I got two brand-new 2TB drives for a RAID1 data partition. It will hold all the stuff that I don’t want to lose. For the root partition, I’m reusing a 400G drive that I own already.

I’m downloading the most recent Arch Linux download from here. I’m using bit torrent, because big downloads are expensive for open-source projects and bit torrent doesn’t cost them. I’m writing it to a USB stick on my Mac, which apparently requires contortions like this:

# convert to the format the Mac apparently likes better:
> hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o archlinux-2013.11.01-dual.img archlinux-2013.11.01-dual.iso 
# list current disks:
> diskutil list
# insert USB stick, and list them again, to see which one was added:
> diskutil list
# for me, it was /dev/disk6
# make sure it isn't mounted
> diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk6
> sudo dd if=archlinux-2013.11.01-dual.img.dmg of=/dev/rdisk6 bs=1m
> sync
# then eject

Fortunately, the BIOS of my server recognizes the USB and boots into Arch. First stop, making sure that my boot disk is  working well:

> smartctl --test=long /dev/sda

That is taking a while (2hrs+), but probably worth it. Next is step 2.

Links to all parts: Step 1: assemble and test hardware; Step 2: install Arch Linux; Step 3: networking; Step 4: make it an Indie Box!; Step 5: deploy Shaarli via Indie Box.