macbookpro-arch-install

Install Arch Linux on MBP 11,5

Resources:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/MacBookPro11,x
• https://shanereilly.net/posts/dual-booting_macos-and-arch-linux/
• https://www.oueta.com/linux/installing-arch-linux-on-a-macbook-or-other-uefi-systems/
• https://gist.github.com/ellipticaldoor/793606049f18dfb57e9c24d6fbe0efe4

Partition Disks in MACOS

• In MacOS, open Disk Util.
• Shrink the MacOS partition to create free disk space.
• Add a partition for the root mount and swap as FAT or ExFAT format. They will be reformatted in Arch later.

Create Bootable USB

Download the latest Arch ISO from here: https://mirror.arizona.edu/archlinux/iso/latest/

Copy it to USB:

dd if=archlinux-image.iso of=/dev/rsdX status=progress bs=1M

Keep the USB with Arch plugged in. Reboot and hold option key to be able to select USB bootloader.

Format Partitions

Once booted into the USB Arch, partition and format using fdisk. Ref: https://www.oueta.com/linux/installing-arch-linux-on-a-macbook-or-other-uefi-systems/

# fdisk /dev/sda


Command (m for help): n
Partition number (3-128, default 3):
First sector (227543040-236978142, default 227543040):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (227543040-236978142, default 236978142):

Created a new partition 3 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 4.5 GiB.

Command (m for help): type
Selected partition 3
Partition type (type L to list all types): 19
Changed type of partition 'Linux filesystem' to 'Linux swap'.

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Syncing disks.

We need one Linux filestytem and one Linux swap formatted partitions. Write and exit when done.

On Swap:

mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda3

On root:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4

Mount Disks

# mount /dev/sda4 /mnt
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
# swapon /dev/sda3
# pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel

Generate fstab

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

Chroot

# arch-chroot /mnt

Install base packages

pacman -S base-devel linux-headers tree linux-lts linux-lts-headers

Generate Locale

• Run locale-gen to create the /etc/locale.gen file.
• Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment the en_US.UTF-8 line.
• Run locale-gen again.

Add User

useradd --create-home --groups wheel --shell /bin/bash <username>
passwd <username>

To ensure this new user can execute sudo commands, use visudo and uncomment the following line:

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Add WIFI

Install iwd.

pacman -S iwd

Now its possible to scan and connect to WIFI. To list available APs:

# iwctl
[iwd]# station wlan0 get-networks

Use the following script to connect to a WIFI AP.

#!/bin/bash

iwctl --passphrase $WIFI_PASS station wlan0 connect <wifi_name>

Compile linux-macbook kernel

Normal boot may freeze on the login prompt. Compiling and using this kernel fixed this for me.

Resize tmp to have enough space to download and build. Ref: https://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=8812#p46812

# mount -o remount,size=30G,noatime /tmp

Adjust swap/memory cleanup aggressiveness. This seemed to solve swap/memory filling up until failure. Ref: https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Swap

# sysctl vm.swappiness=85
# sysctl vm.vfs_cache_pressure=150

Monitor memory usage

$ free -h
$ df -h

Add yoart

• Ref: https://www.tecmint.com/install-yaourt-in-arch-linux/
• Ref: https://gist.github.com/ellipticaldoor/793606049f18dfb57e9c24d6fbe0efe4

Edit /etc/pacman.conf

------------------------------------------------
# Yaourt repo
[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch
------------------------------------------------

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S yaourt
yaourt -Syu

Install linux-macbook kernel

Add the skippgpcheck Make argument (--m-arg). Skipping signature checks is needed because the source has migrated to Github and sigs fail now. Note that this will take at least a couple of hours.

# su msx
$ yaourt -S linux-macbook --m-arg --skippgpcheck

When prompted to edit PKGBUILD when prompted, choose YES and change the 2 instances of:

git.archlinux.org/linux.git/...

to:

github.com/archlinux/linux.git/...

Setup Bootctl

This will copy kernels and .img over to the boot partition. It will make systemd-boot the default bootloader. rEFInd is better; see below for rEFInd.

# bootctl --path=/boot install

Setup rEFInd

This will make rEFInd the default bootloader

# refind-install

Edit the rEFInd configs. List device partition UIDs if needed: ls -lah /dev/disk/by-partuuid/.

/boot/refind_linux.conf

"Boot with standard options"  "root=PARTUUID=<partuuid> rw add_efi_memmap initrd=initramfs-linux-macbook.img"

/boot/EFI/refind/refind.conf

• Find the menuentry for Arch Linux.
• Remove disabled from the entry
• Change the PARTUUIDs to be accurate (ls -lah /dev/disk/by-partuuid/)
• Change initrd and loader to vmlinux-linux-macbook

The result should be similar to the following:

menuentry "Arch Linux" {
  icon     /EFI/refind/icons/os_arch.png
  volume   "Arch Linux"
  loader   vmlinux-linux-macbook
  initrd   initramfs-linux-macbook.img
  graphics on
  options  "root=PARTUUID=<partuuid> rw add_efi_memmap"
  submenuentry "Boot using fallback initramfs" {
    initrd initramfs-linux-fallback.img
  }
  submenuentry "Boot to terminal" {
    add_options "system.unit=multi-user.target"
  }
}

Setup DHCP support

# pacman -S dhcpcd
# systemctl enable dhcpcd

Install modules

Ref: https://gist.github.com/imrvelj/c65cd5ca7f5505a65e59204f5a3f7a6d

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/aic94xx-firmware.git
cd aic94xx-firmware
makepkg -sri

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/wd719x-firmware.git
cd wd719x-firmware
makepkg -sri

Install XFCE Desktop Env

Ref: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xfce#Installation

pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies

Install I3

$ sudo pacman -S i3
$ sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-xrandr
$ echo "exec i3" >> ~/.xinitrc

Configure 1920x1200 resolution on startup

$ echo "#!/bin/bash" >> ~/bin/startup
$ echo "xrandr --device eDP-1 --mode 1920x1200" >> ~/bin/startup
$ echo "exec --no-startup-id ~/bin/startup" >> ./config/i3/config

Start i3

$ startx