newbie needs help installing things SOLVED

eruchitanda, 25 days ago

I would do:

pacman -S --needed firefox

Instead.

You can replace pacman with AUR helper (I’d suggest installing Paru or YAY) if you’re using one.

eruchitanda, 25 days ago

BTW, for AUR helpers, you don’t use sudo.

Admetus, 25 days ago (edited 22 days ago)

sudo pacman -S

is virtually the only command I used as a beginner.

But that said, you may install from the AUR using yay.

I found out previously just use yay. Don’t do sudo yay. It’s not necessary and not 100% of AUR packages are guaranteed to be clean: omitting sudo will keep them out of root.

BaalInvoker, 25 days ago

You may use https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman to install packages in your Arch

To install packages you need to use pacman -S <pkgname>. For example to install Firefox:

pacman -S firefox

You can also install many packages once, for example:

pacman -S firefox git ruby keepassxc

Remember that you need root privileges to install apps with pacman

greyw0lv, 25 days ago (edited 22 days ago)

How do I have root privileges? Do I just use sudo?

BaalInvoker, 25 days ago

Yep, sudo gives your user root privileges

greyw0lv, 25 days ago

using

sudo pacman -S <filename>

I get a fatal error from every mirror it attempts to download through.

BaalInvoker, 25 days ago

This can be 2 things:

1. You’re not connected to the internet
2. You need to properly set the mirrors

Try run ping www.google.com and see if you have connection. If you don’t you need to connect your PC to the internet

Otherwise, you have to set the mirrors. So go to archlinux.org/mirrorlist/ and select the best location to you, then in the file /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist you paste the content you got when clicking Generate List at this site I mentioned before

Then run sudo pacman -Syyu to update everything and then try install your apps again

greyw0lv, 25 days ago (edited 22 days ago)

Thank you!

So far I’ve determined I’m definitely not connected to internet.

Unfortunately i cannot seem to connect.

I’ve tried iwctl, and also nmtui.

I dont know if I’m describing this right but both connect without error for a bit. But the second I go to use the WiFi it disconnects.

Edit: rebooting after connecting seems to have solved it.

BaalInvoker, 25 days ago

Well, this is strange…

You said you’re using both iwctl and nmtui, and maybe that’s the issue, cause you’re configuring 2 distinct apps to handle your connection and I think they can conflict with each other

Choose 1 and disable the other

For example, let’s suppose you wanna keep iwd, so enable it with

sudo systemctl enable --now iwd.service

And disable NetworkManager

sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager.service

Reboot your system

However I suggest you to take a look at wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration

ZWQbpkzl, 25 days ago

1. confirm you can connect via ethernet. It sounds like you can.
2. Check available WiFi networks with nmcli device wifi
3. Connect with nmcli device wifi connect <ssid> password <password>

If nothing is listed in #2 then you need to install drivers for your WiFi. Check the arch wiki for how to identify which wifi card you have and what AUR package is needed. Installing an AUR package without internet will be an adventure so I recommend jacking in for that.

Gemini24601, 25 days ago

Does internet work? You can check by running “ping archlinux.org” in a terminal, (Ctrl C to stop it). If you are connected to internet you could search for packages using the “pacman -Ss <e. g. chromium>”, and or install by using “sudo pacman -S <name>”

greyw0lv, 25 days ago

Hmm.

I connected to my internet using iwctl.

But yeah the ping returned a failure so I guess I’m not connected.

Gemini24601, 22 days ago

It’s possible you may be specifying the wrong device? Try iwctl, and then “device list” to see other options. I always seem to have two or three, with only one working. More info here: wiki.archlinux.org/title/Iwd#iwctl