Migration from Arch - ParabolaWiki

# Migration from Arch

Free your Arch to Parabola!

## Complete migration

### Install Parabola keyring and mirror list

Note: If you haven't regenerated your pacman keyring since the upgrade to GnuPG 2.1, you're likely to encounter trouble with installing Parabola keyring, since that upgrade made the local master key unable to sign other keys. Start by generating a fresh keyring following https://www.parabola.nu/news/gnupg-21-and-the-pacman-keyring/

Disable signature verification manually by modifying the line in /etc/pacman.conf:

    RemoteFileSigLevel = Never

Install keyring and mirror list for free repositories in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist:

    # pacman -U https://www.parabola.nu/packages/libre/any/parabola-keyring/download/
    # pacman -U https://www.parabola.nu/packages/libre/any/pacman-mirrorlist/download/

Note: If this doesn't work, use any other available package mirror with each package. For example:

    # pacman -U https://repo.parabola.nu/pool/parabola/parabola-keyring-20160103-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
    # pacman -U https://repo.parabola.nu/pool/parabola/pacman-mirrorlist-20160130-1.parabola1-any.pkg.tar.xz

Reenable signature verification in /etc/pacman.conf:

    #RemoteFileSigLevel = Required

Rename mirrorlist.pacnew as mirrorlist:

    # cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.pacnew /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

### Replace Arch packages with Parabola ones

Add the [libre] repo before [core] in /etc/pacman.conf:

    [libre]
    Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

    [core]
    ...

Clean the pacman cache:

    # pacman -Scc

Force the database sync:

    # pacman -Syy

Update to libre packages:

    # pacman -S pacman
    # pacman -Suu

Tip: If you want to ignore extra prompts and accept all confirmations over replaced packages, you can optionally use --noconfirm
Note: If some of your packages have higher version than in Parabola repos they will be downgraded to lower version of libre packages to eliminate packages that are nonfree

Install your-freedom to remove nonfree packages that do not have libre replacements:

    # pacman -S your-freedom

### Update bootloader configuration

Please update either GRUB or Syslinux, but not both, as it would cause a kernel panic.

#### GRUB

For grub regenerate your grub.cfg file running:

    # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Tip: Check https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB for more information

#### Syslinux

Manually change following lines in /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg to reflect change:

    LABEL parabola
        MENU LABEL Parabola GNU/Linux-libre
        LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux-libre
        ...
        INITRD ../initramfs-linux-libre.img

    LABEL parabolafallback
        MENU LABEL Parabola GNU/Linux-libre Fallback
        LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux-libre
        ...
        INITRD ../initramfs-linux-libre-fallback.img

Alternatively you can remove the configuration file and reinstall syslinux.

Tip: Check https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Syslinux#Configuration for more information

#### Other

Tip: Check https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Boot_Loaders for more information

### Complete the migration

Restart your system - it should boot into Parabola.

## After installation

Welcome, you are now in Parabola! Do you encounter some hardware not working after installing your-freedom? This most likely means that there's no free driver or firmware available for the device (check dmesg). It's common for Wi-Fi cards to require a firmware to be loaded into the card. Many cards doesn't work at all if the firmware is missing. The firmware is often proprietary, thus we don't distribute it. It's the case for almost any internal Wi-Fi card.

The usual fix to the problem is either to replace the card or use an external USB Wi-Fi dongle. You can buy one with Atheros chipset (eg. ath9k_htc for external USB dongle or ath9k for PCI and PCI-Express expansion slots) or RTL818x chipset (eg. rtl8187 for external USB dongle or rtl818x_pci for PCI and PCI-Express expansion slots) since there is a free firmware for these Wi-Fi adapters. You can also search the h-node database to find Wi-Fi adapters known to work well with free software or scripts/deblob-$ver to check Wi-Fi adapters included from wifi device blacklist known to doesn't work with free software due which contains blobs from within exploded Linux source trees.

If you find any trouble applying these instructions please report it on our Bug Tracker, or if you find a better way, edit this wiki article!

## See also

- Migration from Arch ARM
- Migration from Manjaro

Categories:

- Getting and installing
- X86