Linux – How to install software from Arch boot disk to existing Arch system

Did you setup your passphrase with wpa_passphrase? e.g

%> wpa_passphrase SSID passphrase
network={
        ssid="SSID"
        #psk="passphrase"
        psk=28964ba6ea8b8f3a0db1c4414b327da253d0af5d4f4adccec0f8abf5b05b10f8
}

Otherwise wpa_supplicant -B -i [wireless device] -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/cli.conf won't work at all

From the live CD

You seem to be able to get a working connection on the installation media, so here is one idea: Start the arch live CD and setup your network. Then mount your newly installed partition (for example on /mnt) and chroot into your system using

# arch-chroot /mnt

From there, you will be able to update pacman's database and install the desired packages. For broadcom, you will need to install from AUR:

# pacman -Syy base-devel
# pacman -S b43-fwcutter
# curl https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/b43-firmware.tar.gz | tar xzf -
# cd b43-firmware
# makepkg --asroot --install

Note: never use --asroot in normal situation.

Without network connection

This is a little bit more tricky here. Compiling from AUR will be harder, so if you can first setup the ethernet using official packages, that will be better. The idea is to let pacman prepare a list of downloads, use another PC and a USB stick to convey the packets to your install. Mount the USB stick on your fresh install and create a list of packages to download.

# cd /mnt/usbstick
# pacman -Sp your_ethernet_driver > pkgs_list.txt

If you really want to install the broadcom drivers (or your ethernet card is also an unofficial packet) also issue

# pacman -Sp base-devel b43-fwcutter >> pkgs_list.txt

Unmount the key and find an internet connection on another PC. Download all the packets using for example curl, wget or simply your browser. If you are really unlucky, the pacman database may be too old and you will not find the packets in their indicated version. You will have to search a little bit round to find the right package. Save all the packets on the stick.

If you go the unofficial way, find the page on the AUR and download the tarball for the packet, but also all dependencies and all sources. For broadcom, for example download the b43-firmware tarball but also the http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-{xyz}.tar.bz2 source tarball.

Go back to your arch and from your stick run

# pacman -U *.pkg.tar.*

For broadcom, (or similar for unofficial packets)

# tar xzf b43-firmware.tar.gz
# cd b43-firmware/
# mv ../broadcom-wl-{xyz}.tar.bz2 .
# makepkg --asroot --install

Note: the third step moves the sources into the build directory so that makepkg finds it locally and do not attempt to download them. And same, do not use --asroot in normal case.