Arch installation Guide

Ofcource my notes are are derived from Arch Wiki. And I highly recommend to read it too. These notes contains all the things which i do at the fime of new Arch Installation, so it is well tested.

Create Bootable usb

sudo dd bs=4 if=/mnt/Tools/linux/distros/archlinux-2021.02.01-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb conv=fdatasync status=progress

Verify the boot mode

To verify the boot mode, list the efivars directory: ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

If the command shows the directory without error, then the system is booted in UEFI mode. If the directory does not exist, the system may be booted in BIOS (or CSM) mode. If the system did not boot in the mode you desired, refer to your motherboard’s manual.

Connect to the internet

ip link WiFi - iwctl

• device list

• station device scan

• station device get-networks

• station device connect SSID

  • SSID is name of your WiFi network (eg. ‘Dark Demon’)

Alternate:

iwctl --passphrase passphrase station device connect SSID

Test

ping gnu.org

Update the system clock

timedatectl set-ntp true

Partition the disks

When recognized by the live system, disks are assigned to a block device such as /dev/sda, /dev/nvme0n1 or /dev/mmcblk0. To identify these devices, use lsblk or fdisk.

fdisk -l Results ending in rom, loop or airoot may be ignored.

The following partitions are required for a chosen device:

• One partition for the root directory /.
• For booting in UEFI mode: an EFI system partition.
• If you want to create any stacked block devices for LVM, system encryption or RAID, do it now.

Example look UEFI with GPT

Format the partitions

mount -o noatime,compress=lzo,space_cache=v2,discard=async,subvol=@ /dev/sdb1 /mnt

Once the partitions have been created, each newly created partition must be formatted with an appropriate file system. For example, to create an Ext4 file system on /dev/root_partition, run:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/root_partition

If you created a partition for swap, initialize it with mkswap:

mkswap /dev/swap_partition

Note: For stacked block devices replace /dev/*_partition with the appropriate block device path.

Mount the file systems

Mount the root volume to /mnt. For example, if the root volume is /dev/root_partition:

mount /dev/root_partition /mnt Create any remaining mount points (such as /mnt/efi) using mkdir and mount their corresponding volumes.

If you created a swap volume, enable it with swapon:

swapon /dev/swap_partition

Installation

Update the system by pacman -Syy

Select the mirrors (Optional)

• Install reflector by pacman -S reflector

• If you want you can backup default mirror list

cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak

• Getting good mirror list for your location

reflector -c "IN" -f 12 -l 10 -n 12 --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Install essential packages

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux-lts linux-firmware vim networkmanager btrfs-progs grub efibootmgr git

Configure the system

Fstab

Generate an fstab file (use -U to define by UUID):

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

Chroot

Change root into the new system:

arch-chroot /mnt

Set the time zone:

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime

• Run hwclock to generate /etc/adjtime:

hwclock --systohc

• Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales. Generate the locales by running:

locale-gen - Create the locale.conf file, and set the LANG variable accordingly:

echo 'LANG=en_US.UTF-8' > /etc/locale.conf

Network configuration Create the hostname file:

vim /etc/hostname

myhostname

Add matching entries to hosts file:

vim /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1   localhost
::1         localhost
127.0.1.1   myhostname.localdomain  myhostname

Initramfs

Creating a new initramfs is usually not required, because mkinitcpio was run on installation of the kernel package with pacstrap.

For LVM, system encryption or RAID, modify mkinitcpio.conf(5) and recreate the initramfs image:

mkinitcpio -P

Set users

• Create root password using passwd

• Create normal user

  useradd -mG wheel,audio,video rishav

• Create password for this user passwd rishav

Install Grub Bootloader

We already installed grub and efibootmgr which are necessary to install grub in efi boot filesystem

mkdir /boot/efi
mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=GRUB --efi-directory=/boot/efi
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Other impoetant things

Starting important services

ststemctl enable NetworkManager

Extra

• Depending on the processor, install the following package:

  • amd-ucode for AMD processors

    pacman -S amd-ucode

  • intel-ucode for Intel processors.

    pacman -S intel-ucode