The link's already in post #7

oh damn... how long this usually take? doesn't all that download from the internet?

If you follow the guide it shouldn't take you more than about an hour to get to a useable GUI interface. If you don't follow the guide step by step I would say much longer.

A default Arch install comes with practically nothing. Some of the appeal of the distro is that you build it from the group up with the stuff you want. if you were expecting everything to be preinstalled like Ubuntu then you're using the wrong distro.

well im not backing out, and I did not expect ubuntu... I trying to move away from it...

Just stick with it, you'll get there. The best advice I can give you is to follow the new user's guide word for word. It's long, but it will describe in detail everything you need to do to get your system working.

man I am stuck configuring my wireless card, I need it configured before anything...

the setup says you need wireless_tools and it comes with base

I identified it with

# hwdetect --show-net

fine it says Atheros Realtek blah blah thats how it was in ubuntu... ath5k

ath5k sound weird to you guys?

# lsmod | grep athk5

three rows of I dont know or remember what it was appeared but it wasn't an error

# iwconfig

says unknown command

# ifconfig ath5k up

no such device

# iwlist ath5k scan | less

unknown command

I know I am a newbie with this, and I don't want to get Mr. Grumpy pissed again but... can anyone shed some light on this?

That's odd that iwconfig didn't work. You're not including the "#" when you type the command in are you?

no... its already included when you are root...

I don't know if it matter but my wireless card does not have linux drivers it only has windows... In ubuntu I used restricted Atheros 802.11

EDIT: Skimmed your post too fast. The fact that you don't have any drivers installed for the device is the first thing you need to worry about. Do you have anyway to wire your computer to your connection? A cat 5 cable or anything?


Edited out, not relevant.

so if I move my computer and connect it directly to the modem... I can download the drivers using iwconfig ath5k ?

iwconfig won't install the driver, no, but assuming you can get online with your computer wired you'll be able to install the driver.

Try going here: wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup

I tried # pacman -S wireless_tools wired to the modem... it gave me the file size and asked me if I wanted to download it. (Y/N)

I said yes and then its started saying transient error on all the packages, unable to download.

Can you ping www.google.com?

Here's a couple threads that may help you:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=34273

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=47066

I configured my wired connection and was able to download the packages. The driver madwifi and wireless_tools, when I do # iwlist ath_pci scan | less. Says that function is not supported, I tried it also with ath5k no device with that name, wlan same.

Can't I proceed with gnome and intsall these drivers in gnome?

just tried to install gnome following the instructions it says first to run:

# pacman -Syu

So I did but all the sudden the screen goes black in the middle of downloading.