Installation
After using Ubuntu and Debian for a while, I decided to switch to Arch Linux to provide a simple and lightweight OS. In addition, Arch Linux allows me to keep up to date with the latest versions of packages, which I greatly appreciate.
First of all, you should know that I'm willing to bring a new tutorial because I haven't yet found a tutorial to use Btrfs, encrypting the entire disk and providing a full installation of the basic packages.
NOTE: don't forget that Arch Wiki remains the ultimate reference.
On the assumption that:
- X is the volume ID;
- Y is the partition ID.
sudo fdisk /dev/sdX
sudo mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sdXY
sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdXY ::LABEL
Replace archlinux by the name of your ISO image of Arch Linux:
sudo dd bs=4M if=archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdX status=progress && sync
-
bs(block size): on modern equipment (less than 5 years old), 4MB is a good bet; -
if: source of the ISO image of Arch Linux; -
of: destination to install the ISO image of Arch Linux; -
status: automatically print periodic updates in the standard output.
To do that, checks the following things:
- USB Flash Drive is first on the priority of boot;
- Secure Boot is disabled.
Before proceeding with the installation of Arch Linux, it is important to check if you have:
- an Internet access;
- booted in UEFI mode or not.
To verify that your system has Internet access, you can check it by pinging to any site (e.g. Google):
ping -c 3 www.google.com
To find out if you started in UEFI mode (recommended), simply check that the following command returns a list of defined UEFI variables. Otherwise, it means you have started in BIOS Legacy mode:
efivar -l
The partitioning that follows concerns the UEFI installation. Be careful if you want to install Arch Linux in a Legacy BIOS mode.
Since I use a Lenovo Thinkpad, I have different names for the partitions:
| Partition name | Commonly used partition name |
|---|---|
| /dev/nvme0n1p1 | /dev/sdx1 |
| /dev/nvme0n1p2 | /dev/sdx2 |
Our Arch Linux will have two partitions:
| Mount point | Partition name | Partition type | Bootable flag | Suggested size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /efi | /dev/nvme0n1p1 | EFI System | Yes | 512 Mo |
| / | /dev/nvme0n1p2 | Linux LVM | No | Remainder of the device |
Where / is the partition that will be encrypted and that will be a LVM having a physical volume containing a group volume that has two logical volumes:
swaproot
Finally, we will format the root volume in Btrfs and create two sub-volume:
/mnt/root/mnt/home
NOTE: according to Theodore Ts'o, principal developer of ext3 and ext4 file systems, ext4 has improved features, it is not a major advance; it uses old technology and is a stop-gap. He adds that Btrfs is the best direction because "it offersimprovements in scalability, reliability and ease of management".
Without going into details, Btrfs is stable, allows for better data compression, easily handles snapshots and RAIDs.
In order to know the name of your disk, it is necessary to list the partition tables for the specified devices:
fdisk -l
Let's select our disk to build the table:
gdisk /dev/nvme0n1
Then, create a new empty GTP partition table by pressing the o key.
Partition number (1-128, default 1):
First sector (2048-2000409230, default = 2048) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Last sector (2048-2000409230, default = 2000409230) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: 512M
Current type is'Linux filesystem'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): ef00
Changed type of partition to 'EFI System'
Partition number (2-128, default 2):
First sector (1050624-2000409230, default = 1050624) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Last sector (1050624-2000409230, default = 2000409230) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Current type is'Linux filesystem'Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): 8e00
Changed type of partition to'Linux LVM'
Before writing the two partitions, check that they are correct by pressing the p key.
You should have such a partition table:
| Number | Start (sector) | End (sector) | Size | Code | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2048 | 1050623 | 512.0 MiB | EF00 | EFI System |
| 2 | 1050624 | 2000409230 | 953.4 GiB | 8E00 | Linux LVM |
Now that the partition table is created, all you have to do is write it to the disk by pressing the w key.
In order to enable disk encryption, we will first create a root LUKS volume, open it and then format it.
To keep it short, LUKS is a container format that will be used to encrypt containers, where our encryption key will be stored.
To encrypt our / partition, we will use the cryptsetup tool:
cryptsetup --cipher aes-xts-plain64 --hash sha512 --use-random --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p2
Are you sure? YES
Enter passphrase (twice)
The / partition being encrypted, we will open the LUKS container on /dev/nvme0n1p2 disk and name it root:
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p2 root
Enter passphrase
