F.O.S.S

by: Abhishek Prakash

When you think of essential Raspberry Pi accessories, you count a screen, monitor and mouse if you want to use it as a regular desktop computer.

How about turning it into a laptop?

There are a few projects that work on this one. Elecrow's CrowView Note is such a device that lets you attach your Raspberry Pi or Jetson Nano or other SBCs to a laptop like interface.

This sounds interesting, right? Let me share my experience of using CrowView Note.

Just so that you know, Elecrow sent me CrowView Note. The views expressed here are my own and not influenced by Elecrow.

CrowView Note: What is it?

The CrowView Note by Elecrow is a portable, all-in-one monitor with an integrated keyboard and trackpad designed to transform SBCs like Raspberry Pi into a laptop.

Elecrow is a Hong Kong based company that creates and sells hardware for makers and tinkerers. If you are into Raspberry Pi and SBCs, you might have come across their CrowPi kit.

CrowView Note features a 14-inch Full-HD (1920×1080) IPS display with built-in speakers and a 5000mAh battery. There is no CPU, HDD/SSD or even camera here.

The good thing here is that CrowView is not just limited to Raspberry Pi. It's like an external screen with a keyboard and touchpad. You attach it to any single board computer using the Mini HDMI and USB cables.

You can also connect it to your Android smartphone (thanks to features like DeX) and gaming consoles like Steam Deck etc. You should be able to use it with digital cameras, Chromecast like devices and Blu-ray/DVD players (if you still use them).

It is powered by a 12V DC power supply to charge the 5000mAh battery. You can disconnect direct power and run it on battery like a regular laptop.

Technical specifications

Here are the specs that might interest you:

• Display: 14″ IPS (1920×1080), 100% sRGB, 60Hz refresh rate, 16:9 aspect ratio, 300 nit brightness

• Ports: 1x USB-C (full), 1x USB-C (power), 2x USB-A, 1x Mini HDMI

• Audio: 2W speakers, 3.5 mm audio jack, microphone

• Power: 12V DC charging and 5000 mAh battery

• Size: 33.5cm*22cm*1.7cm

• Weight: 1.2 Kg

The device is priced at $169 excluding shipping and custom fee. More details can be found on its official page.

Experiencing CrowView Note

If you look at CrowView at a glance, it looks like a regular laptop. Not a premium one. Just a regular, entry-level, inexpensive but lightweight laptop.

You pick it up and it feels light. My Asus ZenBook and Dell XPS are almost the same weight, I guess.

Which made me curious because I was under an impression that there are not much hardware inside it. The Raspberry Pi is attached from the side, externally. So, there is no CPU, motherboard or graphics inside, or so I am guessing.

I am so tempted to open it up and have a peek inside it. Perhaps I'll do that after a few weeks when I have explored all other aspects of this device.

Bottom View of CrowView Note

There are on-board speakers at the bottom that are not great with 2W of power and I am not complaining. You get the sound feature, at least. If you want something better, connect a headphone or speaker.

So, it is a laptop-like device but there are no processors inside it. You attach a Raspberry Pi to its left side using a dedicated bridge board. This way, you don't need to separately power the Raspberry Pi.

CrowView with a Raspberry Pi 5 attached to it

This connector bridge is also available for NVIDIA Jetson Nano, purchased separately for $7.

The bridge is not necessary. You can connect to Pi or other devices using mini HDMI and USB cables. The device needs to be powered separately in this case.

My other Pi device inside the Pironman case got successfully connected this way.

I also connected it to my ArmSoM Sige7 SBC and it worked the same without any issues.

CrowView Note with ArmSoM Sige7

Display

CrowView Note features a 14 inches, full-HD (1080p) display and there is nothing to complain about it. The IPS display looks sharp and there is no noticeable glare. The 60Hz refresh rate is pretty standard.

Although it looks like there is a webcam in the middle, that's not the case. Which is disappointing, to be honest. I would expect a laptop to have a functioning webcam.

Keyboard

The keyboard is fine. Not premium but fine. Again, I am not complaining. It is definitely better than the cheap Bluetooth keyboard people usually use with SBCs.

In fact, I feel the keyboard felt better than the official Pi keyboard. The plastic on the keyboard feels a bit rough, just like the official Pi keyboard.

There are dedicated function keys that provide additional features to the CrowView Note:

• F1 key lets you switch between devices if you are connected via Type C on the right and HDMI/USB on the left

• F7 key gives you OSD (On-screen display) to access color settings for the display

• F11 key quickly shows the battery status

Other than that, there are function keys for volume, media and brightness control. There is a Num-Lock key to access the number pad on the same keyboard.

Keyboard

Touchpad

Touchpad has invisible left and right click buttons at the bottom. I prefer tapping finger and thankfully, you can also tap to click here. Two finger tap for right click also works in Raspberry Pi OS.

There is one thing that does bother me here. The double click actually takes three tap. You know, you double-click on a folder or file to open it. Two taps don't work. You have to quickly tap it three times. Surprisingly, the left click button at the bottom works fine with two clicks.

There is a thin plastic film on the touchpad. I can see bubbles at the lower part, I am not sure if it is supposed to come out. I tried taking it out but I could not grab the edge. So I left it as it is. The touchpad works, so why bother unnecessarily?

Touchpad close up

CrowView is flexible till 180 degrees. I am not sure if that is very helpful for practical use cases. I let you decide that.

CrowView Note stretched at 180 degrees

Battery

The on-board 5000 mAh battery is not much but it is decent enough to power your Raspberry Pi for a few hours comfortably.

The minor inconveniences

While I was able to connect CrowView Note to my ArmSoM Sige7 through mini HDMI and USB, I could not connect my Samsung Galaxy with it. I tried opening Dex but it was expecting either wireless or HDMI connection.

Another minor annoyance is that when I shut down the Raspberry Pi from within the system, the CrowView still runs on battery. I can see the battery indicator on and Pi's power indicator stays red (meaning it is off but still connected to a power source).

I am guessing it doesn't consume as much power but it is not completely shut down. It can be turned off completely by pressing the on-board power button.

I have mentioned it earlier. Lack of webcam is certainly a disappointment.

I was also wondering about all this bridge system to connect Pi to CrowView. A Pi attached to a laptop looks odd.

Why on the side? Why not a box where it could be plugged in at the bottom? That will make it less weird. Perhaps Elecrow wanted to expose the GPIO pins. Plugging it in at the bottom will also heat it up as there will be no scope to put in a fan without increasing the thickness of the 'laptop'.

Also, Elecrow already has a device like this in the form of the famous CrowPi. So this time, they took a different approach.

Conclusion

The one thing that I am glad CrowView Note it is not confined to just Raspberry Pi. You can use it with various devices and that is indeed a good thing. If you are spending $169 for a display-keyboard setup, it only makes sense that it works for all kinds of computers you have.

In simpler words, it adds more value to the offering.

It is a well-thought device, too. The function keys work irrespective of the devices and operating systems. At least, that's what I noticed in my experiment with it. The idea to add dedicated buttons for battery status and source change is excellent.

Should you buy CrowView Note? That is really up to you. See if you need or even want a gadget like this and if it is well under your budget.

For me, the device targets a specific set of users. And considering the fact that its Crowdfunded campaign attracted 27 times of its initial funding goal, I would say there is a significant interest in CrowView Note.

More Details on CrowView Note

💬 Your turn now. What do you think of Elecrow's CrowView Note? Is it something you need or want?

by: Abhishek Prakash

Recently, I bought an Asus Zenbook and dual booted it with Ubuntu. But Ubuntu 24.04 didn't perform well on the new hardware and thus I removed Ubuntu from dual boot.

This is typically done by moving the Windows boot manager up the boot order and deleting the Linux partition from within Windows.

The annoyance is that Linux will still show up in the UEFI boot settings.

Although it doesn't hurt to leave it there, it triggers some sort of OCD in me to get a pristine system without unnecessary stuff.

And hence, I went out to 'fix this non-issue' and I am going to share how you can do the same if you like.

The process is composed of these two steps:

• Mount the EFI system partition (ESP) in Windows (has to be command line)

• Delete the Ubuntu/Linux entry from the EFI folder using either command line or GUI

📋

Again, the Linux entry in the UEFI boot menu is not a blocking issue and you can leave it as it is to use only Windows on the system.

Step 1: "Mount" the EFI partition in Windows

Press the Windows start button and look for CMD. Right click on it and select "Run as administrator".

Once the command prompt is open, start the disk partition utility by entering:

diskpart

Type "list disk" to list all the disks present on your system and get the name of the disk where the EFI partition is located.

list disk

If you have only one disk, it should show only one entry.

Enter the disk to see all the partitions on this disk:

select disk 0

You should see 'Disk 0 is now the selected disk' in the ouput.

Now, list all the partitions on this disk with:

list partition

Usually, it is the system partition that is EFI partiton and as you can see in the screenshot below, it is the partition number 1.

🚧

Since my ESP (EFI System Partition) has assigned number 1, I'll select this partition. Yours could be different, so pay attention.

select partition 1

Now, assign it a drive letter. Since C, D, E etc are usually taken, let's go to the end of the alphabet and use the letter x here.

assign letter x

With the EFI partition getting a driver letter, you can now see it in the file explorer like C or D drives.

Basically, all this hassle for mounting the ESP partition. Anyway, exit the disk partition tool:

exit

Step 2: Delete Linux folder from EFI

Till here, we were not doing anything risky. But now, we have to delete the Ubuntu Linux folder from the EFI partition.

This can be done via graphically as well as via command line. You used the command line above but for 'deleting' something, I would recommend using the graphical method.

Method 1: Use GUI

Open the task manager in Windows (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and here, click the 'Run new task':

This will give you the option to create new task. What you have to do here is to click on the "browse" button:

You can now browse the partitions and the files inside them. Using this, you can add or delete files and folders.

Browse to drive X and the EFI folder. You should see ubuntu (or whichever distro you used) listed here. Select it first and then right click to see the option to delete it.

I could not take a screenshot of it as Window's built-in tool didn't allow taking screenshots of the right-click context menu. Once you hit the delete option, a conformation dialogue box will pop up.

Select yes and close the browser and then close task manager as well.

Congratulations! Now if you access the UEFI settings from Windows, you won't see the Linux entry anymore.

Command line warrior? Let's see the other method for you.

Method 2: Use command line

📋

You need to perform all this in command prompt running as administrator.

Use this command to enter the drive you had mounted earlier. Mind the colon after the drive letter.

x:

See the content of the directory with:

dir

It should show a folder named EFI. Enter this directory:

cd EFI

And now look at the content of this folder:

dir

You should see some folder belonging to Linux. It could be named Ubuntu, Fedora etc.

The next step is to use the rd command (remove directory) with the Linux folder's name to delete it:

rd ubuntu /s

Once done, exit the command prompt by typing exit.

Conclusion

The ESP partition mounted as drive X won't be there anymore when you restart the system. And neither will be the Linux boot entry.

In a YouTube video, I discussed uninstalling Ubuntu from the dual boot system, I mentioned the fact that a leftover Ubuntu entry in the boot doesn't hurt. Still, a few comments indicated that they would like everything cleaned up. Hence, this tutorial.

💬 Is it worth the hassle to clean up the Linux boot entry after removing it from dual boot? Share it in the comments, please.

by: Community

A new (or perhaps old) way of enjoying music for the command-line enthusiasts.

I've seen things... seen things that you people wouldn't believe... Linux developed by governments, Linux on mobiles, and terminal audio players.

Yes, it could be funny, but it's real, you could play music from your command-line.

And that's just one of the many unusual things you can do in the terminal.

Subscribe to It's FOSS YouTube Channel

Meet Kew

When you use the terminal more often than the graphical tools, you would perhaps enjoy playing music from the terminal.

I came across Kew, a terminal music player fully written in C. It's small (not more than 1 MiB), with a low memory profile. You can create and play your own playlists!

Kew music player running in the terminal

First things go first: Installation

It's straightforward to install Kew because it's available in the repositories of the common Linux Distributions like Arch Linux, Debian, Gentoo., etc.

For Debian and Ubuntu-based distros, use:

sudo apt install kew

You can use an AUR helper for Arch-based distros. Let's you use yay:

sudo yay -S kew

For openSUSE, use zypper:

sudo zypper install kew 

Exploring music with Kew

One of the most interesting and surprising things it's that kew can search in your music directory (usually ~/Music, or you could change it) only with one word:

kew bruce

And you're immediately listening to the Boss!!

You can see the album cover while you're listening to it.

You can make a playlist based on the content of a directory (and the others inside it recursively). The playlist can be edited/modified inside Kew in the Playlist view.

You can play the songs from the playlist using:

kew kew.m3u

Direct Functions

Kew provides some direct functions that you can type with kew:

• <none>: You go straight to the music library.

• dir <album name>: Play a full directory.

• song <song name>: Play only a song.

• list <playlist name>: Play a playlist that you could define.

• shuffle <album name>|<playlist name>: shuffles the album or playlist

• artistA:artistB:artistC: shuffles all 3 artists.
  Just to mention some of their fantastic functions. You could get all the commands here.

Views

There are different views for different functions that can be accessed via a function key.

F2 : Current Playlist

F3 : Library view

F4 : Track View

Kew music player running in the terminal

F5 : Search view

F6 : Help

Press F6 to get the keyboard shortcuts info

Key bindings

If you decided to use Kew regularly, it would be much better to use and remember various keyboard shortcuts. You can surely configure your own.

Press F6 and it will show the key bindings:

• + (or =), keys to adjust the volume.

• ←, → or h, l keys to switch tracks.

• space, p to toggle pause.

• F2 or Shift + z to show/hide the playlist.

• F3 or Shift + x to show/hide the library.

• F4 or Shift + c to show/hide the track view.

• F5 or Shift + v to search.

• F6 or Shift + b to show/hide key bindings.

• u to update the library.

• v to toggle the spectrum visualizer.

• i to switch between using your regular color scheme or colors derived from the track cover.

• b to toggle album covers drawn in ascii or as a normal image.

• r to repeat the current song.

• s to shuffle the playlist.

• a to seek back.

• d to seek forward.

• x to save the currently loaded playlist to a m3u file in your music folder.

• Tab to switch between views.

• gg go to first song.

• number + G, g or Enter, go to specific song number in the playlist.

• g go to last song.

• . to add current song to kew.m3u (run with "kew .").

• Esc to quit.

Conclusion

There are several terminal audio players like Cmus, MOC - Music on Console, Musikcube, etc. Kew can be placed in this list of terminal tools.

Written in C, with a small memory blueprint, Kew is worth trying for a terminal dweller.

If you give it a try, do share its experience in the comments.

Author Info

Jose Antonio Tenés
A Communication engineer by education, and Linux user by passion. In my spare time, I play chess, do you dare?

by: Abhishek Prakash

You want to be good at Linux? Start using it. Linux doesn't get easier. You get better at it.

The more you use it as your daily driver, the more you explore it and the more you learn. You won't even realize how much you have improved from day zero 💪

💬 Let's see what else you get in this edition

• New LibreOffice and ONLYOFFICE releases.

• DeepSeek making its way into a Linux terminal.

• New EndeavourOS release

• And other Linux news, tips and, of course, memes!

• This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by Internxt.

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📰 Linux and Open Source News

• EndeavourOS Mercury shows up as a modest release.

• DeepSeek support lands in the latest Warp Terminal release.

• Proxmox has been made a toplevel platform for Fedora CoreOS.

• The Open Euro LLM initiative is Europe's bet on achieving transparent AI.

• LibreOffice 25.2 and ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.3 have arrived with many notable improvements.

KDE Plasma 6.3 arrives with some digital artist-focused changes.

KDE Plasma 6.3 Release Aims to Be the Ultimate Desktop for Digital Artists

KDE Plasma 6.3 has arrived with some pretty exciting changes for digital artists.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

After the recent Linux kernel drama, a new policy has been introduced for Rust.

After Recent Kernel Drama, Rust for Linux Policy Put in Place

The recent Linux kernel drama over Rust code has resulted in the creation of a Rust kernel policy.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Dual-booted and now Windows is not showing in Grub? You can fix that.

• Installing Arch Linux with BTRFS and disk encryption is fairly straightforward.

• If you are not up for that, why not get started with Fedora for your next distrohop?

Here are some elementary but necessary tips on using the Linux commands in terminal.

19 Basic But Essential Linux Terminal Tips You Must Know

Learn some small, basic but often ignored things about the terminal. With the small tips, you should be able to use the terminal with slightly more efficiency.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

Ditch the cloud with these five local AI tools for image creation.

Tailscale makes SSHing into your Raspberry Pi simple and secure.

SSH into Raspberry Pi from Outside Home Network Using Tailscale

Learn how you can use Tailscale to secure connect to your Raspberry Pi from outside your home network.

It's FOSSAbhishek Kumar

✨ Apps highlight

Feeling the winds change? Time to check out a cool open source weather app. 🌤️

Another day, another IDE with AI features. Flexpilot joins the list.

Flexpilot is an Open Source IDE for AI-Assisted Coding Experience 🚀

Flexpilot is almost like VS Code, only a bit better with built-in AI features. Learn why I created it and how you can use it.

It's FOSSCommunity

🛍️ Deal You Would Love

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📽️ Video I am Creating for You

Subscribe to It's FOSS YouTube Channel

🧩 Quiz Time

In the most intelligent photo ever taken, do you know all the people?

The Most Intelligent Photo for Curious Minds

Did you know about the individuals in this photo? We help you here.

It's FOSSAnkush Das

💡 Quick Handy Tip

In KDE Plasma, you can assign a temporary shortcut to a window so that you can bring it to the foreground when needed. For this, right-click on the title bar of the required window and select More Actions → Set Window Shortcut…

Now, enter a shortcut by activating the desired keyboard shortcut combination and press OK.

And, that's it. Now you can see that the title of the window is modified to show the new temporary window shortcut. Use the keyboard shortcut combination to bring the window to the foreground.

🤣 Meme of the Week

The clock's ticking, Windows 10 users! ⏰

🗓️ Tech Trivia

On February 10, 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue became the first computer to defeat a reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, in a single game. Kasparov won the match 4–2.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

Have you heard of the Haiku Project? It is an open source operating system that focuses on personal computing. Join other FOSSers in the discussion over it!

Haiku Project looks interesting!

So, there’s this other OS, it’s not Linux, nor a *BSD. It’s Haiku. A continuation of BeOS, which was meant as a competitor to Windows, it has quite some interesting features. It boots fast, REALLY fast, and I only tried its live mode in a VM! Yes, it’s rough around the edges (that’s why it hasn’t got a 1.0 yet), but already it looks promising. Its GUI is really responsive and looks and behaves quite different than the Windows or MacOS-esque GUIs, so takes some getting used to. So, what do you…

It's FOSS Communityxahodo

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Enjoy FOSS 😄

by: Abhishek Kumar

Earlier, I shared how you can use Cloudflare Tunnels to access Raspberry Pi outside your home network.

A few readers suggested using Tailscale. And indeed, this is a handy tool if your aim is to ssh into your Raspberry Pi securely from outside your home network.

In this article, I'll be covering how you can use Tailscale VPN to remotely connect to your Raspberry Pi without the hassle of complicated network setups.

What is Tailscale?

Tailscale is a zero-config VPN built on the WireGuard protocol, designed to securely connect devices across different networks as if they were on the same local network.

It simplifies private networking by establishing a mesh VPN that routes traffic between your devices, no matter where they are.

Tailscale is available for multiple platforms, including Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, and embedded devices like the Raspberry Pi, making it a versatile solution for remote access.

How Tailscale Works

At the heart of Tailscale is WireGuard, a fast and modern VPN protocol.

Tailscale uses this protocol to create encrypted connections between your devices, while managing all the networking complexities behind the scenes.

Its key mechanics include:

• Mesh Networking: Devices in your Tailscale network (or "tailnet") connect directly to each other where possible, creating a mesh of encrypted connections.

• End-to-End Encryption: All traffic is encrypted from one device to another, ensuring privacy and security.

• NAT Traversal: Tailscale automatically handles NAT traversal and firewall configurations, so you don’t need to worry about setting up port forwarding or exposing services.

• Auto-Routing: Once your devices are connected to the tailnet, Tailscale automatically routes traffic between them as needed.

This makes it an excellent option for remotely accessing your Raspberry Pi or any other device, eliminating the hassle of configuring VPNs, firewalls, or DNS settings.

Installing Tailscale on Raspberry Pi

Tailscale can be installed easily on any Linux-based system, including the Raspberry Pi. Here’s how to set it up:

Update your system:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install Tailscale:

curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh

Authenticate and connect to Tailscale:

sudo tailscale up

This command will generate a URL. Open this URL in your browser to log in with your Tailscale account. Once authenticated, your Raspberry Pi will be connected to your tailnet.

Access Your Raspberry Pi: Once your Pi is part of the tailnet, you can access it remotely using its Tailscale IP address.

ssh pi@<tailscale-ip>

Setting Up Your Tailscale Network (Tailnet)

Once you’ve created your Tailscale account, you’ll need to set up your tailnet and connect devices to it.

Tailnet Creation: The good news is that Tailscale automatically creates a tailnet for you when you log in.

There's no need for manual network setup just install Tailscale on your devices and they’ll join the same tailnet.

Tailnet IP Addresses: Every device that joins your tailnet gets its own private, secure IP address.

These IP addresses are assigned automatically by Tailscale and can be used to remotely access your devices.

Managing Devices: Once a device joins your tailnet, you can view and manage it from the Tailscale web dashboard.

From here, you can see the connection status, IP address, and name of each device. You can also remove devices or disable connections if needed.

With your tailnet set up, you’re ready to access your Raspberry Pi from anywhere in the world, securely and without any complicated network configurations.

Pricing

Tailscale offers a straightforward pricing structure, starting with a Free Tier that supports up to 100 devices and includes all the key features needed for secure remote access—no credit card required.

For users needing more, the Personal Pro plan is $5 per user per month, with unlimited devices and 1 subnet router, while the Business Plan at $10 per user per month adds advanced features like ACLs and more subnet routers.

The Enterprise Plan offers custom solutions for larger networks.

For most personal projects, the Free Tier provides everything you need to get started easily.

Conclusion

Tailscale offers a simple solution for those needing simple, secure remote access to their Raspberry Pi or any other device.

By leveraging WireGuard for fast and encrypted connections, and simplifying the complexities of VPN setup, Tailscale allows you to focus more on your projects and less on network configuration.

The ease of installation, makes it an excellent choice for beginners, developers, and home automation enthusiasts alike.

If you have any suggestions for other apps or services you’d like us to cover, or if you want to share what systems you use for remote access, feel free to comment below! We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

by: Sreenath

On our Arch installation video, a viewer requested a tutorial on installing Arch but with BTRFS and with encryption enabled.

And hence this tutorial came into existence.

I am using the official archinstall script. Though a command line tool, this guided installer allows even a moderate system user to enjoy the "greatness" of Arch Linux.

🚧

The method discussed here wipes out the existing operating system(s) from your computer and installs Arch Linux on it. So if you are going to follow this tutorial, make sure that you have backed up your files externally, or else you’ll lose all of them. You have been warned!

Requirements

Here's what I recommend for this tutorial:

• An x86_64 (i.e. 64 bit) compatible machine

• Minimum 2 GB of RAM (recommended 4-8 GB, depending upon the desktop environment or window manager you choose)

• At least 10 GB of free disk space (recommended 20 GB for basic usage with a desktop environment)

• An active internet connection

• A USB drive with a minimum 4 GB of storage capacity

• Familiarity with the Linux command line

Once you have made sure you have all the requirements, let’s install Arch Linux.

Step 1: Download the Arch Linux ISO

Download the ISO from the official website. Both direct download and torrent links are available.

Download Arch Linux

Step 2: Create a live USB of Arch Linux

You will have to create a live USB of Arch Linux from the ISO you just downloaded.

You may use the Etcher GUI tool to create the live USB. It is available for both Windows and Linux.

Etcher Live USB creation

Alternatively, if you are on Linux, you can use the dd command to create a live USB. Replace /path/to/archlinux.iso with the path where you have downloaded the ISO file, and /dev/sdx with your USB drive in the example below. You can get your drive information using lsblk command.

dd bs=4M if=/path/to/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx status=progress && sync

Basically, choose any live USB creation tool you like.

Step 3: Boot from the live USB

🚧

Do note that in some cases, you may not be able to boot from live USB with secure boot enabled. If that’s the case with you, disable secure boot first.

Once you have created a live USB for Arch Linux, shut down your PC. Plug in your USB and boot your system. While booting, keep pressing F2, F10 or F12 key (depending upon your system) to access UEFI boot settings.

Here, select to boot from USB or removable disk. Once you do that and the system boots, you should see an option like this:

UEFI Boot Screen

Select Arch Linux UEFI (x86_64) option to start the live medium.

📋

Legacy BIOS users should select the x86_64 BIOS option.

Step 4: Connect to Wi-Fi

You need an active internet connection for installing Arch Linux.

If you have wired connection, good. Else, you need to make some effort to connect to your Wi-Fi before starting the archinstall script.

First, in the Arch Linux live prompt, enter the command:

iwctl

This Internet Wireless daemon control is used to enrol Wi-Fi connection to your system. As soon as you enter the command, you can see that the prompt has changed to iwd.

Here, you need to list devices to get the name of your wireless hardware device.

List network devices

In the above screenshot, you can see the name of my Wi-Fi device is wlan0.

Now, use this device to scan available Wi-Fi connections in the vicinity.

station wlan0 scan
station wlan0 get-networks

Connect to a Wi-Fi

This will print the name of the Wi-Fi services available. Note the “Network Name”.

To connect to the network, use the command:

station wlan0 connect "Network Name"

This will ask you to enter the Wi-Fi password. Enter it and you should be now connected to internet.

Exit the iwd prompt using CTRL+D.

You can check if the network is functioning using the ping command:

ping google.com

Ping Google

Step 5: Pacman download settings

Before starting the archinstall script, let's change the download limit of pacman.

Edit the pacman configuration using:

nano /etc/pacman.conf

Here, uncomment the parellelDownload option and set a value according to your internet speed.

If you have a decent internet speed, set the parallel download count to 10.

📋

On my test system, I needed to run pacman -Sy and then pacman -S archlinux-keyring (install Arch Linux keyrings) before starting the installer. Otherwise, the installer crashed with some errors.
You may also need to read carefully what the prompt error says.

Step 6: Start Archinstall script

With the network connection ready, let's start the archinstall script with the command below:

archinstall

This will start the text-based arch installation script.

Archinstall script

Set the installation language

The first setting in the installer is the installation language. This option sets what language is used in the Terminal User Interface.

The latest archinstall provides a percentage value corresponding to each language, that describes how much translation has been completed.

Installation language

I will be going with the default English.

Locale Settings

You should set your locale and keyboard settings. Here, if you are OK with the defaults, you can skip to the next setting.

💡

Some programs like Rofi launcher may not launch if your locale is different from en_US. So, adding en_US as a locale is a good thing to avoid future headaches.

Set keyboard and locale settings

To change a setting, press the enter key to go inside and select individual items.

Inside locale settings

Mirror settings

Press the enter key on the Mirrors in the main menu of archinstall script. This will bring you to the mirror selection section.

Enter the Mirror Region.

Select the Mirror Region option.

This will provide a list of countries. You can select a country near your location for a faster network.

Mirror Countries (Click to expand the image)

💡

Use the "/" key to start a search. TAB key to select/mark an entry. Once multiple entries are marked, use the ENTER key to set those countries as mirrors.

The mirrors from selected countries will be listed. Move to “Back” and click enter.

Country-wise mirror list

Disk Configuration

Now, you need to partition your disk. The archinstall has a neat mechanism to help you here.

On the main menu, select “Disk Partition”. Inside this, select “Partitioning”.

Select Partitioning option

Here, use the option “Use a best-effort default partition layout”.

Best-effort partitioning

In the next dialog, use the TAB key to select your hard disk device and press the ENTER key.

Select Disk

Choose a partition type. Here, I am going with BTRFS partition. You can pick EXT4, a very well-tested file system, or XFS, f2fs etc.

Select BTRFS File System

On the next screen, you will be asked to use a default subvolume structure or not.

Let's say you select “Yes”.

Create Subvolumes True

You will be asked to pick compression or disable copy-on-write. It is advised to select Compression, to enable a Zstd compression.

Use Compression option

This will create a partition for you, with subvolumes for /, /home, /var/log, /var/cache/pacman/pkg, and /.snapshots.

Subvolume listing (Click to expand the image)

📋

Subvolumes are beneficial for users who want a granular control and use features like snapshots extensively.

If you are using a simple system, and not going to use such features, you can choose to avoid the subvolumes.

For this, pick “No” for BTRFS default subvolumes.

Subvolume choice

On the next screen, you should select “Use Compression” option.

Thus, you will get a simple partition for the system.

Simple no-subvolume partition.

Use the "Back" button to go to the installer main menu.

Disk Encryption

🚧

Disk encryption may introduce slight performance delay to the system. If your system is a casual home PC or an alternative system with no critical data, you can ignore the encryption.

Select the Disk Encryption option from the main menu. On the dialog box, select Encryption type and pick LUKS.

This will enable two other fields; Encryption password and Partition.

Fill the fields. Select the partitions that need to be encrypted using the TAB key.

Encryption overview (Click to expand the image)

🚧

Do not forget the encryption password. If you do, you'll lose access to the data on disk and formatting the entire operating system will be the only option for you.

Swap

Swap on zram is enabled by default in the installer. If needed, you can disable it.

Bootloader

By default, it is set to systemd-boot. This is a simple bootloader for those who expect simplicity.

If you require familar functionality, go for GRUB bootloader.

Select Grub Bootloader

Hostname

You can configure hostname here. By default, it is archlinux.

Root password

Next is Root password. Select it using enter key. Then enter and confirm a strong root password.

Root Password Setting

User creation

It is important to create a regular user account other than root account. This is for day-to-day purposes.

On User section, select "Add a user" option.

Click on "Add a user"

Here, enter the username.

Enter username

Now, enter a password.

Password for user

Confirm it by entering again when prompted. You will be asked whether the user a superuser or not.

Make the created user superuser (administrative privileges) by selecting the “Yes” option.

Admin privileges to regular user

Now, use the "Confirm and exit" option.

Exit user creation

Profile (Desktop selection)

The “Profile” field in the installer is where we will set desktop environments.

Select Profile → Type. Here, select the Desktop option.

Select Desktop Option

On the next screen, select a desktop (desktops) using the TAB key and press enter.

🚧

Try to avoid installing multiple heavy desktops in one system. Like KDE Plasma and GNOME in one system is not recommended.

Select GNOME Desktop

💡

You can choose one desktop like GNOME/Plasma and then choose one tiling window manager, making it install two desktop options.

Selecting a desktop and pressing enter will bring you to the driver selection settings.

For the test system, the installer automatically assigned all open-source drivers.

Driver packages

You can enter the “Graphics driver” settings and decide appropriate driver packs.

Available drivers are listed

Normally, you should not be doing anything on the greeter, as it will be automatically selected (GDM for GNOME, SDDM for KDE Plasma etc.)

Audio settings

For Audio settings, you can select Pipewire or pulse audio.

Select Pipewire

Kernel

You can either go with the default Linux kernel or select multiple kernels. Learn more about kernel options in Arch Linux.

The screenshot below shows two kernels selected, linux and linux-lts.

Kernel selection

Network Configuration

In the Network Configuration settings, select "Use NetworkManager" option.

Use NetworkManager

Additional Packages

If you need to install additional packages to your system, you can do it at the installation stage itself.

Press enter key on “Additional package” option in main menu.

Now, just enter the proper name of the packages you want to install, separated with space.

In the screenshot below, packages like firefox, htop, fastfetch, and starship are added.

Specify additional packages

Optional Repositories

You can enable multilib repositories using this setting. Select items using the TAB key and press enter. Learn about various Arch repos here.

Additional Repositories

Timezone

Search and set the timezone based on your location. Asia/Kolkata for Indian Standard Time, US/Central for central timezone etc.

Timezone settings

Automatic Time Sync with NTP will be automatically enabled, and no need to change.

Start the actual install

Once all the settings have been done, you can use the Install option to start the installation procedure.

Use Install button

You will be asked to verify the installation configurations you have set. Once satisfied, enter on “Yes” option.

Confirm installation (Click to expand the image)

The process will be started, and you need to wait for some time to finish all the downloads and installations.

Step 6: Post Installation

Once the archinstall script finishes, it will ask you to chroot into the system for further settings. You can give NO to the question if you have nothing planned to do.

No chroot enter

You can now shut down the system.

shutdown now

Shutdown the system

Once the system is shut down, remove the USB device from the port and boot the system.

This will bring you to the encryption page, if you have enabled encryption. Enter the password you have set.

Enter encryption password

You will reach the login page. Enter the password to log in to your system.

Log in to the system

Enjoy Arch Linux with BTRFS and encrypted drive.

by: Abhishek Prakash
Thu, 02 Jan 2025 06:11:30 GMT

Happy new year 2025 🥳

The Tuxmas Days continue in full swing. Main highlights are:

Tuxmas Day 3 introduced the new commenting system. You'll see it in action when you leave a comment on the website.

Tuxmas Day 4 introduced the lifetime membership option. Instead of a recurring fee, you get the Plus membership forever with a single payment of $76 till 7th January. After that it will be $99. If you wanted to support It's FOSS with Plus membership, this would be the best time and chance 🙏

Tuxmas Day 5 has Linux Terminal and Bash series converted into downloadable PDF eBook.

Follow the entire Tuxmas series here. And your feedback is greatly appreciated.

💬 Let's see what else you get in this edition

• Serpent OS's alpha release.

• An open source 3D printer.

• Rediscovering an operating system.

• And other Linux news, videos and, of course, memes!

📰 Linux and Open Source News

• Serpent OS Alpha is out for testing with new hardware support.

• GNOME's new image viewer is set to receive some handy upgrades.

• A new open source 3D printer has appeared, can be built using off-the-shelf parts.

• NVIDIA says that it will open source Run:ai, a platform that it is said to have acquired for $700M.

And finally, open source tools are adding AI features. Better late than never.

Kdenlive is Adding an AI Background Removal Tool

You can easily remove backgrounds with this new tool.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

What's your new year resolution?

My Linux and Open Source Resolutions for 2025

Here’s what I have decided for 2025. What are your resolutions?

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

Ankush's favorite distro of 2024 is one that you might not have expected.

My Favorite Linux Distro for 2024 is Not Ubuntu, Not Mint, It’s This

Revealing my favorite Linux distribution before 2024 ends.

It's FOSS NewsAnkush Das

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Start 2025 with some good note-taking apps.

• If you were looking to distro hop, you could take ArchBang Linux for a run.

• Following that, you could learn how to use the apt search and apt show commands in Ubuntu.

And if you are still unfamiliar with the Linux command line, use the new year motivation and get acquainted with the essentials in this series.

Linux Command Line Introduction [Free Course]

Want to know the basics of the Linux command line? Here’s a tutorial series with a hands-on approach.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

Your homelab will thank you for using a dashboard tool to manage it effectively.

Imagine that the genius minds like Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan and Bjarne Stroustrup collaborated on a new operating system and yet it flopped.

Rediscovering Plan9 from Bell Labs

An OS that was developed by the likes of Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Bjarne Stroustrup and yet it did not achieve the success.

It's FOSSBill Dyer

📹 Videos we are watching

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, too

✨ Discover handy tools

A dope looking GUI-based system monitor for Linux.

NeoHtop - Modern System Monitor

A beautiful, efficient system monitor built with Rust and Svelte. Monitor processes, CPU, and memory usage in real-time.

NeoHtopYour Name

🧩 Quiz Time

Call yourself a terminal junkie? Find the wrong paths with this puzzle.

Find The Wrong Path

Spot what’s wrong, and solve the quizzes!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

If that's too tricky, then you can try your hand at the Essential Ubuntu Shortcuts puzzle.

💡 Quick Handy Tip

In a terminal, you might already know that you can select a word by double-clicking on it.

However, if you hold the Shift key and left-click on another word after that, all the text between the first and last selected text will also be highlighted. No need to manually drag the cursor to select those.

It may not work in all the terminal emulators (i.e. terminal applications).

🤣 Meme of the Week

Oh, that would be something. 🤌 ✨

🗓️ Tech Trivia

On December 31, 1889, American Bell reorganized and transferred its assets to AT&T to bypass Massachusetts laws. By becoming the parent company, AT&T took control of the Bell System. This move eventually led to AT&T becoming a legalized monopoly in the U.S.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

What was your favorite distro in 2024? Join other FOSSers and share yours!

What’s your favourite Linux distro? Why do you use that one?

You have to move with the times. When you retire you may have the luxury of doing it your way. Snaps are like static binaries, but with some extra crud to fit them into the package system. I dont see why they should startup slowly… there must be some clunky scripts involved. A static binary is large, but not so large that it would affect load time. I have one app (keenwrite) that comes as a static binary… it loads quite fast and my machine is rather like your Dell with early corei7 and…

It's FOSS Communitynevj

❤️ With love

Share it with your Linux-using friends and encourage them to subscribe (hint: it's here).

Share the articles in Linux Subreddits and community forums.

Follow us on Google News and stay updated in your News feed.

Opt for It's FOSS Plus membership and support us 🙏

Enjoy using Linux in 2025 🐧

by: Abhishek Prakash
Thu, 02 Jan 2025 06:11:30 GMT

Happy new year 2025 🥳

The Tuxmas Days continue in full swing. Main highlights are:

Tuxmas Day 3 introduced the new commenting system. You'll see it in action when you leave a comment on the website.

Tuxmas Day 4 introduced the lifetime membership option. Instead of a recurring fee, you get the Plus membership forever with a single payment of $76 till 7th January. After that it will be $99. If you wanted to support It's FOSS with Plus membership, this would be the best time and chance 🙏

Tuxmas Day 5 has Linux Terminal and Bash series converted into downloadable PDF eBook.

Follow the entire Tuxmas series here. And your feedback is greatly appreciated.

💬 Let's see what else you get in this edition

• Serpent OS's alpha release.

• An open source 3D printer.

• Rediscovering an operating system.

• And other Linux news, videos and, of course, memes!

📰 Linux and Open Source News

• Serpent OS Alpha is out for testing with new hardware support.

• GNOME's new image viewer is set to receive some handy upgrades.

• A new open source 3D printer has appeared, can be built using off-the-shelf parts.

• NVIDIA says that it will open source Run:ai, a platform that it is said to have acquired for $700M.

And finally, open source tools are adding AI features. Better late than never.

Kdenlive is Adding an AI Background Removal Tool

You can easily remove backgrounds with this new tool.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

What's your new year resolution?

My Linux and Open Source Resolutions for 2025

Here’s what I have decided for 2025. What are your resolutions?

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

Ankush's favorite distro of 2024 is one that you might not have expected.

My Favorite Linux Distro for 2024 is Not Ubuntu, Not Mint, It’s This

Revealing my favorite Linux distribution before 2024 ends.

It's FOSS NewsAnkush Das

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials and More

• Start 2025 with some good note-taking apps.

• If you were looking to distro hop, you could take ArchBang Linux for a run.

• Following that, you could learn how to use the apt search and apt show commands in Ubuntu.

And if you are still unfamiliar with the Linux command line, use the new year motivation and get acquainted with the essentials in this series.

Linux Command Line Introduction [Free Course]

Want to know the basics of the Linux command line? Here’s a tutorial series with a hands-on approach.

It's FOSSAbhishek Prakash

👷 Maker's and AI Corner

Your homelab will thank you for using a dashboard tool to manage it effectively.

Imagine that the genius minds like Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan and Bjarne Stroustrup collaborated on a new operating system and yet it flopped.

Rediscovering Plan9 from Bell Labs

An OS that was developed by the likes of Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Bjarne Stroustrup and yet it did not achieve the success.

It's FOSSBill Dyer

📹 Videos we are watching

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, too

✨ Discover handy tools

A dope looking GUI-based system monitor for Linux.

NeoHtop - Modern System Monitor

A beautiful, efficient system monitor built with Rust and Svelte. Monitor processes, CPU, and memory usage in real-time.

NeoHtopYour Name

🧩 Quiz Time

Call yourself a terminal junkie? Find the wrong paths with this puzzle.

Find The Wrong Path

Spot what’s wrong, and solve the quizzes!

It's FOSSAnkush Das

If that's too tricky, then you can try your hand at the Essential Ubuntu Shortcuts puzzle.

💡 Quick Handy Tip

In a terminal, you might already know that you can select a word by double-clicking on it.

However, if you hold the Shift key and left-click on another word after that, all the text between the first and last selected text will also be highlighted. No need to manually drag the cursor to select those.

It may not work in all the terminal emulators (i.e. terminal applications).

🤣 Meme of the Week

Oh, that would be something. 🤌 ✨

🗓️ Tech Trivia

On December 31, 1889, American Bell reorganized and transferred its assets to AT&T to bypass Massachusetts laws. By becoming the parent company, AT&T took control of the Bell System. This move eventually led to AT&T becoming a legalized monopoly in the U.S.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 FOSSverse Corner

What was your favorite distro in 2024? Join other FOSSers and share yours!

What’s your favourite Linux distro? Why do you use that one?

You have to move with the times. When you retire you may have the luxury of doing it your way. Snaps are like static binaries, but with some extra crud to fit them into the package system. I dont see why they should startup slowly… there must be some clunky scripts involved. A static binary is large, but not so large that it would affect load time. I have one app (keenwrite) that comes as a static binary… it loads quite fast and my machine is rather like your Dell with early corei7 and…

It's FOSS Communitynevj

❤️ With love

Share it with your Linux-using friends and encourage them to subscribe (hint: it's here).

Share the articles in Linux Subreddits and community forums.

Follow us on Google News and stay updated in your News feed.

Opt for It's FOSS Plus membership and support us 🙏

Enjoy using Linux in 2025 🐧