Episode: 1220
Title: HPR1220: Cinnarch 64 bit, Installation Review
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1220/hpr1220.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 21:54:25

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Howdy folks, this is 5150 and today I wanted to talk to you about my experiences installing
the 64-bit version of Sinarch Net Edition on a dual core notebook.
Sinarch is of course a relatively new arch-based distro running the cinnamon fork of GNOME.
I had previously installed arch-proper on this notebook, but when I rebooted into the hard
drive, I had lost the Ethernet connection.
This is not uncommon with arch-installs, but they're in the notebook set until I thought
I had time to work the problem.
I really wanted to start using the notebook and I'd heard some good things about Sinarch,
so it seemed like a simple solution.
I did go into this knowing that Sinarch was an alpha, so I should not have been surprised
when an update broke the system less than a week after the install.
That comes later in my story.
First, I want to go over the installation, in case at some point you decide you might
like to try Sinarch.
When you boot up to the CD, there are three big buttons on the desktop.
The first one is try it, in the words just use live CD.
The second one is CLI installer, and the third one is graphical installer.
Graphical installer is grayed out, so I believe it's just not finished.
Otherwise, maybe it was somehow incompatible with my hardware.
If a network is connected, when you run the CLI installer, it asks if you want to run
an update.
And then once the update is completed, it asks then for you to restart the installer.
Now, it's not going to do any good reboot to computer and start over again, because of
course you would lose all the changes you've just downloaded.
What you have to do is go to the menu and in the search field type install, and then
from the selection to come up, pick Sinarch installer CLI.
Now, I've never done the old arch install that had more of a menu driven system, but I
believe what they're doing with Sinarch is very, very close to the old system.
When I installed arch proper, it had the new one where you follow the wiki, and there's
a lot of manual stuff that you have to work from the command line yourself.
But on the Sinarch install, the first installer item is ZERO, SET, LANGUAGE, and Keyboard.
And this is, you're doing the same thing here that in any other Linux install, you pick
your local language, and you pick a keyboard setup.
So under SET language and Keyboard, then the first question is going to ask you is to
choose a locale.
Now, a lot of people are going to be a little confused at this point, because then all
you have is a list of file names.
But if you're familiar with the arch install, then you've set your locale manually in a configuration
file.
Most US users will want to pick from the list, EN underscore us dot utf dash eight.
That's that's the file name in the list that's appropriate for the US.
And if you've never done an arch install, you might want to follow HTTPS colon slash slash
wiki dot arch links dot org slash index dot PHP slash beginners underscore guide.
Well, it's in the show notes, but Genners is capital B apostrophe after the S underscore
after your apostrophe and G capitalized.
And again, when I was asked to pick key map, most US users will want to pick US dot map dot
GZ.
Next selection from the main installation menu is one set time and date.
The system is pretty straightforward.
You pick a region, and it was just America, no South America, no North America, and then
a city in your time zone.
And if you want to set up NTP at this time, make sure you've got a network cable plugged
in.
It should, at least in my case, it install connected to the wire to Ethernet automatically.
All right.
And each of these main many selections, there's at the bottom, it says go back to the main
menu.
So the third main many selection is two pair hard drive.
Now in my case, the partitions were already set up.
So I just set the file system mount points and it didn't look like I could test the partition
configuration without erasing my existing partitions, but it looks like that's menu driven
as well.
In other words, you don't have to drop out to a command line and use G disk or CF disk
like you would in the arch proper install.
Now you're prompted to associate mount points with existing partitions.
The installer, first install will take some time to detect all existing partitions.
Now I had replaced the stock drive in this notebook with an SSD and boosted up the
memory.
So I've created no swap partition.
That's the first one's going to ask you to sign.
So I just set, in my case, I said no.
I had assigned root to slash dev slash SDA2 and formatted it to EXT4.
That's because I formatted the drive G disk and G disk reserves a small partition slash
dev slash SDA1, so the first issue in the drive for some of its housekeeping.
So that's why the first available partition to me was dev SDA2.
And then it asked you to select any additional file partitions to mount under your new root.
So first you pick an unsigned partition in my case slash dev slash SDA3, enter the mount
point, manually, well you type it in.
So my case slash home, I wasn't going to create any other partitions, no var, etc.
And I took a chance and formatted my home as butter FS.
The reason I did that butter FS, BTRFS, was the consensus for my assilence on the Linux
questions.org forum, let's spin a while back now to recommend the best file systems for
an SSD because BTRFS automatically enables trim.
Now I can configure my ACS stab.com to post install to set up trim on the XT4 root volume.
But BTRFS has provisions for SSDs and trims right off the bat.
Now when installing arch proper, I had tried to make my slash dev slash SDA3 BTRFS, but
never could get it to mount.
But it worked quite well, I think, under CIN arch.
So then you're going to, when you pick BTRFS, you're going to be asked several questions.
BTRFS rate options, no, I didn't have a rate or a set up, so I said none.
Would you like to create a sub volume on slash dev slash SDA3?
And I said yes on that because the arch whisky, arch whisky, arch wiki, tell what I'm taking
this late at night.
Arch wiki says it's better for taking snapshots and I named it sub home and asked for a name.
And then ask me, would you like to compress the data on slash dev slash SDA3 and sub volume
equals sub home because it's got the name on it?
And I said yes because the arch whisky says not only will increase the storage on my 120
gig SSD, but using LZO compression as opposed to ZLib slash GZP should improve performance.
And then ask me, would you like to optimize data for SSD disc usage?
Again, yes, and it'll let you specify, if you know what you're doing, any other additional
mounting parameters, which I left blank.
Okay, now it takes you back around to assign any other remaining partitions.
And you may see several partitions that start with slash dev slash mapper slash blah blah.
Those are all installation media, you know, that's either the CD or the U.S.B., U.S.B.,
U.S.B. Sticks, so don't mess with those.
All right, then we come back up level and the menu, it's a syntax for file system mounting.
I accepted a default and then select device names scheme to use config files.
Of the three choices, FS labels seemed easier to follow than FSUID or kernel name.
Okay, the fourth main menu step in the installer is three, select source.
And then the selection under that is choose mayor.
Now what you're doing here is you're picking the closest repo.
And in the United States, the first choice is lease web, so that's what I pick.
All right, so you go back out to the main menu, next selection is four, install system.
Now much to do here, just wait patiently for update lead.
And you'll get a prompt package installation will begin now.
Click that prompt and don't touch the system again until you're prompted.
I made the mistake, it didn't look like I was doing anything, I was distracted.
I thought that I clicked that, that I knocked like that, and essentially on my first attempt
to install, I killed it at that point and it went on to the next step.
And the package, well, soft the system and the packages and such are hadn't,
and never been copied over to the hard drive, so of course I had to start over again.
Okay, the sixth step is five, configure system.
Part one, out under that, do you want to use HW detector, hardware detector, configure,
slash Etsy slash mkintcpi.com.
And if in the, in the arch proper install, you usually generate this that file with the command mk
in it CPIO, space dash, lowercase p, space linux.
And then that files usually only modified in the following cases.
And this comes from the arch whiskey for beginners.
Here you need to set the right hooks if your route is on a USB drive.
If you use RAID, LVM, or if your slash user is on a separate partition.
In other words, if you need to ask and answer yes, let hardware detect, configure,
slash Etsy slash mkintcpi.co.nf, and don't mess with it.
The next step, USB detected. Do you want to be able to boot from USB?
In my case, I said yes. Same question for PC MCIA.
I've got a PC card slot. I answered yes there too.
Next, ask you what editor you want to use. NANO or VI?
Yeah, I can see Clot 2's asking right here.
What? No EMAX love?
Okay, next step. Creature user.
Now for once, you can type every username you want instead of first typing in your real name,
and or whatever you tell it your real name is, and the installer generating a suggested
username from that. Of course, after that comes user password, then the host name, name of the
machine, and then the root password. And we come back. It wants us, the next step,
wants us to if we want to manually edit Etsy slash mkintcpi.com.
Well, if you had answered yes to having an auto generated above, you're probably going to
want to skip that step entirely. You don't have to click on it. You can go to the next step.
Well, no, I guess that's the last step. After applying the configuration, the installer will
again check for and install package updates. And, I don't know, we're coming to that.
Now, unlike the arch-proper install, when I boot the new system, not only did the wired
internet work, I found the Wi-Fi was already configured as well. System boots to a graphical
log-in and automatically loads X in the sentiment desktop. Now, there are two 64-bit installs of
sit-arch, both of them labeled net install, and one of the 600 meg download, which I download,
and another one's only a 200-odd meg. And I found for 600 meg download, first,
went under the last step after checks install package updates. It still had 400 meg of updates
to download. So, I'm not sure the advantage of the larger net install. But, like I said,
sit-arch's little thin on pre-installed apps. Under Office, there's just a button to install
library office, only the Chromium browser, no IRC client, no, or mumble. So, my first act after
installing arch was to open the man page on Pac-Man, and start installing new packages, and to
take a page out of doors, book, expect an upcoming episode titled, so I've installed arch
now-what, from the perspective of an arch snoobe. All right, now here's what happened post install.
I mean, this thing ran slick for a week, almost, especially for one gigahertz dual core,
because I couldn't tell it was any slower than my desktop replacement laptop, or the
media computer in the dining room, which are both 2.5 times the clock speed. But, I really didn't do
anything. Huge number crunching test video editing, anything like that. I did connect Hulu,
which of course is flash, and takes a lot of power, and it played there some buffering because of
my slow internet, but no real hiccups, or artifacts, or anything like that. So, I was getting
along great with it, and a couple days ago, I did an update, and well, I installed-I'd installed
crossover WGIT and R-Sync. It was all I'd done on that day, and done an update. But, as I
understand it, the login screen on Synarch consists of a modified Unity greater over like the
end. When I rebooted the next day, I had the login, referred it back to what looked like the
standard Unity greater, just like if you had installed Ubuntu on the machine. I couldn't get,
I couldn't get, however, the, however, I couldn't do anything to interact with the login. Nothing
I clicked on were, I couldn't even get it to take the, not even clicking on my user name, so,
of course, I never had a chance to enter a password, and then the screen would go black and come back
several times, and eventually, I would get dumped out to not a true console because I had a cursor
at the top left, and I could type, and whatever I typed appeared on the screen, but it, it wouldn't
take any commands. So, if you type login, nothing happens. It doesn't, it doesn't present you
for login prompt. However, I found, I got some help from the Synarch forums, thank you, Mr. Bias,
and he told me how to edit my grub menu to get in, and the easiest way to explain that is,
I picked a failback option on grub, select that with my arrow keys, when it comes up, you got to
catch real quick, of course, hit E, and that gives me an editing screen. Then I look for the option
quiet at the end of the line that begins Linux, and then I delete quiet and replace it with
single, and then if I hit F10, and these changes are not persistent, so you have to do it every time
you log in, but when it, when prompted, I can type my root password, and then I'm in single
user command line mode. To connect to the internet on command line, I can type IP, space, link,
space, set, space, eavesero, space, up rings interface up. Then to set my IP address, I do
IP, space, ADDR, space, ADD, and then the IP address, and netmask, and citer notation. In other words,
192.168.0.50 slash 2.4 would be citer notation. After that, space, dev, space, and then in their face,
then I'm just going to assume it's each zero. Then on this, all Jay Lindsey gave me some help
the other day. I had him, how do you put in due name server from the command line? The only way
he knew how to do it was put in your slash Etsy slash resolve.conf, and that's resolve without
this final e, and that's where you would set a static DNS address. Actually, I found out my
router's IP address was already in slash Etsy slash resolve.conf. In other words, a name server,
and space, IP address of my router. If I get it back working, that's something I'm going to have
to work on because it really should be, if I want to use any other network on my own, that's going
to need to dynamically get the name server rather than having it static. But, I mean, I could ping
my router once I've done IP ADR add, but I couldn't resolve any URLs, and I couldn't do an update
from the repositories. The part I left out and found the wiki going back to the next day is,
you need to put in IP, space, route, base, add, space, default, space, via, space, and then your
router's IP address. This is what sets the gateway, so I'd forgotten that. Well, if you use if
config, I don't think you'll have to set the gateway address. Not sure I like IP better than if
config. If config works, that's why I tried first. Okay, now, again, and this is from Mr.
Bias on the Synarch forum, not forum, has Synarch room on free node, and he warms. This is probably
going to screw something up, but it's what was placed to get started, and just to simplify things
for Arch. Pacman is sort of like, well, Pacman is too arch as is app-get is too deviant. So,
these suggested I run Pacman, space, dash, capital R, space, like DM, dash, Ubuntu, space,
like DM, dash, Unity, dash, greeter, and that was going to get rid of all my desktop manager.
And, of course, I think what he meant to do was reinstall it afterwards. So, I did that. I got
them out of there, and then I decided, well, I thought it's different installing them back. I tried
that once, but I would try to do the most minimal desktop manager possible, so I did YALERT, Y-A-O-U-R-T,
space, capital S, Y-U-A, space, like DM. See, like I said, beginning, we're not beginning when
I had this problem. The fault display manager for Synarch is based on like DM, so I figured just
go for the most minimal thing, and explain YALERT. YALERT is a wrapper around Pacman that not only
draws from the core arch repos, it also draws from the AUR. And the final thing with AUR is you're
going to have to wait for my upcoming podcast, so you've installed ArchNow, and those arguments
after this Y-U-A essentially tells it while you're installing this, or before you install this new
package, bring all of the positives up to date and do all updates. So it's like, well, which is
recommended saying, it'd be equivalent to WN-World, before you install a new package, you do app
yet update, and then follow that with app yet safe upgrade. So it does it all in one command,
which is kind of neat. Now, after I installed like DM, the installation told me I should really install
like the M-GTK greeter, so I did that too. Now, I boot the machine, I get a mouse pointer that
flashes a few times and gives way to a blank screen, so I'm still not there yet, but I wanted to go
ahead and record this podcast, so tomorrow I'll see if I can't get some help from on the Synarch
forums, and if I can't figure it out in a reasonable amount of time, you next may hear me review
Manjar or Parabla. One more thing I learned that also append to, so you've just installed arch.
If you do something silly, like let the battery die in the middle of installing a package,
you will need to do RmSpace, SlashVar, SlashLive, SlashPakman, SlashDB.LCK to unlock Pacman and Yard.
Okay, that's it for now for Synarch, I'll let you know how it goes if I get it working again,
I'll let you know what I do instead if I don't. I really can't complain that it broke,
and I do, like I said, I can't admit. The stuff I installed, the previous day, I can't, unless there
is some weird dependency in there, I can't understand how that would have caused it to break. I think
it broke us of an update, it may have broke for other people for all I know. Okay, I think I know
what I did. Before final editing on this piece, I caught part of a conversation on Hashell Cast
Planet in IRC, which I asked Art V61 to clarify, and he affirmed that it was common knowledge
among arch users that using Yard for system updates in Vite's breakage. Now, you remember how
enthusiastic I was that I could update the system and install new software all in one command?
Well, don't worry, you can do something similar with Pac-Man, just don't update the system with
Yard apparently. So I guess a good safety tip for me remembering that I'm a complete arch
newb is to use Pac-Man to update your system and install any software that can be found in
the normal repositories and only resort to Yard if there's a package in the AUR or arch user
repository that you really need and you can't find anywhere else. And a rather simplistic view
of the AUR, as I understand it, it as to arch as is PBAs are to Ubuntu. Though I get the impression
that it's rather harder to avoid using the AUR as an arch user than it is to avoid using PBAs
if you want to ensure system stability in Ubuntu. Okay, here's a new section I want to add on
called RANTS and information that just some stuff I want to get out there has nothing to do
with my main topic. Okay, first ones are in. Why do people who post files for download,
such as software packages or ISOs, seem to feel the need to obfuscate the link behind some kind
of script. SourceForge is particularly bad about this. I don't understand it, does it give the
host site some added layer security? I ask because of my real connection, I always use WGET or
Torrent to download large binaries like ISO files. For me, if I was done, or really seem to matter
if you miss a bit in the movie, but something that is executable, well, an ISO contains executable,
so yeah, WGET works best and, well, an WGET works best with simple direct link.
Download them all is great, but every time a large binary is interrupted or the connection is broken,
or if I want to stop and start it to do something else, which is off in the case of my connection
because an ISO takes several hours and if it's DVD, especially on those big four gig ones,
not DVD ISO, not a movie, that can take a day or even a little more to download and
always gets broken in the middle someplace, but if I use WGET with the dash C, which is the
continued parameter, I can stop and start that download as many times as I want and it never fails
in the end. Even on files that DTA says can't be paused and resumed, so I don't expect to be
able to change the world, just let people know my preference is just simple direct links.
Okay, now this, you know, is comes right out of the what were they thinking department.
This is an article and I want to thank Byer Brown, a lot of people put this out on G+, today,
but his post brought to my attention first, it's from GeekWire.com, it's www.GeekWire.com,
slash 2012, slash Microsoft, dash, disconnect, dash, freeloading, dash, tv, dash, viewers,
and this connect is spelled D-I-S-K-I-N-E-C-T and you're going to see why in a minute they're getting
cute. The summarize, Microsoft is applied for patents, I understand it, to allow them to use the
camera on devices like connect to determine how many people are in the room while streaming.
I presume a streaming movie not not a DVD, but you never know, this could be applied to DVD while
that movie is playing and they're doing that in order either charges more per viewer when they
think there's an excessive amount of viewers in the room or stop the video until people leave the
room or block the play of explicit movies if the software determines some of the viewers' baby
children. Now we know from the 3D images created with third-party software, the 3D models,
the connect camera is capable of recording normal video and normal images.
Even if Microsoft assures the public knowing images will be transmitted back over the internet
with the close nature of their products, can we be comfortable that their software hasn't been
exploited by hackers or even by their own employees? The present for that being a few years back,
there was that concern with the anti-ff software installed on school-supplied laptops,
weather and employees of the security company where firing it up even though the laptop hadn't
been stolen and looking at what students were doing in their own homes. And addition to that,
if law enforcement can compel ISPs to provide your personal information, do we really think the
police will be able to resist at least asking for access to surveillance cameras already existing
in a house they're about to enter? And I believe there's no consumer outcry against this practice.
How long will it be till every media consumption device has a camera looking back at you?
This is literally the old paranoid anxiety that the government is watching us for
inside our televisions brought to fruition. I hope this gets publicized because in the mainstream
media because somebody should be having a field day with this one. Okay, next point, by the time
you hear this, either we will have a comfortable buffer of due shows in the HPRQ or we will be
desperately close to canceling the show for lack of content. It's up to you, dear listener. If you have
ever considered contributing your own episode to hacker public radio, there has never been a better
time to take action and post a show. Okay, finally, if you sometimes lose your open tabs
when launching Firefox, all the tabs you had open were gone, try the session manager add on.
And I think ATR for the tip. And while I'm at it, E, you slacker, where's your HPR episode?
Okay, this has been episode for, uh, for hacker public radio from 5150. You can contact me at 5150
at linuxbasement.com or find my other contact information on my website for now, the big red switch
dot rooplegardens.com. Thanks for listening and have a good day.
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