Instructions for setting up fresh Arch linux install

Arch_Setup.md

Arch Linux Guide

gpt format, with UEFI boot system and encrypted root

Notes

This will work for SD card instalaition as well as a standard install. To install on an SD card the boot and efi partitions must remain on the main hard drive. Replace /dev/sdX with /dev/mmcblk0 for the root partition using /dev/mmcblk0p1 in place of /dev/sdX3.

Other Resources

• Arch Linux Install Guide

Download arch to usb & boot

• use rufus for writing iso to usb

Connect to wifi

• wifi-menu

Echo terminal sequences to current terminal

• setterm -blength 0

Partition Disk

• List all disk partitions fdisk -l
• make sure to check disk file type for gpt
• (Optional) clear disk drive shred --verbose --random-source=/dev/urandom --iterations=3 /dev/sdX
• Edit disk partition of choice cfdisk /dev/sdX

Partition	Size	Type	Use
/dev/sdX1	256MB	EFI System Partition	/boot/efi
/dev/sdX2	512MB	Linux filesystem	/boot
/dev/sdX3	8GB+	Linux filesystem	/

Configuring LUKS Encryption

• load dm-crypt modprobe dm-crypt
• load dm-mod modprobe dm-mod
• encrypt root cryptsetup luksFormat -v -s 512 -h sha512 /dev/sdX3
  • ... enter password x2
• open root as alias (luks_root) cryptsetup open /dev/sdX3 luks_root
• root now at /dev/mapper/luks_root

Format partitions

• format /boot/efi mkfs.vfat -n "EFI System Partition" /dev/sdX1
• format /boot mkfs.ext4 -L boot /dev/sdX2
• format / (root) mkfs.ext4 -L root /dev/mapper/luks_root

Mount partitions

• mount root to /mnt mount /dev/mapper/luks_root /mnt
• create /boot and mount
  • mkdir /mnt/boot
  • mount /dev/sdX2 /mnt/boot
• create and mount efi partition in /boot
  • mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
  • mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/boot/efi

Install Arch Linux

• install to /mnt pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel efibootmgr grub

Generate fstab file

• genfstab -U /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab

Configure Arch Linux

System info

• chroot in arch-chroot /mnt
• set password passwd
• add real user
  • useradd -m -g users -G wheel MYUSERNAME
  • passwd MYUSERNAME
• add sudo privaleges group wheel
  • nano /etc/sudoers
  • uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
• edit local nano /etc/locale.gen
• remove # from language (en_US.UTF-8)
  • ...save
• set locale, run:
  • locale-gen
  • echo LANG=YOUR_LOCALE > /etc/locale.conf --> echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
  • export LANG=YOUR_LOCALE --> export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
• set timezone ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/YOUR_REGION/YOUR_CIT /etc/localtime --> ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Amsterdam /etc/localtime
• set clock hwclock --systohc --utc
• set hostname echo YOUR_HOSTNAME > /etc/hostname
• edit hosts nano /etc/hosts
• add to file:

127.0.0.1   localhost your_hostname
::1         localhost your_hostname

• ...save

System Configuration

• update Pacman pacman -Syu
• install dialog so you can access wifi-menu after booting into OS pacman -S dialog
• install os-prober and ntfs-3g so grub will automatically identify other OS's on your system wen generating a boot menu
  • pacman -S os-prober ntfs-3g
  • os-prober
• edit grub nano /etc/default/grub
  • set GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=/dev/sdx3:luks_root"
  • uncomment (#) GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y
  • ..save
• Now edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
  • add ext4 mmc_core mmc_block sdhci sdhci-pci to MODULES
  • In the HOOKS section, add encrypt and lvm2 after block
  • ...save
• generate initramfs mkinitcpio -p linux
• install GRUB grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --boot-directory=/boot --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=ArchLinux
• generate GRUB configuration grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg and grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/ArchLinux/grub.cfg

Close and reboot

• and then exit exit
• unmount all umount -R /mnt
• and reboot reboot

Setup basic OS features

• log back in as root user
• connect to internet with wifi-menu
  • For VM: systemctl enable dhcpcd@enp0s3.service
• Install GUI
  • I like GNOME, so: pacman -S gnome

---

Optional

• update repo database & install Pakku
  • get git pacman -S git
  • open to Downloads (or anywere really)
  • run git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/pakku.git
  • open pakku foled cd pakku
  • install pakku makepkg -si
  • you can delete the pakku repo now cd .. and then rm -rf pakku
• Optional gnome install
  • gnome-extra has a buch of packages I don't like
  • these are individual packages from gnome-extra I do like
  • pacman -S gnome-nettool gnome-tweaks gnome-usage gnome-weather nautilus-sendto pacman-contrib
• Applications I like to have
  • pacman -S atom gimp vlc libreoffice-fresh firefox thunderbird pidgin

---

• Start/enable system applications
  • systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
  • systemctl enable paccache.timer
  • systemctl enable gdm.service
• restart system with reboot