Installing ArchLinux as Host on Virutalbox

These are the following steps I followed to setup a minimal ArchLinux installation. The detailed instructions are present at the excellent wiki of Arch.

1. Downloaded the latest Net Install Image via torrent.
2. Created a 512MB and 16GB Virtual Drive in VirtualBox 5.1
3. Followed the steps to complete a minimal installation.
4. On reboot, I tried to install openbox with the command pacman -S openbox which failed with error: 
1. error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db: failed to open '/var/lib/pacman/sync/extra/db'...
5. I ran the following command: pacman -Syy
6. Create an account using: adduser
1. Give the addional groups as 'audio,lp,optical,storage,video,wheel,games,power,scanner'
7. Now I was able to get the option
8. Do a system update: pacman -Syu
9. Installing LXDE 
1. # pacman -S lxde
2. Copying the config files to 
10. Installing slim
1. # pacman -S slim
11. After some command line fun, I eventually decided to install wicd for network management.

Post these steps I had a working after configuring /etc/rc.conf to include the services I need to run on boot.

Setup Bitbucket using SSH on Ubuntu

Bitbucket is a good alternate to Github which provides free unlimited private hosting upto 5 collaborators. It uses Mercurial which is DVCS.

I prefer SSH over HTTP to access work on my repository. The steps to setup are as follows:

1. Signup on Bitbucket (Obviously)
2. Create a repository after login using Repository -> Create New Repository
3. Install mercurial on your local system

sudo apt-get install mercurial

4. Create the Mercurial Configuration File
1. vi ~/.hgrc

[ui]
editor = vi
username = FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME <email>

5. Create SSH Key if not present on your local system  using the following steps
1. ssh-keygen
2. The generated key files are stored under ~/.ssh
6. Upload the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to Bitbucket under Account -> SSH Keys
7. Setup the Key in Ubuntu

chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
ssh-agent bash
ssh-add

8. Now clone the repository from remote server

hg clone ssh://hg@bitbucket.org/<username>/<repository>

9. To add and commit code use the following commands

hg add <file/folder>
hg commit -m '<commit message>'
hg push

 

A very good reference for basic Mercurial is

http://hgbook.red-bean.com/read/mercurial-in-daily-use.html