Before I install Arch on bare metal...few questions

[Linux for blind general discussion]

So more questions that I didn't get around to asking earlier and thought 
of after sending that first message


1. I've run into this (mostly) on a VM, but is there an advantage of 
grub over system-d boot? I've never got a VM to boot using grub so I'm 
not sure how it'd afect bare metal


2. From an A-A11y perspective. I'm noting down what I need. Here's my 
current list

alsa-utils espeakup orca speech-dispatcher

Is that all I need for a working DE like Gnome or Mate, i.e. can I just 
install those four packages, dependencies, and and end up with a working 
system?

I don't really want to nuke my Solus install until I know Arch is 
working, but equally I don't want to overdo installing stuff and get 
swampd with a hundred updates every day for an extreme example. I've 
managed to pare it down to one or two with a lean, minimal system. 
Hopefully I can replicate that on bare metal


So given I've Solus on /dev/sda, and I put Arch on /dev/sdb for example, 
would I need to install Grub to be able to swap between the two 
installed OSes as needed? I'm not 100% sure if installing Grub as part 
of the Arch install will break being able to boot into Solus though

On 1/20/22 12:28, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 12:12:54AM +0000, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
>> So, as it says. I very much like my Arch VM.
>>
>> And I've done a ton of installs on a qemu VM, though I'm now thinking of
>> switching to bare metalso I can tweak my system how I want.
>>
>>
>> So....before I do this.
>>
>> 1. I'm worried something'll go wrong in the archinstall script, or the
>> manual install and nuke my (currently working) system
> if you are careful when partitioning the disk, then this will not happen.
>
>> 2. Will my USB headphones be connected out of the box or not? On a VM they
>> are but that doesn't mean a thing when it comes to bare metal
> I think yes. if not please email me at alex19ep at archlinux.org
>
>> 3. I have two machines, one's /dev/sda, which I'm assuming will likely
>> install fine, hopefully
>>
>>
>> THe other, a laptop, is /dev/nvme, which is what I'm worried about. Anything
>> special I need for Arch to install on an NVME?
> no. but I recommend to read archwiki page about nvme.
>
>> 4. Can I with two HDD, /dev/sda (my current Solus system)wor and /dev/sdb (a
>> 2.7T drive), install Arch on /dev/sdb and pick and choose which distro to
>> boot? I remember  way to do a console command to reboot and have Grub select
>> which to boot up, but I'm not sure if that's still a thing?
> sure you can. if you have efi, then it will be very simple.
>
>> 5. Was there ever a consensus on how often to do a pacman -Syyu in Arch?
> as often as you need it. the only problem is that if you do not update
> system for a very long time (for example, a year), then later it can
> be a little more difficult to do.
>
> --
> Sincerely, Alexander
>
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