Installing Arch Linux on USB

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README.md

Installing Arch on USB

Installing arch on a USB Drive, Simple Scriptable installation procedure.

Prerequisites

• USB pen driver at lease 8GB

• Installation media

• VM / PC for Installation

• Internet Connection

• References

  • ValleyCat
  • ArchWiki
  • GUI n Stuff

Steps

• Create VM without hdd and boot from latest Arch ISO
• Attache USB Drive check drive name using lsblk, usually /dev/sda
• Preparing for Installation
  • Check Internet Connection ping archlinux.org
  • Set root passwd passwd and enable ssh systemctl start sshd
  • Enable fastest Mirror

    sudo pacman -Sy --noconfirm --needed reflector pacman-contrib
    
    sudo reflector -l 100 -f 50 --sort rate --threads 5 --verbose \
    --save /tmp/mirrorlist.new && \
    rankmirrors -n 0 /tmp/mirrorlist.new > /tmp/mirrorlist && \
    sudo cp /tmp/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d
    
    cat /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
    sudo pacman -Syy
    

Installation Media

• Downloading the latest ISO.

  # Download latest iso from https://www.archlinux.org/download/ ------------- #
  ArchMirror="http://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/archlinux/iso/latest"
  wget -c "$ArchMirror/md5sums.txt"
  sed -i '/archlinux-bootstrap/d' md5sums.txt
  read md5sum archiso <<<$(cat md5sums.txt)
  wget -c "$ArchMirror/$archiso"
  md5sum -c md5sums.txt
  # -------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
  

• Making USB Installation media (not req. if using iso in VM)
  • dd bs=4M if=/path/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdX status=progress && sync

Installation

• Create a Virtual Box with out hard disk and attache USB and ISO.
• Boot from Arch installation media.

# check avilable disks and enable networking
#lsblk
#ip link
#ip link set <name> up
# set root passwd and enable ssh
#passwd
#systemctl start sshd

# Mounting USB

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "D:\VMs\Vbox\ArchUSB\archUSB.vmdk"

archUSB_installation.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Installation --------------------------------------------------------------- #
disk="/dev/sda"   # specify the usb drive using
mnt="/mnt/drive"  # temporary mount point
adminUser="admin"
adminPassword="admin@123"

# Preparing the USB Drive ---------------------------------------------------- #
# Zero Fill Boot sector and create partition tables
dd if=/dev/zero of="$disk" bs=512 seek=0 count=20480 status=progress # zero fill
sgdisk -z                "$disk"  # zap anything existing 
sgdisk -o                "$disk"  # new GPT partition with protective MBR
# BIOS Boot Drive for old PC
sgdisk -n 1:0:+10M       "$disk"  # Partition 1 - everything but the last 200MB
sgdisk -t 1:ef02         "$disk"  # Set partition type to Linux
sgdisk -c 1:"BIOS"       "$disk"  # Set Part name BIOS
# EFI Boot Drive for New PC
sgdisk -n 2:0:+500M      "$disk"  # create partition 2 - last 200MB
sgdisk -t 2:ef00         "$disk"  # Set partition type to ESP
sgdisk -c 2:"UEFI"       "$disk"  # Set Part name UEFI
# ROOT and installation partition
sgdisk -n 3:0:0          "$disk"  # Root partition
sgdisk -t 3:8304         "$disk"  # Set partition type to linux x86_x64
sgdisk -c 3:"ArchLinux"  "$disk"  # Set Part name ArchLinux

# File Systems 
mkfs.fat -F32 "$disk"2 # ESP
mkfs.ext4 -O "^has_journal" "$disk"3 # Primary Linux partition
mkdir -p $mnt
mount "$disk"3 $mnt
mkdir -p $mnt/boot
mount "$disk"2 $mnt/boot

# Installing arch base (~250MB, ~1GB) ---------------------------------------- # 
pacstrap $mnt base 
# Generate fstab Entries
genfstab -U -p $mnt > $mnt/etc/fstab
arch-chroot $mnt

echo "archusb" >> /etc/hostname
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime
sed -i '/^#en_US.UTF-8/s/^#//' /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

# Host Name Entries
echo "# Host Entries
127.0.0.1    localhost
::1          localhost
127.0.1.1    archusb.localdomain    archusb" >> /etc/hosts 

# Generating Instial RAM Disk
sed -i '/^HOOKS=/ {
    s/block //
    s/autodetect/block autodetect/p
}' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
mkinitcpio -p linux

# Installing Grub boot loader (~6MB, ~30MB) 
pacman -S --noconfirm --needed grub efibootmgr #os-prober
grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory /boot /dev/sda
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory /boot \
--boot-directory /boot --removable
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

# Save disk wites
sed -i '/Storage=/s/^.*$/Storage=volatile/
/SystemMaxUse=/s/^.*$/SystemMaxUse=16M/' /etc/systemd/journald.conf 

# Network Configuration (~3MB, ~10MB)
pacman -S --noconfirm --needed wpa_supplicant dialog ifplugd wpa_actiond 
# Using Old dev names i.e. eth & wlan
ln -s /dev/null /etc/udev/rules.d/80-net-setup-link.rules
# enable network services
#systemctl enable netctl-auto@wlan0
cp /etc/netctl/examples/ethernet-dhcp /etc/netctl/eth0-dhcp
systemctl enable netctl-ifplugd@eth0

# Required (~15MB, ~80MB)
pacman -S --noconfirm --needed sudo openssh vim tmux git
systemctl enable sshd

# grml-zsh-config zsh-completions

# All Genric Video Drivers (~43MB, ~183MB)
pacman -S --noconfirm --needed xf86-video-ati xf86-video-intel \
xf86-video-nouveau xf86-video-vesa

# Laptop Touch Pad & Battery (~0MB, ~1MB)
pacman -S --noconfirm --needed xf86-input-synaptics acpi

#USER Configuration
# Zsh as in Arch installation iso (~2MB, ~7MB)
pacman -S --noconfirm --needed grml-zsh-config zsh-completions
#Change Root shell
#chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh
# Admin User with password less sudo and zsh
useradd -m $adminUser -s /usr/bin/zsh
echo "$adminUser":"$adminPassword" | chpasswd
echo "$adminUser ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" > /etc/sudoers.d/$adminUser
chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/$adminUser

# Exit
exit 
umount $mnt/boot $mnt
reboot

#base-devel vim \
#	wpa_supplicant dialog \
#	grml-zsh-config zsh-completions \
#	openssh sudo
#hwclock --systohc

# Default rule copied from ArchISO 
# cat <<EOF > /etc/udev/rules.d/81-dhcpcd.rules
# ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", ENV{INTERFACE}=="en*|eth*", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}="dhcpcd@$name.service"
# EOF

#pacman -S ansible vagrant virtualbox packer

# Network Driver
#pacman -S iw

# My Admin Tools
#pacman -S packer aws-cli ansible 
# My Lab tools
#pacman -S vagrant virtualbox

# Permissions ~11MB
#pacman -S polkit

## All packages from ISO
#pacman -S $( curl https://git.archlinux.org/archiso.git/plain/configs/releng/packages.x86_64)

## recommended
#git clone https://github.com/arcmags/archlinux-usb

gui_i3_installation.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Gui
pacman -S i3 dmenu xorg-server xorg-apps xorg-xinit --noconfirm --needed
echo "#! /bin/bash
exec i3" > ~/.xinitrc

# terminal
pacman -S rxvt-unicode rxvt-unicode-terminfo

# Intalling Aura
pacman -S base-devel wget git # ~50 MB

# Python
pacman -S python

pacman -S htop iotop

pacman -S elinks ranger

pacman -S ttf-dejavu ttf-inconsolata

# Gui tools 
pacman -S firefox gimp vlc code

test.sh

#!/bin/bash
set -e
#set -x
# Download latest iso from https://www.archlinux.org/download/ ------------- #
ArchMirror="http://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/archlinux/iso/latest"
read sha1sum archiso <<<$(curl "$ArchMirror/sha1sums.txt" \
        | sed -n '/archlinux-.*-x86_64.iso/p')
wget -c "$ArchMirror/$archiso" 
echo "$sha1sum  $archiso" > "$archiso"_sha1sums.txt
#sha1sum -c sha1sums.txt
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
#git clone https://github.com/archlinux/arch-boxes.git
#
#cd arch-boxes
#
#cat <<EOF >local.json
#{
#    "iso_url": "file://$isodir/$archiso",
#    "iso_checksum_url": "file://$isodir/sha1sums.txt"
#}
#EOF

#packer build -only=virtualbox-iso -var-file=local.json vagrant.json