This guide is mostly for beginners in a friendly guide if you want to install arch manually without the automated method and actually want to understand the commands you're running in an easier way, this guide is for both UFEI and Legacy BIOS in step 7, we will install sway which is a replacement of i3 in wayland.
- get the ISO from the Arch Linux website.
- Once you have the ISO from your mirror of choice you should install Rufus (if you're on windows)
- check whether you have UFEI and BIOS(at least search how to find this, it ain't 1995), if you have BIOS, select GPT. Otherwise select MBR in the partition scheme section 3(UFEI only): if you're on UFEI, make sure to disable secure boot and fast startup
- then you need to open the BIOS menu when the system starts(the keys differ from motherboard manifacturer so read the manual or visit the OEM's website) and find boot disk priority and select your USB drive or put at the top and save.
- go and boot from your USB drive. you will be prompted to live ISO image. you will now see the commandline and this is where we're gonna put our camping here.
Use lsblk to check the disk drive name, in this example it is /dev/sda (You may need to check as you may not use your main hard drive, or the USB is recognised as /dev/sdb):
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 119.2G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 100M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 63.4G 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 512M 0 part
└─sda4 8:4 0 55.3G 0 part
sdb 8:16 1 14.3G 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 1 586M 0 part /run/archiso/bootmnt
└─sdb2 8:18 1 64M 0 part
Once you know what your drive is called, use cfdisk /dev/(drive), replacing (drive) with sda,sdb etc. I'll be using sda.
Press the del buttons on any partitions you wanna get rid of.
cfdisk /dev/sda
it will prompt you to select label type, if you're on UFEI, select gpt otherwise select dos
For your SWAP partition, press new and set the partition size accordingly, I'll be using 4G. Then choose "primary".
For your boot partition, press new and set the partition size to 512M, choose primary and toggle bootable on it.
For your root partition, choose the size (i'll be using the rest of my SDD for this), and choose "primary" like how you have on both of your other partitions.
Once you have done all that, choose Write and type yes. Then choose quit.
the partition now should look like this
sda1 2GB swap partition
sda2 512MB boot partition
sda4 ---GB / partition
Activate the swap by doing:
mkswap /dev/sda1
swapon /dev/sda1Then format the boot partition into vfat and ext4:
mkfs.vfat /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
now mount the partitions
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/home
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
having a separate /home directory can help in if you're reinstalling your system in case of a broken system update, usually it is recommended to give 15-20GB to / partition and the rest to /home, you can still install and run arch if you don't want to create separate home directory
- sda1 2GB swap partition
- sda2 512MB boot partition
- sda3 15GB / partition
- sda4 ---GB /home partition
activating the swap and formatting into vfat and ext4 filesystem
mkswap /dev/sda1
swapon /dev/sda1
mkfs.vfat /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4
mounting the partitions, mount meaning connect or plugging
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/home
you need to connect to the internet in order to install base system in the next sub-step
if you're using ethernet, chances are it will be detected automatically in the live ISO. you can move onto next sub-step.
to see if you're connected, run ping -c 3 google.com
if you're on wireless network, this sub-step is for you
Now start the INet Wireless Daemon(iwd).This wireless package comes pre-installed on intel based hp laptops.Not sure if it's in other laptop models.
Enable and start the iwd.service
systemctl enable iwd.service
systemctl start iwd.service
Verify it has started
systemctl status iwd.service
After verifying the iwd service is running in the previous step, type iwctl to get an interactive prompt.
The prompt will be displayed as [iwd]#. Here you are now interacting with the client program 'iwctl'.
list all wifi devices nearby
[iwd]# device list
Devices
-------------------------------------------------------------
Name Address Powered Adapter Mode
-------------------------------------------------------------
wlan0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx on phy0 station
Note: wireless devices usually start with letter 'w'. e.g wlan0 or wlp3s0
[iwd]# station wlan0 get-networks
Available networks
------------------------------------------------------------
Network name Security Signal
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hecker psk ****
the_guy_next_door psk ****
Your Network Name is also referred to as SSID technically. If you can see your network name, then type
[iwd]# station wlan0 connect <your_network_name>
substitute the above command with your network name, angle brackets excluded to connect to it.
When you type the above command, for eg: station wlan0 connect guy_next_door
you will be prompted for passphrase.
This is nothing but you just have to type network password.
Exit the iwctl client by typing exit
To use iwctl directly without entering into the prompt
iwctl --passphrase <your_network_password> station <your_interface>(usually wlan0) connect <your_network_name>
after you have the network configured, try slapping google three times to check whether your internet is working
ping -c 3 google.com
optional set the mirror to the nearest ftp server to get the fastest network speed
nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
now it's time to install basic packages to get started, this might take time if you didn't select the nearest mirror
pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware nano grub sudo bash dhcpcd networkmanager
now generate genfstab to permanently store mount points, otherwise they will get removed when restarting your system
genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
cat /mnt/etc/fstab
make sure to check fstab file for any errors
now, login into your sort-of arch
arch-chroot /mnt
now enable the network service
systemctl enable NetworkManager
Set your own timezone, since I live in india so I would choose asia timezone here
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime
//ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc
set the time through network and check the time, if the above doesn't work
timedatectl set-ntp true
timedatectl status
open nano /etc/locale.gen with your favourite editor and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
generate a locale config file by typing:
locale-gen
echo LANG=[locale_name] > /etc/locale.conf
Where [locale_name] is the name of your preferred locale.
open /etc/pacman.conf and uncomment the lines below
[multilib]
include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
run the command to update the repositories
pacman -Sy
open /etc/hosts in nano or vim
in place of "name", write your user account. this will be your username
127.0.0.1 name.localdomain name
127.0.0.1 cat.localdomain cat
add the user from (remember to write that username what you have written in /etc/hosts file)
useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power,audio name
type your user password
passwd name
type your root password
passwd
add the computer name, it will be shown on your network
echo "computer name" > /etc/hostname
type EDITOR=nano visudo to open up the sudo editor, now you can either
uncomment this line %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
which requires you to type the password everytime you execute a command with sudo(which I recommended for beginners)
OR
uncomment this. %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
same thing as above but without needing to type the password
download and run os-prober, this will automatically detect your windows installations
sudo pacman -S os-prober
os-prober
now uncomment this line from /etc/default/grub
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER="false"
if os-prober doesn't detect your windows installation. then you can try adding it manually.
then you need to add the following line to /etc/grub.d/40_custom
menuentry "Windows 10" {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ntfs
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
chainloader +1
}
now copy and paste these commands to install the bootloader:
For leagacy BIOS
mkinitcpio -p linux
grub-install /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
For UFEI
mkinitcpio -p linux
pacman -S efibootmgr
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfgType: exit then umount -R /mnt then reboot.
Once you've done that, remove your USB and now you have a working install of Arch Linux!
Yet Another Yogurt - An AUR Helper Written in Go which can help you to build packages from source and install it via pacman
install git if you haven't done that
sudo pacman -S git
make a directory source and go inside the source directory
mkdir Sources
cd Sources
clone the aur repo
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
change directory and bulid it
cd yay
makepkg -si
install sway which is the window manager for wayland
sudo pacman -S sway swaybg swayidle swaylock
then type sway and it should launch sway
install hyprland
sudo pacman -S hyprland
then type Hyprland it should show you the screen
type: sudo pacman -Ss xf86-video for a full list of video drivers if you aren't using nvidia, amd or intel gpu
Nvidia open-source drivers:
sudo pacman -S xf86-video-nouveau
Nvidia's properietary drivers:
sudo pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils
pacman -S xf86-video-amdgpu mesaAfter installation enable the modules in configuration of Mkinitcpio. Open for this /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf
Add the amdgpu driver in modules variable:
MODULES=(amdgpu)
Build now your kernels
mkinitcpio -P
Set the kernel parameter for SI/CIK Graphicscard support.
radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.cik_support=1
radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1
In addition, you can enable overclocking features with:
amdgpu.ppfeaturemask=0xfffd7fff or amdgpu.ppfeaturemask=0xffffffff
depending on the card. Save the changes and update grub.
reboot
just install this driver and you're ready to go!
sudo pacman -S xf86-video-intel
install alsa
sudo pacman -S alsa-firmware alsa-lib alsa-utils
configure the audio
aplay -l && lspci | grep -i audio && ls -l /dev/snd/
alsamixer -c 1
test the audio
speaker-test -c 2
Now you can finally reboot and start your journey to join the unixporn community!!
- hazel0177 for making the guide which helped me installing arch on my old-ass PC with an SSD