Linux-Installation

Ideal way to install a Linux Distro

An ideal intallation would be:

1. fast start-up time
2. Easy re-installation/refresh of Distro

To this end:

1. Install OS and executables to SSD for fast start-up time
2. Install /home, /var, /tmp, /srv to HD to preserve user's data (/home) and minimize disk write damage (/var, /tmp, /srv) as SSD is sensitive to writes.

Basic Steps for first time installation:

1. Pull out the HD (hard disk)
2. Install the Linux Distro to an SSD (Solid State Disk). Use only one partition - /. In this way, you maximize the disk space and not run out of space on your /usr/bin or /var directories.

• Add users.
• Shutdown when installation is finished;
• re-attach the HD, then, power-up to boot.

3. If your HD has contents, don't do anything. Otherwise, format the HD as a single partition.
4. Run fdisk l to determine the device numbers of the HD and SSD (eg. /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb1). Identify which device number is which disk.
5. Create the mount point directory /hd in the SSD and mount the HD to /hd (sudo mount /dev/sdxx /hd).
6. Use the blkid command to determine the UUID of your hard disk (eg. blkid /dev/sda1). You won't be able to get any value out of blkid unless the disk is mounted.
7. Edit /etc/fstab using the guide below. Use the UUIDs determined in Step 6. A copy of this file is in the repository.

Sample ##/etc/fstab## will look like this:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.

# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a

# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices

# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).

#

# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation

UUID=4e40df13-dbe0-4aae-b378-6a5950d9ca8f / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1

# /hd was on /dev/sda2 during installation

UUID=858d78e2-550f-45e2-becc-117cef6553b2 /hd ext4 defaults 0 2

# swap was on /dev/sda1 during installation

UUID=109abccf-7c8b-404a-b68e-2ffa168bc4ca none swap sw 0 0

/hd/var /var none bind 0 0

/hd/tmp /tmp none bind 0 0

#/hd/home /home none bind 0 0

/hd/srv /srv none bind 0 0

---

8. rm -rf /hd/var
9. cp -pr /var /hd/var
10. if your hd is blank, cp -pr /home /hd/home else, DON'T DO ANYTHING; link old contents instead mv /home/user1 /home/user1.orig; ln -s /hd/home/user1 /home/user1. Link will not allow you to create a soft link to an existing directory, hence, the need to rename the existing directory first. Don't forget that if you ever added a new user, say, user10, you have to mkdir /hd/home/user10; cp -pr /home/user10 /hd/home/user10; ln -s /hd/home/user10 /home/user10. The intent is that user10 data would go to /hd instead of the ssd. You also may have to change the group and owndership for each of these users. e.g. sudo chown -L -R userN:userN userN
11. rm -rf /hd/tmp
12. cp -pr /tmp /hd/tmp
13. If /srv exist, cp -pr /srv /hd/srv; ln -s /hd/srv /srv Steps 8, 9, 11, and 12 are to make the new installation consistent because installation information are stored here.
14. Reboot and confirm that there are no problems.
15. Install git: sudo apt-get install git
16. cd /tmp
17. sudo git clone https://github.com/npquintos/Linux-Installation.git
18. cd Linux-Installation
19. sudo bash install_my_fave_apps_and_dots.sh
20. sudo vim /etc/passwd - change your shell to /usr/bin/zsh

If you want to install st manually,

$ sudo apt-get install libx11-dev libxext-dev libxft-dev

download st source here: https://st.suckless.org/ then,

sudo make clean install

If you need to compile and it is giving you an error about missing dependency,

do the following:##

To find to which package your include file (e.g. X11/extensions/XTest.h) belong to, install apt-file and search for it, example:

$ sudo apt-get install apt-file $ sudo apt-file update $ apt-file search "X11/extensions/XTest.h" libxtst-dev: /usr/include/X11/extensions/XTest.h

Once you've the package name, install via:

sudo apt-get install libxtst-dev