Start installing - Establish an internet connection

This document is from the Installation section of the Beginners Guide. It shows how to connect to the internet using the Parabola live media. After connecting to the internet, the Installation Guide (online link) can be followed to complete the installation.

Contents

Installation

You are now presented with a shell prompt, automatically logged in as root.

Change the language

Tip: These are optional for the majority of users. Useful only if you plan on writing in your own language in any of the configuration files, if you use diacritical marks in the Wi-Fi password, or if you would like to receive system messages (e.g. possible errors) in your own language.

By default, the keyboard layout is set to us. If you have a non-US keyboard layout, run:

# loadkeys layout

...where layout can be fr, uk, be-latin1, etc. See here for a comprehensive list.

The font should also be changed, because most languages use more glyphs than the 26 letter English alphabet. Otherwise some foreign characters may show up as white squares or as other symbols. Note that the name is case-sensitive, so please type it exactly as you see it:

# setfont Lat2-Terminus16

By default, the language is set to English (US). If you would like to change the language for the install process (German, in this example), remove the # in front of the locale you want from /etc/locale.gen, along with English (US). Please choose the UTF-8 entry.

Use Ctrl+X to exit, and when prompted to save changes, press Y and Enter to use the same filename.

# nano /etc/locale.gen
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8# locale-gen
# export LANG=de_DE.UTF-8

Remember, LAlt+LShift activates and deactivates the keymap.

Establish an internet connection

Warning: udev no longer assigns network interface names according to the wlanX and ethX naming scheme. If you're coming from a different distribution or are reinstalling Parabola and not aware of the new interface naming style, please do not assume that your wireless interface is named wlan0, or that your wired interface is named eth0. You can use the "ip" utility to discover the names of your interfaces.

From systemd-197's release and onward, udev now assigns predictable, stable network interface names that deviate from the legacy incremental naming scheme (wlan0, wlan1, etc.). These interface names are guaranteed to be persistent across reboots, which solves the problem of the lack of predictability of network interface name assignment. For more information about why this was necessary, read http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/PredictableNetworkInterfaceNames .

The dhcpcd network daemon is started automatically at boot and it will attempt to start a wired connection, if available. Try pinging a website to see if it was successful. And since Google is always on...

# ping -c 3 www.google.com
PING www.l.google.com (74.125.132.105) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from wb-in-f105.1e100.net (74.125.132.105): icmp_req=1 ttl=50 time=17.0 ms
64 bytes from wb-in-f105.1e100.net (74.125.132.105): icmp_req=2 ttl=50 time=18.2 ms
64 bytes from wb-in-f105.1e100.net (74.125.132.105): icmp_req=3 ttl=50 time=16.6 ms

--- www.l.google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 16.660/17.320/18.254/0.678 ms

If you get a ping: unknown host error, first check if there is any problem with your cable (or if you have enough wireless signal), otherwise you will need to set up the network manually, as explained below.

Otherwise, move on to Prepare the storage drive.

Wired

Follow this procedure if you need to set up a wired connection via a static IP address.

First, identify the name of your ethernet interface.

# ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp2s0f0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:11:25:31:69:20 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlp3s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DORMANT qlen 1000
    link/ether 01:02:03:04:05:06 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

In this case, the ethernet interface is enp2s0f0. If you're unsure, your ethernet interface is likely to start with the letter "e", and unlikely to be "lo" or start with the letter "w". You can also use iwconfig and see which interfaces are not wireless:

# iwconfig
enp2s0f0  no wireless extensions.
wlp3s0    IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"NETGEAR97"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.427 GHz  Access Point: 2C:B0:5D:9C:72:BF   
          Bit Rate=65 Mb/s   Tx-Power=16 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=61/70  Signal level=-49 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:430   Missed beacon:0
lo        no wireless extensions.

In this example, neither enp2s0f0 nor the loopback device have wireless extensions, meaning enp2s0f0 is our ethernet interface.

You also need to know these settings:

Activate the connected Ethernet interface (e.g. enp2s0f0):

# ip link set enp2s0f0 up

Add the address:

# ip addr add <ip address>/<subnetmask> dev <interface>

For example:

# ip addr add 192.168.1.2/24 dev enp2s0f0

For more options, run man ip.

Add your gateway like this, substituting your own gateway's IP address:

# ip route add default via <ip address>

For example:

# ip route add default via 192.168.1.1

Edit resolv.conf, substituting your name servers' IP addresses and your local domain name:

# nano /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 61.23.173.5
nameserver 61.95.849.8
search example.com
Note: Currently, you may include a maximum of 3 nameserver lines.

You should now have a working network connection. If you do not, check the detailed Network Configuration page.

Wireless

Follow this procedure if you need wireless connectivity (Wi-Fi) during the installation process.

If you're coming from another distribution, or if this is your first time installing Parabola since the deprecation of the old interface naming scheme, you might be surprised to learn that the first wireless interface is not named "wlan0". In fact, none of the interfaces are automatically prefixed with "wlan" any longer. Don't panic; simply execute iwconfig to discover the name of your wireless interface.

The wireless drivers and utilities are now available to you in the live environment of the installation media. A good knowledge of your wireless hardware will be of key importance to successful configuration. Note that the following quick-start procedure executed at this point in the installation will initialize your wireless hardware for use in the live environment of the installation media. These steps (or some other form of wireless management) must be repeated from the actual installed system after booting into it.

Also note that these steps are optional if wireless connectivity is unnecessary at this point in the installation; wireless functionality may always be established later.

Note: The following examples use wlp3s0 for the interface and linksys for the ESSID. Remember to change these values according to your setup.

The basic procedure will be:

# lspci | grep -i net

Or, if using a USB adapter:

# lsusb
Note: If you do not see output similar to this, then your wireless driver has not been loaded. If this is the case, you must load the driver yourself. Please see Wireless Setup for more detailed information.
# iwconfig
enp2s0f0  no wireless extensions.
wlp3s0    IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"NETGEAR97"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.427 GHz  Access Point: 2C:B0:5D:9C:72:BF   
          Bit Rate=65 Mb/s   Tx-Power=16 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=61/70  Signal level=-49 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:430   Missed beacon:0
lo        no wireless extensions.

In this example, wlp3s0 is the available wireless interface.

# ip link set wlp3s0 up

A small percentage of wireless chipsets also require firmware, in addition to a corresponding driver. If the wireless chipset requires firmware, you are likely to receive this error when bringing the interface up:

# ip link set wlp3s0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

If unsure, invoke dmesg to query the kernel log for a firmware request from the wireless chipset.

Example output from an Intel chipset which requires and has requested firmware from the kernel at boot:

# dmesg | grep firmware
firmware: requesting iwlwifi-5000-1.ucode

If there is no output, it may be concluded that the system's wireless chipset does not require firmware.

Warning: Wireless chipset firmware packages (for cards which require them) are pre-installed under /usr/lib/firmware in the live environment (on CD/USB stick) but must be explicitly installed to your actual system to provide wireless functionality after you reboot into it! Package installation is covered later in this guide. Ensure installation of both your wireless module and firmware before rebooting! See Wireless Setup if you are unsure about the requirement of corresponding firmware installation for your particular chipset.

Next, use netcfg's wifi-menu to connect to a network:

# wifi-menu wlp3s0
Warning: At the moment, netcfg's wifi-menu, when executed without arguments, will look for "wlan0". Execute wifi-menu with your interface as the argument in order to use it.

You should now have a working network connection. If you do not, check the detailed Wireless Setup page.

xDSL (PPPoE), analog modem or ISDN

If you have a router in bridge mode, run:

# pppoe-setup

To use these settings and connect to your ISP, run:

# pppoe-start

You may also need to adjust your resolv.conf:

# echo nameserver 8.8.8.8 > /etc/resolv.conf

If you have a dial-up or ISDN connection, see Direct Modem Connection.

Behind a proxy server

If you are behind a proxy server, you will need to export the http_proxy and ftp_proxy environment variables. See Proxy settings for more information.