Welcome to Arch Linux installation guide for dummies. I hope this guide will help penguins (like me) get a working Arch Linux install.
I intend on making this guide as wholesome and descriptive as possible by adding relevant information wherever needed such that it appeals to most users.
Put plain-and-simple, Arch Linux is a glorious GNU/Linux distribution you should be using if you believe in Simplicity, Usability, and Fashion. It is a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) distro that makes you decide the best ways to cook yourself an Operating System that suits your needs.
Arch Linux is for advanced/experienced users since it expects you to know your ways around the GNU/Linux systems in general. Arch is far less forgiving on users than any other general-purpose distro out there.
The Official Arch Installation Guide is a very clear, conscise, and to the point guide that should be actually good enough for most users to install Arch if they know their ways around things (Terminal, basics of a GNU system, BIOS/UEFI, Partitioning, Network Configuration etc).
And yes, you should be using a fainter/forgiving distro such as Ubuntu/Fedora/Mint instead of Arch Linux if you don't understand those things well enough, but for most people such as myself who need a tad bit of extended help in learning and building an Arch Linux system, this guide is intended for you.
This guide is a fork of arch linux for dummies, I've added detailed and extended descriptions in places I felt are lacking.
Hands-on experience with installing Arch Linux is the best way to understand the concept of "Baking" an operating system for yourself, to suit your needs, and to fit your style. If you have a spare computer or a Virtual Machine to test and learn things as you make your first try at installing Arch, please use it.
1. The desired computer must be of x86_x64 CPU Architecture (also commonly known as x64 or 64bit systems) since Arch Linux only officially supports this architecture. Your CPU is most probably 64bit if it was made in the last decade.
2. Download Arch Linux from official website. And prepare your Arch Linux installation media, either with a CD/DVD or USB flash drive (Preferred) using the official guide from Arch Wiki here.
3. You must have an active and decent internet connection to be able to download certain essential packages during the installation.
For most cases while preparing USB install, use Win32DiskImager on Windows PC, or dd utility on a Linux system, to put the ISO image onto USB drive.
Most Operating Systems' vanilla installation process involves:
1. Setting Localization preferences (such as Region and Language, Keyboard Layouts, Clock, TimeZone etc).
2. Network Connectivity and Network Configuration.
3. Partitioning Disks, Setting up FileSystems, and setting Encryption.
4. Installing System, setup Bootloader.
5. Setting up Users, Groups, and permissions.
You'll notice that our installation process will be similar more or less, We follow the below checklist to keep track of the installation progress, this checklist largely resembles the Official Installlation Guide except with the difference that we add more details and descriptions at each level for the mindfulness of newbie users.
Plug in and boot into the installation media after which you should be prompted with a root shell indicating that it is ready to accept commands for installation.
Note: A typical Arch Linux installation involves creating, and editing of various configuration files. For this purpose, we use any one of the terminal text editor programs such as nano, vi, vim, emacs, ed etc. The most preffered and easy way is to use nano editor, or vi/vim if you're familiar with it.
Note: The base package group offers all the essentials (kernel, core utilities, libraries, APIs, and scripts) needed to get your system up and running, and takes less than 800 MB of disk space. The frequently mentioned base-devel package group consists of APIs, Libraries, and binaries (gcc, GNU binutils, make, bison, etc) often used for development, this package group is desired by most developers and users alike, and you should probably install it as described later in the guide.
This will be the default keyboard layout during the installation process. The default is English US (en.US), if you need to set another layout:
- List available layouts using the command:
# ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz - Select preferred layout using the command:
# loadkeys de-latin1(this example uses German layout).
Typically there are 2 boot modes --BIOS and UEFI. Traditional PCs use BIOS whereas most modern PCs/Laptops use UEFI firmware. UEFI is to BIOS what a Tree is to its Seed (this analogy over-simplifies the distinction).
Arch Linux needs to know if you're booting from BIOS mode or UEFI since it influences the installation procedure.
To verify boot mode, enter the command: # ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
If the output returns blank it means you're booted into BIOS mode, else you're in UEFI mode.
An active connection is required to download packages later during the install.
Test your connection using the command: # ping www.google.com.
Troubleshoot any connection problems using the NetworkConfiguration page. You can also use the wifi-menu command to connect to WiFi.
Make sure your system clocks are accurate using the following commands:
# timedatectl set-ntp true
# timedatectl status
This whole section is about making room for Arch Linux on your disk and readying it for installation to begin.
For partitioning your disk, we can use multiple tools such as fdisk, parted, or cfdisk. We will be using cfdisk command tool for this guide since it simplifies the process.
Firstly get a glance of the structure and layout of your disks by using the command: # lsblk
you'll see notations used such as sda, sdb, etc to represent various storage devices found. sd stands for storage device/disk and the a/b/c... are used to denote each disk cumulatively. Chances are you'll be seeing sda and sdb in the top-level which can mean that sda denotes the internal hard-drive of your computer and sdb represents the USB flash drive you are using at the moment as Arch Linux installation media.
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sda is the device we shall make changes to in order to make room for Arch Linux installation.
Lets assume you already have 2 partitions under your hard-drive, they are most likely referred to as sda1 and sda2. It is crucial to understand this notation since you'll be making changes to the disks with/without data of critical importance.
Let's use cfdisk tool to partition the disk:
# cfdisk
Like most users, we typically create 3 partitions for our installation to reside as described below:
| Partition (Mount Points) | Type | Recommended Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
/ (root partition) |
ext4 (aka 83 Linux in cfdisk) |
around 15-20 GB of space | Required OS partition |
swap |
swap (aka 82 Linux Swap in cfdisk) |
Depending on your RAM | Required for performance |
/home |
ext4 (aka 83 Linux in cfdisk) |
The rest of your disk space | This will be your data/media partition |
The cfdisk utility is pretty self-explanatory, use the arrow keys to navigate and create desired partitions more or less similar to the above table.
This tutorial will consider that you have a UEFI motherboard with UEFI mode enabled. To verify you are booted in UEFI mode, check that the following directory is populated:
# ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
Note: If arch is been installed in a VM, remember to change the motherboard settings to support UEFI/efivars.
Make sure your internet connection is working (it probably should):
# ping google.com
If no connection is available, see Network configuration.
You can also use the wifi-menu command to connect to WiFi.
Make sure your system clock is accurate:
# timedatectl set-ntp true
# timedatectl status
This section is based on Partitioning, GPT, GNU Parted, EFI and Swap. Identify the devices where the new system will be installed:
# lsblk
!Note: In this section, the "sdxy" notation will be used, where x represents device and y represents partition (eg. sda1, sda2, sdb1, etc...).
Let's start partitioning our device (eg. sda, sdb, etc...):
# parted /dev/sdx
If you run a print, you will see the partition label is not defined. Let's set the partition label to gpt:
(parted) mklabel gpt
If you print again, you will now be able to see an empty partition table.
In this tutorial, we are going to create a basic gpt with 3 partitions (first for boot, second for swap, and third for our data). The boot partition can have a size between 260Mb and 512Mb. The swap partition needs to have at least your RAM size (it's recomemnded to have 2x RAM size). The remaning space is going to be allocated to your data. Let's format:
(parted) mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 513MiB
(parted) set 1 boot on
(parted) mkpart primary linux-swap 513M 3G
(parted) mkpart primary ext4 3G 100%
You can print again to check if your partition table is ok. Exit from parted with:
(parted) quit
You need to format each of your partitions, except for swap. All available partitions on device can be listed with the following command:
# lsblk /dev/sdx
Format the boot partition to fat32:
# mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdx1
Set up swap partition:
# mkswap /dev/sdx2
# swapon /dev/sdx2
Then, format your data partition:
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx3
If you want, you can check your partitions with lsblk again.
Mount the root partition to the /mnt directory of the live system:
# mount /dev/sdx3 /mnt
Now, mount the boot partition:
# mkdir /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt/boot
Execute the pacstrap script to install base packages:
# pacstrap /mnt
Generate an fstab file, to define how disk partitions should be mounted into the filesystem:
# genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
The next installation steps needs to be running from a bash inside the new system, so change root to the new system:
# arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
Edit the location file with nano (or vi, if you want):
# nano /etc/locale.gen
Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 in /etc/locale.gen, save and quit the file, and generate new location:
# locale-gen
Now set system locale:
# echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
Select a time zone:
# tzselect
Go to /usr/share/zoneinfo and find your Zone:
# cd /usr/share/zoneinfo
# ls
Go to your zone folder, and find your Subzone:
# cd MY_ZONE
# ls
Create the symbolic link /etc/localtime, to your Zone and Subzone:
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/MY_ZONE/MY_SUBZONE /etc/localtime
It is recommended to adjust the time skew, and set the time standard to UTC:
# hwclock --systohc --utc
Install the packages grub and efibootmgr:
# pacman -S grub efibootmgr
The following steps install the GRUB UEFI application to /boot/EFI/grub, install its modules to /boot/grub/x86_64-efi, and place the bootable grubx64.efi stub in /boot/EFI/grub:
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub
UEFI firmware workaround: Some UEFI firmware requires that the bootable .efi stub have a specific name and be placed in a specific location: /boot/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi:
# mkdir /boot/EFI/boot
# cp /boot/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi /boot/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
If you have an Intel CPU, in addition to installing a boot loader, install the intel-ucode package:
# pacman -S intel-ucode
After installing the intel-ucode package, regenerate the GRUB config to activate loading the microcode update:
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Set the hostname by adding an entry to /etc/hostname, where MY_HOSTNAME is the desired host name:
# echo MY_HOSTNAME > /etc/hostname
Run ip link to find your ethernet interface name (it should starts with en, eg. enp0s25).
# ip link
When only requiring a single wired connection, enable the dhcpcd service, where MY_EN is your ethernet interface:
# systemctl enable dhcpcd@MY_EN.service
For wireless, install the iw, wpa_supplicant and dialog packages:
# pacman -S iw wpa_supplicant dialog
Additional firmware packages may also be required. See Wireless Management for other available methods.
# pacman -S networkmanager
# systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
# nmtui-connect
Set the root password with:
# passwd
Exit from the chroot environment:
# exit
Reboot into the new system:
# reboot
Note: Remember to remove the CD (or ISO in case of VM)
After reboot, log in using the user root.
Install the package sudo:
# pacman -S sudo
Create an user for you, where MY_USERNAME is your username:
# useradd -m -G wheel MY_USERNAME
# passwd MY_USERNAME
To grant your user's group sudo access, run visudo and uncomment the required line.
# export EDITOR=nano && visudo
Logout as root, and start using your new user.
# logout
For this tutorial, I will be using zsh as my users shell (Feel free to choose a different one)
# sudo pacman -S zsh
# chsh -s /bin/zsh
# logout
When you login again, zsh will be running, and you will be asked for a few configurations (you can actually skip it).
From here you can install your common packages. I will just install some of mine:
$ sudo pacman -S gcc make wget tar tmux
Xorg is the most popular display server among Linux users. Xorg can be installed with the xorg-server package.
Additionally, you can install this packages too: xorg-server-utils and xorg-apps.
$ sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-server-utils
First, identify your card:
$ lspci | grep -e VGA -e 3D
Then install an appropriate driver. You can search the package database for a complete list of open-source video drivers:
$ pacman -Ss xf86-video
Skip this if arch is not installed in a VM.
$ sudo pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils
$ sudo modprobe -a vboxguest vboxsf vboxvideo
bspwm is a tiling window manager. Install bspwm, sxhkd, xorg-xinit and a terminal emulator (like rxvt-unicode):
$ sudo pacman -S bspwm sxhkd xorg-xinit rxvt-unicode
We will be getting default config files from the Github.
$ mkdir ~/.config
$ echo export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/.config" >> ~/.zshrc
$ mkdir ~/.config/bspwm
$ cp /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/bspwmrc ~/.config/bspwm/
$ mkdir ~/.config/sxhkd
$ cp /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/sxhkdrc ~/.config/sxhkd/
$ chmod +x ~/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc
Look at ~/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc and learn the key bindings. To start bspwm on login, add the following to ~/.xinitrc
exec bspwm