Arch Linux Installation Guide

arch_linux_installation_guide.md

Intro

This is a very high level summary guide on installing Arch linux. This is not step by step tutorial for beginner.

Prerequisite

• Secure Boot Disabled
• Check if your system is UEFI or BOIS
• Burn the Arch linux iso on a usb device

Installation

Reboot the machine pick usb device in bootloader and proceed to following.

Keymaps

Keymap are highly individual specific depending on the keyboard one would use. RTFM.

Internet

Internet connection is necessary to make successful install pick wired connection or wireless

Wired Connection

If the machine has physical wire connection this step is done. Run ping www.google.com If network timeout or any indication of failed network connectivity - RTFM.

Wireless Connection

To get interactive wifi connection prompt, do iwctl

help

device list , display a list of devices capable to do wireless connections.

station wlan1 scan Note, (wlan1) is not constant it may or may not be different for machine to machine.

station wlan1 get-networks Display previously scan wifi(s) access points.

station wlan connect "my wifi" Connect to the wifi, if one's wifi has wpa2 enable , iwctl will as passphrase, act accordingly.

Once the machine is sure of internet connectivity, do timedatectl set-ntp true.

Mirrors

Optimize the mirrors according to machine's physical location.

Install mirror configuration tool

pacman -Sy reflector

Configure mirrors with Reflector

Make a list of country that's closet to the machine's physical location.

reflector -c "Switzerland","United State" --latest 6 --protocol https --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

pacman -Syyy

Partitioning

Check the partitions with lsblk

Apply partition with cfdisk

Format the partition for primary filesystem (ext4) mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

Format the partition for swap mkswap /dev/sda2 swapon /dev/sda2

Mounting

Mount the filesystem with mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Create dir to mount boot mkdir /mnt/boot

Mount the boot partition with mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/boot

Base install

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-headers linux-firmware vim

FSTAB

Generate FSTAB - genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab Check it /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot

arch-chroot /mnt

Locales

• Search your timezone

  timedatectl list-timezones | grep Yangon
  

• Apply timezone

  ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Yangon /etc/localtime
  

  hwclock --systohc
  

• Apply locale

  vim /etc/locale.gen
  

  locale-gen
  

  echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >> /etc/locale.conf
  

Hostname

vim /etc/hostname
Arch

vim /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1   localhost
::1         localhost
127.0.1.1   arch.localdomain    arch

Set Root password

Do passwd as root user

GRUB

• Install necessary packages

  pacman -Sy grub efibootmgr os-prober ntfs-3g networkmanager network-manager-applet wireless_tools wpa_supplicant dialog mtools osfstools base-devel git bluez bluez-utils openssh```

• Install Grub (EFI)

  grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=Arch
  

• Grub config

  grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  

Enable system services

• Network - systemctl enable NetworkManager
• Bluetooth - systemctl enable bluetooth
• SSH - systemctl enable sshd

New User

• Add user useradd -mG wheel kmt passwd kmt
• Make wheel group sudo EDITOR=vim visudo and uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Finish Installation

• exit chroot exit
• unmount umount -a
• reboot reboot