It’s kinda easy to miss that ArchLinux can be installed by a remote machine using SSH. After booting your USB live drive you can run:

# Set up a password for root
$ passwd

# Uncomment or add "PermitRootLogin yes" to /etc/ssh/sshd_config
$ vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

# Start the SSH server
$ systemctl start sshd.service

# Check your local IP
$ ip addr

Now you can access using ssh root@yourip from any other machines. Among the advantages: copy/paste commands directly from the Installation Guide.

Source

So you want some HW acceleration on your browser, uh?

It’s pretty straightforward to get a patched version of Chromium that has it, but it requires some steps.

The following instructions works for pretty new GPUs, you may want to have a look at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hardware_video_acceleration for a complete overview.

1. Installing VA API:

   
   # Intel
   $ sudo pacman -S intel-media-driver libva-utils
      
   # AMD:
   $ sudo pacman -S libva-mesa-driver libva-utils
      
   

2. Enabling the correct VA driver:

   Add this to /etc/environment:

      
   # AMD
   LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=radeonsi
      
   # Intel
   LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=iHD
      
   

3. Reboot

4. Check if VA-API is working:

      
   $ vainfo
      
   

5. Add archlinuxcn repo to Pacman. Edit /etc/pacman.conf to add this:

      
   [archlinuxcn]
   Server = https://repo.archlinuxcn.org/$arch
      
   

   Then to trust their signatures:

      
   $ sudo pacman -S archlinuxcn-keyring
      
   

6. Now you can install the patched Chromium:

   
   $ sudo pacman -S chromium-vaapi
   
   

7. And add these flags to ~/.config/chromium-flags.conf:

      
   --ignore-gpu-blacklist
   --enable-gpu-rasterization
   --enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers
   --enable-zero-copy
      
   

8. Done!

Everytime you update your kernel using Pacman, the older kernel’s files are removed. This lead some stuff to stop working, e.g. VirtualBox, Docker, USB serials, etc.. The only thing you can do is just reboot so the new version of the kernel will be used.

I discovered a simple hook, installable from the AUR that prevents that:

$ yay -S kernel-modules-hook

it basically backups your kernel before the update, and restores it afterward. That’s all it takes.