Raymo111/MSI Bravo A4DDR Arch Install.md

## MSI Bravo A4DDR Arch Install.md

      
    Raw
  

              MSI Bravo A4DDR Arch Install.md
            
          
    How to Install Arch Linux on an MSI Bravo A4DDR

By Raymo111

Last updated 29 July 2021
Disclaimer: I have personally tested every step of this. However, I'm not responsible for anything you do.
There's a Reddit thread for this laptop.
Pre-install


Setup Windows.
I kid you not. This is required (for EC updates) unless you know what you are doing. (Spoiler: if you did you wouldn't be here.) It also gives you the opportunity to test that everything with the hardware is working and verify you got the correct chips and amount of storage/RAM before you destroy the factory state. It's very hard to get your retailer to accept a laptop you've already installed Arch on for a refund. Also the laptop comes with a pretty cool wallpaper and this utility to check everything MSI.
Go to https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/Bravo-15-A4DDR and get BIOS and EC. Install the EC using the bat file.
Unzip the BIOS to a USB and press shutdown while holding shift. (To disable fast bootup and other nasty stuff).
Plug in your USB and power on the laptop, holding the DEL key. Find the place to flash bios and do it. Make sure that you actually flash once it reboots into recovery mode (it's right there on the screen, took me a while to figure out).
Verify that your BIOS and EC are the latest version from the System Info section in BIOS.
Enable advanced BIOS using this secret key combo: R_Shift + R_Ctrl + L_Alt + F2 (Thanks to u/toazd for the tip!)
Disable secure boot in BIOS (or you won't even be able to boot the live image)
Get the Arch ISO flashed onto your live USB. I recommend using Etcher
Boot the laptop, holding down the F11 key, and select your USB drive to boot from it

Install Arch!

See:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/installation_guide
https://www.tecmint.com/arch-linux-installation-and-configuration-guide/
https://itsfoss.com/install-arch-linux/


Plug in ethernet (RJ45). This is easier than using Wi-Fi.
Check your internet connectivity
ping 1.1.1.1
Verify on UEFI
ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
Update your system clock's time
timedatectl set-ntp true
Check with
timedatectl status
Partition disks
cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1
The following is what I did; it may not be what you want:

Delete existing partitions
16G Linux swap first
512M EFI System second
300G Linux x86-64 root third
Write and quit


Format and mount partitions
mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p2
mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p3 #(will take a minute or two)
mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p1
mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt
swapon /dev/nvme0n1p1


Get the fastest mirror to install your system and packages

Sync repos
pacman -Syy
Install reflector
pacman -S reflector
Backup mirrorlist
cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak
Run reflector directly on mirrorlist
reflector -c "CA" -f 12 -l 10 -n 12 --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist #(replace CA with your country)
Include multilib for 32-bit wine :)
nano /etc/pacman.conf
Uncomment the following lines:
 [multilib]
 Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist`


Install Arch
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware nano git #(add any other packages you want installed here)
Mount your partitions on boot automatically
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
Verify that cat /mnt/etc/fstab includes ext4 and swap
Chroot into your system
arch-chroot /mnt
Setup timezone
timedatectl list-timezones
timedatectl set-timezone America/Toronto # replace America/Toronto with your location


Set hw clock to UTC
hwclock --systohc --utc
Localization: nano /etc/locale.gen and uncomment desired locales (i.e. en_CA.UTF-8 UTF-8, en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8, fr_CA.UTF-8 UTF-8, zh_CN.UTF-8 UTF-8)
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_CA.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
export LANG=en_CA.UTF-8


Set your hostname
echo myarch > /etc/hostname #(replace `myarch` with your preferred hostname)
nano /etc/hosts and add:
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1	   localhost
127.0.1.1 myarch

Make sure to replace myarch with your hostname!
Update your freshly-installed system
pacman -Syu
Set your preferred root password
passwd
Install sudo
pacman -S sudo
Create your user
export NEWUSR=raymo #(replace `raymo` with your username)
useradd -mg users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/bash $NEWUSR


Set your user's password
passwd $NEWUSR
Give your user root permissions
sudo EDITOR=nano visudo
Add a line with
raymo ALL=(ALL) ALL
or
raymo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL #if you want sudo without password prompt


Install Grub
pacman -S grub efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools
Setup EFI
mkdir /boot/efi
Mount the EFI system partition
mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /boot/efi
Setup Grub
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --recheck
Create the config file for Grub
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Install and enable DHCPCD
pacman -S dhcpcd && systemctl enable dhcpcd
Install and enable NetworkManager
pacman -S networkmanager && systemctl enable NetworkManager
Install KDE (or whatever other DE/WM you want, i.e. Gnome, i3, XFCE, LXDE, MATE, etc.)
pacman -S xorg xorg-xinit sddm plasma kde-applications

I didn't want the following for plasma (^5,^11,^20-21, etc.):

drkonqi, kgamma5, kwayland*, oxygen, plasma-sdk, plasma-vault


and only installed the kde-apps that I wanted (the AUR group page contains descriptions of every package)
I went with 2, vlc, and cronie for the dependencies


Install Mesa
pacman -S lib32-mesa mesa mesa-demos
Install AMD video drivers
xf86-video-amdgpu
Enable SDDM (or whatever greeter you want) so that you don't see a shell when you boot up
systemctl enable sddm
Set make-flags for makepkg to use more cores:
vim /etc/makepkg.conf

Replace the MAKEFLAGS="-j 2" line with:
MAKEFLAGS="-j $(nproc --ignore=2)" # 2 less than num of total threads


Install yay - this will help you a lot but isn't exactly required. It's an AUR helper.
su $NEWUSR
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay
makepkg -si
exit # or Ctrl+D


Cleanup


Exit chroot with Ctrl+D or exit
Shutdown
shutdown now
Once it's shut down you can unplug the live USB
Set the boot order in BIOS (hold DEL on startup), and add an admin password if you want
Boot and login with your username and password
Open the KDE menu and type konsole to get a terminal. Run yay -S neofetch to test yay and get neofetch. Run neofetch, and flex Arch to all your friends. And also pat yourself on the back - you did it! Welcome to the best distro ever.

#btwiusearch
(obviously)