal and type:

pngtopnm logo.png | ppmquant -fs 223 | pnmtoplainpnm > logo_linux_clut224.ppm

cp logo_linux_clut224.ppm /usr/src/linux/drivers/video/logo/

As promised for the Slackers, you may use this one and just copy it over as shown above.

Another logo here.

Now the usual compiling. In my previous guides I showed you how to compile kernel and create an initrd image, this time let’s do it without one.

cd /usr/src/linux

make mrproper

make menuconfig

In General Setup -> Local version – you can use your nick or anything, I use -pdg and then select below “Automatically append version information to the version string”.

Choose Kernel compression mode as LZMA for a smaller kernel size but slower compression.

Processor type and features  —> Processor family -> Mine is Core 2, choose yours accordingly.

File systems  —> Build in (*) the root partition, if its ext4 then build in ext4, if it’s XFS, build in XFS. Don’t build as modules (M).

Device Drivers —> Graphics Support –>

• Support for frame buffer devices
• VESA VGA graphics support
• Video mode selection support
• Framebuffer Console support
• Select compiled-in fonts
• VGA 8×16 font
• Bootup logo
• Standard 224-color Linux logo

Now save and exit. Time to compile.

make -j3

Use no. of CPUs+1, for Core 2 Duo it’s 2+1 = 3

After it’s done:

make modules_install

cp arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-version-localversion

Change version-localversion accordingly.

cp System.map /boot/System.map-version-localversion

cp .config /boot/config-version-localversion

cd /boot

rm vmlinuz

ln -s kernel-version-localversion vmlinuz

rm System.map

ln -s System.map-version-localversion System.map

ln -s config-version-localversion config

nano /etc/lilo.conf

Now see if there is an entry:

image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda2
label = Linux
read-only

If not, add it.

/sbin/lilo

Now reboot and enjoy your new boot logo.

Regards