This is just a brief description of the steps to perform after an Archlinux install to get a fully functional Gnome desktop. These are very specific for my usual setup. for a general discussion see the Beginners' guide or the Installation guide

Base install

The following steps are to be done inside the initial chroot during install.

Initramfs creation

Before creating the initramfs, edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to add the necessary modules for KMS (depending on graphics adapter of the systems). Use lspci to know which one applies. For example nouveau, i915 or radeon. Also include the 'resume' hook to ...

Printer drivers for Canon iR ADV C7055

Printer drivers for Epson WF-2530

Configure PostgreSQL with PostGIS in Archlinux.

When Vim plugins are installed the standard way, all files that belong to different plugins get mixed together in the .vim directory. This makes very difficult to keep the system clean and updated, or to remove a given plugin.

There are various solutions to avoid this problem and keep each plugin's files in separated directories. The most popular are Pathogen and Vundle.

I like Pathogen more, because it allows to install a plugin from command line without editing any configuration file (no need to touch vimrc except for optional customization). To remove a plugin only takes to remove de ...

Roundcube allows the management of email filter rules through the managesieve plugin. This plugin connects with the dovecot-sieve server and update user filters using a standard protocol. This way the user doesn't have to edit the ~/.dovecot.sieve files directly in its home directory, avoiding possible syntax mistakes.

Filters can be managed throug Roundcube -> Configuration -> Server config -> Filters.

With my setup (Nginx, php5-fpm and Dovecot) these are the necessary steps to configure it.

sudo apt-get install dovecot-managesieved

service managesieve-login {
  inet_listener sieve {
    port = 4190
  }
}
service managesieve {
}
protocol ...

This laptop works great under linux. I installed Lubuntu on it and everything went right but two things: wifi and BIOS booting. Both can be solved so I am happy with the purchase. The only drawback i found is that ethernet adapter is only 100 MHz and not gigabit. Too slow nowadays and not what I expected. Nothing that can't be solved with a cheap USB3 to ethernet adapter.

I will describe how to overcome this "small" problems (It took me hours to find out how, searching forums and wikis... thanks to everybody).

Fine tuning the LXDE desktop in Archlinux.

Download and install lubuntu-artwork package from AUR. Then select controls "Lubuntu-default", icon theme "Lubuntu", window decorations "Lubuntu-default", and font anti aliasing with subpixel (light optimization):

yaourt -S lubuntu-artwork

Change menu from main menu to /usr/share/lubuntu/images/lubuntu-logo.png.

Install Openbox config utility. Enter the utility and select Lubuntu-default for the theme. Uncheck "animate windows on minimize" in appearance tab. Activate "switch desktops when moving a window past the screen edge". Set two desktops.:

pacman -S obconf

After installing Thunderbird, add FireTray extension to have a mail notification icon in the system ...

These are instructions to install restview, that is a software to quickly preview the restructuredText documents created with a text editor in a browser. My Linux distribution is Archlinux, so you may have to adapt some commands for yours.

Install docutils (it is the package that process the restructured text to convert it to html):

pacman -S python2-docutils

Install pygments:

pacman -S python2-pygments

Install the restview previewer:

yaourt -S restview

Now it is necessary to make docutils aware of a new directive (like a new command) that we will use to markup pieces of source code in the restructured text ...

These are brief instructions to make Pidgin messaging application to work with Lotus Sametime (also called Meanwhile) protocol under Archlinux.

There is a nice page about Pidgin in the Archlinux documentation, this is only a summary for the particular case that I face every time I update my Archlinux system. The Sametime protocol is not included in the Pidgin package that comes in the Archlinux distribution (I guest because license issues or something like that). I create a custom package that includes Sametime, but every time I update my system the pidgin package is updated with the one included in ...