Arch Setup

Arch Linux setup script written by amekusa

Arch Setup is just a plain bash script.
No dependencies. No fancy technologies are involved. But it's very carefully coded.

The config file is another bash script with just a bunch of variables. Most of them have good default values so you have to edit only a few of them.

The setup script supports:

• bootloader (grub)
• locale, keymap and timezone
• VirtualBox guest additions
• user (groups, default shell, ssh, git, sudo)
• ssh server
• network manager (systemd-networkd, NetworkManager)
• etckeeper
• rkhunter (+ systemd timer)
• reflector (+ systemd timer)
• paccache (+ systemd timer)
• AUR helper (yay)
• X11 and XKeyMap
• GNOME desktop

Also supports patching the annoying warnings of egrep, fgrep, and rkhunter (2022-10-23).

The script is supposed to be ran in chroot where the basic packages have already been installed with pacstrap. If your Arch is not ready, follow the instructions below.

Commandline Usage

Usage:
  setup.sh [options]
  setup.sh [options] <task1> <task2> ...

Options:
  -h, --help   : Show this text
  -l, --list   : List task names
  -p, --prompt : Run in prompt mode
  --no-upgrade : Skip system upgrade

Getting Started

Insert the latest Arch Linux live CD and boot it.

Set the correct keymap for the console

The default keymap is us. Unless you are using a US keyboard, you should set the correct keymap for the current console with loadkeys command.

# Japanese
loadkeys jp106

Partitioning the disk

lsblk

cgdisk /dev/sda

The sda part may vary. Check the output of lsblk command and type the correct identifier.

In cgdisk, edit the partition table as you like. Do not forget to save it.

Here is an example:

Part. #	Size	Partition Type	Name	Mount Point
4	1007.0 KiB	BIOS boot partition (ef02)	BIOS	-
1	128 MB	Linux filesystem (8300)	Boot	/boot
2	2 GB	Linux swap (8200)	Swap	-
3	the rest	Linux filesystem (8300)	Root	/

Create filesystems

# boot partition
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
# root partition
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

Create ext4 filesystem on each Linux filesystem (8300) partition you've created.

Activate swap

mkswap /dev/sda2
swapon /dev/sda2

Mount the partitions

Mount the root partition to /mnt.

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt

Mount the boot partition to /mnt/boot.

mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

Install Arch

Install the base Arch Linux system with pacstrap command.

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

Generate fstab

fstab is necessary for the system to mount the partitions automatically on start up.

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

Enter the base system

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Now you can access /mnt as /.

That's it. Your part is done. The setup script will handle the rest.
Proceed to the next section.

Using the script

Clone this repository

cd
git clone https://github.com/amekusa/arch-setup.git
cd arch-setup

Run the script and edit your config file

./setup.sh

At the first time you run setup.sh, it generates a config file: setup.local and opens it with nano. Edit some of the variables so they suit your needs. Do not forget to save it with Ctrl+O.

Run the script again

./setup.sh

This time, the script actually runs all the setup operations necessary for your Arch environment.

The operations are separated with "tasks." If something went wrong along the process, the script immediately stops and shows which task failed.

Completed tasks are saved to .tasks file, and the next time you run the script, they will be skipped respectively.

Exit chroot, unmount, and reboot

If the script finished without any errors, setup is done.

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot now

That's it. Enjoy.

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If you like this, give me a ⭐.
Pull requests are welcomed as well.

© 2022 Satoshi Soma  
https://amekusa.com
https://github.com/amekusa