Arch Install Guide

This is a guide about how to install Arch Linux from start to finish in one place. If you follow these steps you will end up with an clean install of Arch Linux without any graphical environment.

Keep in mind that this guide is made for BIOS and not UEFI systems

• Check if you have a UEFI system:

  $ ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

  • If the command shows you the directory without any error, then you have a UEFI system. But you may still be able to follow this guide to some extent.

  • If you got an error that looks like this, then you are good to go and can follow this guide.

    ls: cannot access '/sys/firmware/efi/efivars': No such file or directory
    

Pre install steps

1. Set the keyboard layout

• Find keyboard layout:

  $ ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz

• Set the keyboard layout example:

  $ loadkeys sv-latin1

2. Connect to the internet

• Enable the network interface:

  $ ip link

• Verify that it works:

  $ ping pigges.xyz

3. Update the system clock

• Enable the clock service:

  $ timedatectl set-ntp true

• Check the service status:

  $ timedatectl status

4. Partition the disks

• Check what disks are connected:

  $ lsblk

  Example for lsblk:

• Enter fdisk:

  $ fdisk /dev/sda

  • Example partition layout for a 100GB disk:

    NAME	SIZE	TYPE	MOUNT
    sda	100G	disk
    ├─sda1	200M	part	/boot
    ├─sda2	12G	part	[SWAP]
    ├─sda3	30G	part	/
    └─sda4	57.8G	part	/home

5. Format the partitions

• Make filesystem for all the partitions exept for the SWAP partition:

  $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdaX

• Make and enable SWAP:

  $ mkswap    /dev/sda2
  
  $ swapon    /dev/sda2

6. Mount file systems

• Mount the root partition to /mnt:

  $ mount /dev/sda1   /mnt

• Create directories for partitions:

  $ mkdir /mnt/boot
  
  $ mkdir /mnt/home

• Mount the other partitions

  $ mount /dev/sda1   /mnt/boot
  
  $ mount /dev/sda4   /mnt/home

Install steps

1. Run the install command with pacstrap

$ pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware nano

2. Generate fstab file and Chroot to the disk

• Generate an fstab file:

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

• Chroot into the disk

  $ arch-chroot   /mnt

Post install steps

1. Set Time Zone

• Check Region and City:

  $ ls /usr/share/zoneinfo # Get the REGION
  
  $ ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/REGION # Get the CITY

• Set Region and City

  $ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/REGION/CITY /etc/localtime

• Run hwclock to generate /etc/adjtime:

  $ hwclock --systohc

2. Setup localization

• Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment the locales you may need:

  $ nano /etc/locale.gen

  Example for /etc/locale.gen:

  en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
  sv_SE.UTF-8 UTF-8
  

• Generate the locales:

  $ locale-gen

• Create and setup the /etc/locale.conf file:

  $ nano /etc/locale.conf

  Example for /etc/locale.conf:

  LANG=en_US.UTF-8
  

• Set keyboard layout:

  $ nano /etc/vconsole.conf

  Example for /etc/vconsole.conf:

  KEYMAP=sv-latin1
  

3. Network configuration

• Install and enable networkmanager:

  $ pacman -S networkmanager
  
  $ systemctl enable NetworkManager

• Create the /etc/hostname file:

  $ nano /etc/hostname.conf

  Example for /etc/hostname:

  archvm
  

• Edit the /etc/hosts file:

  $ nano /etc/hosts

  Example for /etc/hosts: Change "archvm" to your hostname

  # Static table lookup for hostnames.
  # See hosts(5) for details.
  
  127.0.0.1       localhost
  ::1             localhost
  127.0.1.1       archvm.localdomain      archvm
  

4. Root password

• Set a root password

  $ passwd

5. Setup a bootloader 'GRUB'

• Install grub

  $ pacman -S grub
  
  $ grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda

• Configure grub

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

  • If you get this warning:

    Warning: os-prober will not be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
    Systems on them will not be added to the GRUB boot configuration.
    Check GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER documentation entry.
    done
    

    Edit the /etc/default/grub file:

    $ nano /etc/default/grub

    • Add this line:

      GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false
      

      Example for /etc/default/grub:

    Then run this again:

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

6. Setup a user

• Create the user:

  useradd -m -G wheel user #change user

• Set a user password:

  $ passwd user

• Edit the sudo config so users of the wheel group can use sudo:

  $ EDITOR=nano visudo

  • Find the line where it says "# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL" and uncomment it.

7. Exit and shutdown

• Exit from chroot:

  $ exit

• Unmount the disk:

  $ umount -R /mnt

• Shutdown the computer:

  $ shutdown now

8. Done!

You can now remove the install media and boot into your newly made arch install and be prompted with a login.

BTW I use Arch