Installing Arch Linux

Here is how you can recreate my Arch system. Some properties are:

• The disk has 2 partitions: boot and root.
• The boot partition is mounted to /boot/ and 512 MiB big.
• The root partition is LUKS encrypted.
• There is no swap partition, but a swap file on the encrypted root partition.
• The swap file is 2 GiB big.
• The boot loader is systemd-boot.
• The network manager is networkmanager.
• There is no login manager.

I. Pre-boot

Installation guide

1. Get an ISO from a mirror.

2. Get the signature from the Arch Downloads page.

3. Verify the ISO with `pacman-key -v *.iso.sig`.

4. Check the name of the USB key with `lsblk`. I assume it is /dev/sdb.

5. Move the ISO to the USB key with `cat *.iso > /dev/sdb`.

II. Boot

1. Boot from the USB key.

2. Run `loadkeys de-latin1`.

3. Check `ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars`.

4. Use `iwctl` to get a wireless internet connection. Inside iwctl, do:

help
device list
station DEVICE scan
station DEVICE get-networks
station DEVICE connect SSID
^D

5. Check `ping archlinux.org`.

6. Check `timedatectl status`.

III. Partition the disk

1. Check the name of the disk with lsblk. I assume it is /dev/sdb.

2. Use `fdisk /dev/sdb` to partition the disk like so:

a. Create a new GPT.

b. Create a first partition of size 512M.

c. Let the first partition be of type C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B (EFI system).

d. Create a second partition.

e. Let the second partition be of type 4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709 (Linux x86-64 root).

f. Let the second partition have the label “Root”.

g. Print and verify the partition table.

h. Write.

IV. Format and mount root, boot, and swap

1. Check the name of the root partition with lsblk. I assume it is /dev/sdb2.

2. Format and mount the root partition like so:

cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdb2
cryptsetup open /dev/sdb2 root
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/root
mount /dev/mapper/root /mnt

3. Check the name of the boot partition with lsblk. I assume it is /dev/sdb1.

4. Format and mount the boot partition like so:

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdb1
mount --mkdir /dev/sdb1 /mnt/boot

5. Make, format, and activate the swap file like so:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/swapfile bs=1M count=2048 status=progress
chmod 0600 /mnt/swapfile
mkswap -U clear /mnt/swapfile
swapon /mnt/swapfile

V. Installation

1. Check /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.

2. Run `pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware nano man-db man-pages texinfo`.

VI. Post-installation

1. Run `genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab`.

2. Check /mnt/etc/fstab. It should look something like this:

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/mapper/root
UUID=1234abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcd1234abcd / ext4 rw,relatime 0 1
# /dev/sda1
UUID=1234-ABCD /boot vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 2
/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0

3. Run `arch-chroot /mnt`.

4. Run `ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime`.

5. Run `hwclock --systohc`.

6. Uncomment `en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8` and `de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8` in /etc/locale.gen.

7. Run `locale-gen`.

8. Write `LANG=de_DE.UTF-8` to /etc/locale.conf.

9. Write `KEYMAP=de-latin1` to /etc/vconsole.conf.

10. Write a hostname to /etc/hostname.

11. Edit /etc/hosts. It should look like this:

127.0.0.1	localhost
::1		localhost
127.0.1.1	HOSTNAME

12. Run `pacman -S networkmanager`.

13. Run `systemctl enable NetworkManager.service`.

14. Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. It should have lines like this:

# Default:
# HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf kms keyboard keymap consolefont block filesystems fsck)
# With udev:
# HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf kms keyboard keymap consolefont block encrypt filesystems fsck)
# With systemd:
HOOKS=(base systemd autodetect modconf kms keyboard sd-vconsole block sd-encrypt filesystems fsck)

15. Run `mkinitcpio -P`.

16. Use `passwd` to set a root password.

VII. Boot loader and microcode

1. Run `bootctl install`.

2. Check the CPU brand with lscpu.

3. Run `pacman -S intel-ucode` for an Intel CPU or `pacman -S amd-ucode` for an AMD CPU.

4. Edit /boot/loader/loader.conf. Do not use tabs. It should look something like this:

default arch.conf
timeout 0
console-mode max
editor no

5. Check the UUID of the root partition with `lsblk -f`.

6. Edit /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf. Do not use tabs. It should look something like this:

title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /intel-ucode.img
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options rd.luks.name=1234abcd1234-abcd-1234-abcd-1234abcd1234=root root=/dev/mapper/root rw quiet

a. Replace `initrd /intel-ucode.img` with `intrd /amd-ucode.img` for an AMD CPU.

b. If you have installed `linux-lts` instead of `linux`, replace `linux /vmlinuz-linux` with `linux /vmlinuz-linux-lts` and `initrd /initramfs-linux.img` with `initrd /initramfs-linux-lts.img`.

7. Run `systemctl enable systemd-boot-update.service`.

VIII. Reboot

1. Run `exit`.

2. Run `reboot`.

General recommendations

IX. Users

1. Run `useradd -m -G wheel USERNAME`.

2. Use `passwd USERNAME` to set the password of the user.

3. Use `chfn USERNAME` to set the full name of the user.

4. Run `pacman -S sudo`.

5. Use `EDITOR=nano visudo` to uncomment `%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL` in /etc/sudoers.

6. Run `exit`.

7. Log in as the new user.

X. Basic services

1. Run `pacman -S pacman-contrib`.

2. Run `systemctl enable paccache.timer`.

3. Run `timedatectl set-ntp true`.

4. Check `timedatectl status`.

5. Run `pacman -S firewalld`.

6. Run `systemctl enable firewalld.service`.

7. Run `pacman -S pkgstats`.

8. Check `systemctl status pkgstats.timer`.

9. Run `pacman -S xdg-user-dirs`.

10. Check `systemctl status xdg-user-dirs-update.service`.

XI. Xorg

Xorg

1. Run `pacman -S xorg-server`.

2. Check the GPU brand with `lspci -v | grep -A1 -e VGA -e 3D`.

3. Run `pacman -S xf86-video-intel` for an Intel GPU or `pacman -S xf86-video-amdgpu` for an AMD GPU.

4. Run `pacman -S mesa`.

EOF