Creating a Bootable USB Drive

1. Download the ISO from a local mirror, such as Alibaba Cloud, or the official site, wich automatically selects the fastest route.
2. When using tools like UltraISO, select RAW mode for writing the image to avoid many common issues.
3. Alternatively, write the USB on Linux:

sudo dnf install -y epel-release ntfsprogs ntfs-3g
sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdb1 -I  # Replace with your detected USB device
sudo dd if=/home/user1/system/Rocky-9.3-x86_64-dvd.iso of=/dev/sdb1

Installation Points

• Do not apply any security policy during setup.
• If the installation source is not automatically found, provide the repository URL manually.

---

Essential First Steps

Switch to a Faster Repository Mirror

sudo sed -e 's|^mirrorlist=|#mirrorlist=|g' \
    -e 's|^#baseurl=http://dl.rockylinux.org/$contentdir|baseurl=https://mirrors.aliyun.com/rockylinux|g' \
    -i.bak \
    /etc/yum.repos.d/Rocky-*.repo

sudo yum makecache

Enable Network at Boot

Edit the interface configuration file inside /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ and change ONBOOT=no to ONBOOT=yes:

sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp5s0

Install EPEL and Additional Repositories

sudo dnf install epel-release

Enable PowerTools (CRB on Rocky 9):

# Rocky 8
sudo dnf --enablerepo=powertools install ntfs-3g
# Rocky 9+
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb

Mount NTFS Partitions

Idetnify the disk and UUID:

sudo lsblk -f

Append to /etc/fstab:

UUID=ABCDDASFSAFS /home/user1/E ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

Permission Fixes for Mounted Drives

1. Edit /etc/sudoers and add after the root entry:

root    ALL=(ALL)       ALL
user1   ALL=(ALL)       ALL

2. Assign user to the root group:

sudo usermod -g root user1

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Package and Environment Setup

Package Managers

sudo dnf install snapd
sudo systemctl enable snapd
sudo systemctl start snapd
sudo systemctl enable --now snapd.socket
sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap
sudo snap install snap-store

# Rust package manager
sudo dnf install cargo

SSH and GNOME Tweaks

sudo dnf install openssh
systemctl enable sshd
sudo systemctl start sshd

sudo dnf install gnome-tweak-tool
sudo dnf install gnome-shell-extension*

Development Compilers and Libraries

sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ gcc-gfortran cmake mpich-devel fftw-devel lapack*

Scientific Vector Graphics

sudo dnf install inkscape
sudo dnf install ImageMagick  # For .miff files from OpenDX

PDF Reader (Okular)

# Requires PowerTools / CRB
# Rocky 9
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb
sudo dnf install okular

Terminal Emulator

sudo dnf install konsole

Chinese Input Method

sudo dnf install ibus-libpinyin

Add environment variables to ~/.bashrc:

export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus
export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus

Code and Text Editors

sudo dnf install gedit-plugins
sudo dnf install kate

---

Multimedia and Utilities

VLC Media Player

# Enable RPM Fusion repositories for Rocky 9
sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-9.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-9.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf clean all
sudo dnf makecache
sudo dnf install vlc

FFmpeg

sudo dnf install ffmpeg ffmpeg-devel -y

Image Viewer

cargo install viu

Digitizer Tool

sudo dnf install engauge-digitizer

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Research and Productivity Tools

Mathpix (Formula Recognition)

Download the AppImage, register, and use Ctrl+Alt+M to capture formulas.

Crystallography with py4DSTEM

conda create -n py4dstem python==3.8
conda activate py4dstem
conda install pip
pip install "py4dstem[aiml]"

File Synchronization with rsync

sudo dnf install rsync
# Example pull with delete and resume
rsync -e ssh -avP -z user@10.8.145.193:/home/remoteDir /home/localDir --ignore-existing --delete

Clipboard Utilities

sudo dnf install xsel xclip -y
# Output clipboard to file
echo $(xsel --clipboard) >> a.txt

# Copy file content to clipboard
cat a.txt | xsel --clipboard

---

Markdown, LaTeX, and Document Processing

Markdown Preview and Conversion

Install Atom or ghostwriter. To view markdown inside Atom: Packages → Markdown Preview → Toggle Preview (Ctrl+Shift+M).

For PDF generation:

sudo dnf install pandoc
pandoc README.md -o README.pdf --pdf-engine=xelatex

LaTeX Integration with gedit

External tools script:

#!/bin/sh
auxname=$(basename "$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_NAME" .tex)
bibtex "$auxname.aux"

---

System Conveniences

Trash-Enabled rm Alias

Add to ~/.bashrc:

alias rm=trash
alias rl='ls ~/.trash'

trash() {
  mv -f --backup=numbered $@ ~/M/.trash/
}

cleartrash() {
    read -p "Clear sure?[n]" confirm
    [ $confirm == 'y' ] || [ $confirm == 'Y' ] && /bin/rm -rf ~/.trash/*
}

Quick Directory Aliases

alias sw='cd /home/user1/M/E/SW'
alias pg='cd /home/user1/M/E/PG'
alias code='cd /home/user1/M/E/Data/PostProc'

SSH Key-Based Login

ssh-keygen -t rsa
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub -p 22 server@10.7.190.18
# Ensure server .ssh permissions are 755 and authorized_keys 600
cd && chmod -R 700 .ssh && cd .ssh && chmod -R 600 *

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Troubleshooting and Missing Libraries

• Wi-Fi not available:

#!/bin/sh
sudo modprobe -r ideapad_laptop

• WPS missing libs:

sudo dnf install libXScrnSaver
sudo dnf install mesa-libGLU

• Multiwfn libm.so error:

sudo dnf install motif motif-devel

• PDF grep:

sudo dnf --enablerepo=powertools install pdfgrep  # Rock 8
sudo dnf --enablerepo=crb install pdfgrep         # Rock 9+

• Additional Fonts:

sudo cp -r myfonts /usr/share/fonts
sudo chmod -R 777 /usr/share/fonts/myfonts
sudo mkfontscale
sudo mkfontdir
sudo fc-cache -fv