Arch Linux Installation

1. Preparation
2. Installation
- 2.1. Troubleshooting
3. System configuration
4. Post installation
- 4.1. Wifi

Those are my notes on installing Arch Linux. It closely follows the official guide and gets updated each time I install Arch on a new machine. There's of course no guarantee whatsoever for the guide being correct or complete. Some steps use a default I chose. Read each instruction carefully and decide if you'd like a different keyboard layout and if your disk is really /dev/sda/.

Reach out to me via email (contact at jaott dot de) for feedback or questions.

1. Preparation

1.1. Installation medium

Choose and download ISO from the official site.

Prepare USB installation medium like this.

Plug in drive and boot into live environment.

1.2. Temporary config

The following configuration is necessary or useful for the installation process, but will not persist on the system we'll install later on.

1.2.1. Keyboard

Double font size

$ setfont -d

List available keymaps

$ localectl list-keymaps

Choose keymap. We'll be using us

$ loadkeys us

1.2.2. Internet

Plug in ethernet cable or configure wifi:

$ iwctl
$ [iwd] device list
$ [iwd] station DEVICE scan
$ [iwd] station DEVICE get-networks
$ [iwd] station DEVICE connect SSID

Check connection

$ ping archlinux.org

1.2.3. Timezone

$ timedatectl
$ timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Berlin

1.3. Disks

1.3.1. Partitioning

Partition disks, /dev/sda will be used here, depends on the system.

List block devices

$ lsblk

Display and manipulate the disks partition table

$ cfdisk /dev/sda

If asked, enter gpt for UEFI install. [Delete] old partitions.

Create [New] partitions, values depend on hardware/personal preference.

Role	Type	Size	Partition
Boot	EFI system partition	1GB	/dev/sda1
Swap	Linux swap	4GB	/dev/sda2
System	Linux x86-64 root	remaining space	/dev/sda3

[Write] changes to disk and [Quit].

1.3.2. Format & encrypt partitions

Create boot filesystem and set /dev/sda2 to be the swap partition.

$ mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
$ mkswap /dev/sda2

Encrypt root partition and choose your favorite file system (ext4 in this case)

$ cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda3
$ cryptsetup open /dev/sda3 cryptroot
$ mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/cryptroot

Turn swap on and mount newly created partitions

$ mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
$ mount --mkdir /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
$ swapon /dev/sda2

2. Installation

Install packages to the system. We don't need lvm2 and cryptsetup if we didn't set up encryption above. vim, networkmanager and man-* are optional, but convenient. If choose to not install some of the optional packages, the respective steps below must be ignored.

$ pacstrap /mnt base base-devel vim networkmanager lvm2 cryptsetup grub efibootmgr linux linux-firmware man-db man-pages

2.1. Troubleshooting

In case of pacman Signature is unknown trust error

$ pacman-key --refresh-keys

3. System configuration

3.1. fstab

$ genfstab -U /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab

3.2. Chroot

Chroot into system environment

$ arch-chroot /mnt

3.3. Locale, time & clock

$ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime

Sync hardware clock

$ hwclock --systohc

To setup locale, edit /etc/locale.gen, uncomment the desired layout, e.g. en_US.UTF-8 and generate it

$ locale-gen
$ echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

3.4. Host- and username

Set hostname

$ echo [HOSTNAME] > /etc/hostname

Password for root user

$ passwd

Give users of group wheel to sudo rights. Using visudo, uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL.

$ visudo

Create new sudo user

$ useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash [SUDO-USER-NAME]
$ passwd [SUDO-USER-NAME]

3.5. mkinitcpio

Configure mkinitcpio to be aware of the drive encryption: In /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, edit HOOKS=(…) and insert udev and encrypt as follows

HOOKS=(base udev autodetect microcode modconf kms keyboard keymap consolefont block encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck)

Regenerate initramfs image

$ mkinitcpio -P

3.6. GRUB

Install GRUB on /dev/sda

$ grub-install --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=arch /dev/sda

Since we've encrypted our main drive above, GRUB has to decrypt it on startup (reference).

We'll need the output of the following to commands (call them FIRST and SECOND respectively) to configure GRUB.

$ blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/sda3
$ blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/mapper/cryptroot

In /etc/default/grub, edit the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT = "…" to look like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT = "loglevel=3 quiet cryptdevice=UUID=[FIRST]:cryptroot root=UUID=[SECOND]"

Generate GRUB config

$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

3.7. NetworkManager

$ systemctl enable NetworkManager

3.8. Reboot

The installation is done. Reboot the system and remove USB stick.

$ exit
$ reboot

4. Post installation

4.1. Wifi

$ nmcli d wifi rescan
$ nmcli d wifi list
$ nmcli d wifi connect [SSID] --ask