mjkstra/arch_linux_installation_guide.md

## arch_linux_installation_guide.md

      
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              arch_linux_installation_guide.md
            
          
    Modern Arch linux installation guide

Table of contents


Introduction
Preliminary Steps
Main installation

Disk partitioning
Disk formatting
Disk mounting
Packages installation
Fstab
Context switch to our new system
Set up the time zone
Set up the language and tty keyboard map
Hostname and Host configuration
Root and users
Grub configuration
Unmount everything and reboot
Automatic snapshot boot entries update
Virtualbox support
Aur helper and additional packages installation
Finalization


Video drivers

Amd

32 Bit support


Nvidia
Intel


Setting up a graphical environment

Option 1: KDE Plasma
Option 2: Hyprland [WIP]


Adding a display manager
Gaming

Gaming clients
Windows compatibility layers
Generic optimizations
Overclocking and monitoring
Tips and tricks


Things to add

Introduction

In this guide I'll show how to install Arch Linux with BTRFS on an UEFI system. I'll comment each step to make it understandable. Apart from the basic terminal installation I'll add steps to install video drivers, a desktop environment and to configure arch for gaming.


The goal of this guide is to help new users interface with Arch Linux by summarizing the main installation processes and grouping up further configuration choices as well as providing a modern, minimilastic and personal touch to it, which consists in "design" choices. Because of this reasons, when possible I've added external references if one wants to dive more into the details.


I won't prepare the system for secure boot because the procedure of custom key enrollment in the BIOS is dangerous and can lead to a bricked system, read the warnings here. If you are wondering why not using the default OEM keys in the BIOS, it's because they will make secure boot useless by being most likely not enough secure, as the arch wiki states.


I won't encrypt the system because I don't need it. Also note that encryption always adds a little bit of overhead and that the boot would become inevitably slower to varying degrees, depending on your configuration. However it may be important in other scenarios, so if you really wanna go this way I recommend reading the wiki page in this regards and must perform the documented steps IMMEDIATELY AFTER disk partitioning


I'll skip the Arch ISO download, gpg signature check and installation media preparation.


I'll use a wired connection, so no wireless configuration steps will be shown. If you want to connect to wifi, you can either launch wifi-menu from the terminal which is a TGUI or use iwctl.


Preliminary steps

First set up your keyboard layout
# List all the available keyboard maps and filter them through grep, in this case i am looking for an italian keyboard, which usually starts with "it", for english filter with "en"
ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz | grep it

# If you prefer you can scroll the whole list like this
ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz | less

# Or like this
localectl list-keymaps

# Now get the name without the path and the extension ( localectl returns just the name ) and load the layout. In my case it is simply "it"
loadkeys it


Check that we are in UEFI mode
# If this command prints 64 or 32 then you are in UEFI
cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size


Check the internet connection
ping -c 5 archlinux.org 


Check the system clock just in case
# Check if ntp is active and if the time is right
timedatectl


Main installation

Disk partitioning

I will make 2 partitions:


Number
Type
Size


1
EFI
512 Mb


2
Linux Filesystem
99.5Gb (all of the remaining space )


# Check the drive name. Mine is /dev/nvme0n1
# If you have an hdd is something like sdax
fdisk -l

# Invoke fdisk to partition
fdisk /dev/nvme0n1

# Now press the following commands, when i write ENTER press enter
g
ENTER
n
ENTER
ENTER
ENTER
+512M
ENTER
t
ENTER
ENTER
1
ENTER
n
ENTER
ENTER
ENTER # If you don't want to use all the space then select the size by writing +XG ( eg: to make a 10GB partition +10G )
p
ENTER # Now check if you got the partitions right

# If so write the changes
w
ENTER

# If not you can quit without saving and redo from the beginning
q
ENTER


Disk formatting

As a file system I've chosen to use BTRFS which has evolved quite a lot during the years. It has a set of incredible functionalities but is most known for its Copy on Write feature which enables it to make system snapshots in a blink of a an eye and to save a lot of disk space, which can be even saved to a greater extent by eanbling compression. Also it enables the creation of subvolumes which can be individually snapshotted. Learn more here
# Find the efi partition with fdisk -l or lsblk. For me it's /dev/nvme0n1p1 and format it.
mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

# Find the root partition. For me it's /dev/nvme0n1p2 and format it. I will use BTRFS.
mkfs.btrfs /dev/nvme0n1p2

# Mount the root fs to make it accessible
mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt


Disk mounting

I will lay down the subvolumes on a flat layout, which is overall superior in my opinion and less constrained than a nested one. What's the difference ? If you're interested this section of the old sysadmin guide explains it.
# Create the subvolumes, in my case I choose to make a subvolume for / and one for /home. Subvolumes are identified by prepending @
# NOTICE: the list of subvolumes will be increased in a later release of this guide, upon proper testing. To learn more go to the "Things to add" chapter.
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/@
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/@home

# Unmount the root fs
umount /mnt


For this guide I'll compress the btrfs subvolumes with Zstd, which has proven to be a good algorithm among the choices
# Mount the root and home subvolume. If you don't want compression just remove the compress option.
mount -o compress=zstd,subvol=@ /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/home
mount -o compress=zstd,subvol=@home /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt/home


Now we have to mount the efi partition. In general there are 2 main mountpoints to use: /efi or /boot but in this configuration i am forced to use /efi, because by choosing /boot we could experience a system crash when trying to restore @ ( the root subvolume ) to a previous state after kernel updates. This happens because /boot files such as the kernel won't reside on @ but on the efi partition and hence they can't be saved when snapshotting @. Also this choice grants separation of concerns and also is good if one wants to encrypt /boot, since you can't encrypt efi files. Learn more here
mkdir -p /mnt/efi
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/efi


Packages installation

# This will install some packages to "bootstrap" methaphorically our system. Feel free to add the ones you want
# "base, linux, linux-firmware" are needed. If you want a more stable kernel, then swap linux with linux-lts
# "base-devel" base development packages
# "git" to install the git vcs
# "btrfs-progs" are user-space utilities for file system management ( needed to harness the potential of btrfs )
# "grub" the bootloader
# "efibootmgr" needed to install grub
# "grub-btrfs" adds btrfs support for the grub bootloader and enables the user to directly boot from snapshots
# "inotify-tools" used by grub btrfsd deamon to automatically spot new snapshots and update grub entries
# "timeshift" a GUI app to easily create,plan and restore snapshots using BTRFS capabilities
# "amd-ucode" microcode updates for the cpu. If you have an intel one use "intel-ucode"
# "vim" my goto editor, if unfamiliar use nano
# "networkmanager" to manage Internet connections both wired and wireless ( it also has an applet package network-manager-applet )
# "pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack" for the new audio framework replacing pulse and jack. 
# "wireplumber" the pipewire session manager.
# "reflector" to manage mirrors for pacman
# "zsh" my favourite shell
# "zsh-completions" for zsh additional completions
# "zsh-autosuggestions" very useful, it helps writing commands [ Needs configuration in .zshrc ]
# "openssh" to use ssh and manage keys
# "man" for manual pages
# "sudo" to run commands as other users
pacstrap -K /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware git btrfs-progs grub efibootmgr grub-btrfs inotify-tools timeshift vim networkmanager pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack wireplumber reflector zsh zsh-completions zsh-autosuggestions openssh man sudo


Fstab

# Fetch the disk mounting points as they are now ( we mounted everything before ) and generate instructions to let the system know how to mount the various disks automatically
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

# Check if fstab is fine
cat /mnt/etc/fstab


Context switch to our new system

# To access our new system we chroot into it
arch-chroot /mnt


Set up the time zone

# In our new system we have to set up the local time zone, find your one in /usr/share/zoneinfo mine is /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Rome and create a symbolic link to /etc/localtime
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Rome /etc/localtime

# Now sync the time to the hardware clock
hwclock --systohc


Set up the language and tty keyboard map

Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment the entries for your locales, this will "enable" ( NOT ACTIVATE ) the language but also formats for time, date, currency and other country related settings. In my case I will uncomment ( ie: remove the # ) en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and it_IT.UTF-8 UTF-8 because I use English as a "display" language and Italian for date, time and other formats.
# To edit I will use vim, feel free to use nano instead.
vim /etc/locale.gen

# Now generate the locales
locale-gen


Create the configuration file /etc/locale.conf and set the locale to the desired one, by setting the LANG variable accordingly. In my case I'll write LANG=it_IT.UTF-8 to apply Italian settings to everything and then override only the display language to English by setting LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8. ( if you want formats and language to stay the same DON'T set LC_MESSAGES  ). More on this here
touch /etc/locale.conf
vim /etc/locale.conf


Now to make the current keyboard layout permanent for tty sessions , create /etc/vconsole.conf and write KEYMAP=your_key_map substituting the keymap with the one previously set here. In my case KEYMAP=it
vim /etc/vconsole.conf


Hostname and Host configuration

# Create /etc/hostname then choose and write the name of your pc in the first line. In my case I'll use Arch
touch /etc/hostname
vim /etc/hostname

# Create the /etc/hosts file. This is very important because it will resolve the listed hostnames locally and not over the Internet.
touch /etc/hosts
Write the following ip, hostname pairs inside /etc/hosts, replacing Arch with YOUR hostname:
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost
127.0.1.1 Arch

# Edit the file with the information above
vim /etc/hosts


Root and users

# Set up the root password
passwd

# Add a new user, in my case mjkstra.
# -m creates the home dir automatically
# -G adds the user to an initial list of groups, in this case wheel, the administration group. If you are on a Virtualbox VM and would like to enable shared folders between host and guest machine, then also add the group vboxsf besides wheel.
useradd -mG wheel mjkstra
passwd mjkstra

# Uncomment the wheel group to allow execution of any command( ie: remove the # from the wheel line below where it says something like: "Uncomment to let members of group wheel execute any action" ). if you want to use nano then write EDITOR=nano instead.
EDITOR=vim visudo


Grub configuration

Now I'll deploy grub
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB  


Generate the grub configuration ( it will include the microcode installed with pacstrap earlier )
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg


Unmount everything and reboot

# Enable newtork manager before rebooting otherwise, you won't be able to connect
systemctl enable NetworkManager

# Exit from chroot
exit

# Unmount everything to check if the drive is busy
umount -R /mnt

# Reboot the system and unplug the installation media
reboot

# Now you'll be presented at the terminal. Log in with your user account, for me its "mjkstra".

# Enable and start the time synchronization service
timedatectl set-ntp true


Automatic snapshot boot entries update

Edit grub-btrfsd service to enable automatic grub entries update each time a snapshot is created. Because I will use timeshift i am going to replace ExecStart=... with ExecStart=/usr/bin/grub-btrfsd --syslog --timeshift-auto. If you don't use timeshift or prefer to manually update the entries then lookup here
sudo systemctl edit --full grub-btrfsd

# Enable grub-btrfsd service to run on boot
sudo systemctl enable grub-btrfsd


Virtualbox support

Follow these steps if you are running Arch on a Virtualbox VM.
This will enable features such as clipboard sharing, shared folders and screen resolution tweaks
# Install the guest utils
pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils

# Enable this service to automatically load the kernel modules
systemctl enable vboxservice.service

Note: the utils will only work after a reboot is performed.


Warning: the utils seems to only work in a graphical environment.


Aur helper and additional packages installation

To gain access to the arch user repository we need an aur helper, I will choose yay which also works as a pacman wrapper ( which means you can use yay instead of pacman. Cool, right ? ). Yay has a CLI, but if you later want to have an aur helper with a GUI, I advise installing pamac, which is the default on Manjaro.
To learn more about yay read here

Note: you can't execute makepkg as root, so you need to log in your main account. For me it's mjkstra

# Install yay
sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel && git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git && cd yay && makepkg -si

# Install "timeshift-autosnap", a configurable pacman hook which automatically makes snapshots before pacman upgrades.
yay -S timeshift-autosnap

Learn more about timeshift autosnap here


Finalization

# To complete the main/basic installation reboot the system
reboot

After these steps you should be able to boot on your newly installed Arch Linux, if so congrats !


The basic installation is complete and you could stop here, but if you want to to have a graphical session, you can continue reading the guide.


Video drivers

In order to have the smoothest experience on a graphical environment, Gaming included, we first need to install video drivers. To help you choose which one you want or need, read this section of the arch wiki.

Note: skip this section if you are on a Virtual Machine


Amd

For this guide I'll install the AMDGPU driver which is the open source one and the recommended, but be aware that this works starting from the GCN 3 architecture, which means that cards before RX 400 series are not supported. ( FYI I have an RX 5700 XT )
# What are we installing ?
# mesa: DRI driver for 3D acceleration
# xf86-video-amdgpu: DDX driver for 2D acceleration in Xorg. This is a personal choice, you can avoid installing it if you prefer the kernel modesetting driver.
# vulkan-radeon: vulkan support
# libva-mesa-driver: VA-API h/w video decoding support
# mesa-vdpau: VDPAU h/w accelerated video decoding support

sudo pacman -S mesa xf86-video-amdgpu vulkan-radeon libva-mesa-driver mesa-vdpau
32 Bit support

IF you want add 32-bit support, we need to enable the multilib repository on pacman: edit /etc/pacman.conf and uncomment the [multilib] section ( ie: remove the hashtag from each line of the section. Should be 2 lines ). Now we can install the additional packages.
# Refresh and upgrade the system
yay

# Install 32bit support for mesa, vulkan, VA-API and VDPAU
sudo pacman -S lib32-mesa lib32-vulkan-radeon lib32-libva-mesa-driver lib32-mesa-vdpau


Nvidia

In summary if you have an Nvidia card you have 2 options:

Nouveau open source driver
NVIDIA proprietary driver

I won't explain further because I don't have an Nvidia card and the process for such cards is tricky unlike for AMD or Intel cards. Moreover for reason said before, I can't even test it.


Intel

Installation looks almost identical to the AMD one, but every time a package contains the radeon word substitute it with intel. However this does not stand for h/w accelerated decoding, and to be fair I would recommend reading the wiki before doing anything.


Setting up a graphical environment

I'll provide 2 options:

KDE-plasma
Hyprland

On top of that I'll add a display manager, which you can omit if you don't like ( if so, you have additional configuration steps to perform ).


Option 1: KDE-plasma

KDE Plasma is a very popular DE which comes bundled in many distributions. It supports both the older more stable Xorg and  the newer Wayland protocols. It's user friendly, light and it's also used on the Steam Deck, which makes it great for gaming. I'll provide the steps for a minimal installation and add some basic packages.
# Install the plasma desktop environment, the audio and network applets, task manager, screen configurator, powerful QT theme engine, power manager, some useful basic addons, configuration for GTK application theming and other package of personal interest
sudo pacman -S plasma-desktop plasma-pa plasma-nm plasma-systemmonitor kscreen kvantum powerdevil kdeplasma-addons kde-gtk-config breeze-gtk alacritty dolphin firefox kate okular gwenview ark mpv gimp
Now don't reboot your system yet. If you want a display manager, which is generally recommended, head to the related section in this guide and proceed from there otherwise you'll have to manually configure and launch the graphical environment each time (which I would advise to avoid).


Option 2: Hyprland [WIP]


Note: this section needs configuration and is basically empty, I don't know when and if I will expand it but at least you have a starting point, which is the wiki, the master tutorial and some packages to start with


Hyprland is a tiling WM that sticks to the wayland protocol. It looks incredible and it's one of the best Wayland WMs right now. It's based on wlroots the famous library used by Sway, the most mature Wayland WM there is. I don't know if I would recommend this to beginners because it's a different experience from Windows/Ubuntu/PopOs and distros like that. Moreover it requires you to read the wiki for configuration but it also features a master tutorial, which serves as a great starting point. The good part is that even if it seems discouraging, it's actually an easy read because it is written beautifully, sometimes even better than the Arch wiki !
# Install hyprland from tagged releases and other utils:
# swaylock: the lockscreen
# wofi: the wayland version of rofi, an application launcher, extremely configurable
# waybar: a status bar for wayland wm's
# dolphin: a powerful file manager from KDE applications
# alacritty: a beautiful and minimal terminal application, super configurable
pacman -S --needed hyprland swaylock wofi waybar dolphin alacritty

# wlogout: a logout/shutdown menu
yay -S wlogout


Adding a display manager

Display managers are useful when you have multiple DE or WMs and want to choose where to boot from in a GUI fashion, also they take care of the launch process. I'll show the installation process of SDDM, which is highly customizable and compatible.

Note: hyprland does not support any display manager, however SDDM is reported to work flawlessly from the wiki

# Install SDDM
sudo pacman -S sddm

# Enable SDDM service to make it start on boot
sudo systemctl enable sddm

# If using KDE I suggest installing this to control the SDDM configuration from the KDE settings App
pacman -S --needed sddm-kcm

# Now it's time to reboot the system
reboot


Gaming

Gaming on linux has become a very fluid experience, so I'll give some tips on how to setup your arch distro for gaming.
Let's break down what is needed to game:

Gaming client ( eg: Steam, Lutris, Bottles, etc..)
Windows compatibility layers ( eg: Proton, Wine, DXVK, VKD3D )

Optionally we can have:

Generic optimization ( eg: gamemode )
Overclocking and monitoring software ( eg: CoreCtrl, Mangohud )
Custom kernels


Gaming clients

I'll install Steam and to access games from other launchers I'll use Bottles, which should be installed through flatpak.
# Install steam and flatpak
sudo pacman -S steam flatpak

# Install bottles through flatpak
flatpak install flathub com.usebottles.bottles


Windows compatibility layers

Proton is the compatibility layer developed by Valve, which includes DXVK( DirectX 9-10-11 to Vulkan), VKD3D ( DirectX 12 to Vulkan ) and a custom version of Wine. It is embedded in Steam and can be enabled directly in Steam settings. A custom version of proton, Proton GE exists and can be used as an alternative if something is broken or doesn't perform as expected. Can be either downloaded manually, like explained here or through yay as below.
# Installation through yay
yay -S proton-ge-custom-bin


Generic optimizations

We can use gamemode to gain extra performance. To enable it read here
# Install gamemode
sudo pacman -S gamemode


Overclocking and monitoring

To live monitor your in-game performance, you can use mangohud. To enable it read here.
In order to easily configure mangohud, I'll use Goverlay.
# Install goverlay which includes mangohud as a dependency
sudo pacman -S goverlay
To overclock your system, i suggest installing corectrl if you have an AMD Gpu or TuxClocker for NVIDIA.


Tips and tricks


Tip: On KDE disabling mouse acceleration is simple, just go to the settings via the GUI and on the mouse section enable the flat acceleration profile. If not using KDE then read here


Tip: To enable Freesync or Gsync you can read here, depending on your session ( Wayland or Xorg ) and your gfx provider ( Nvidia, AMD, Intel ) the steps may differ. On a KDE wayland session, you can directly enable it from the monitor settings under the name of adaptive sync


About custom kernels: To be fair I don't recommend changing the kernel to a custom one, for many reasons:

You have to manually update it and recompile it each time unless you use a precompiled kernel from pacman or aur such as linux-zen
Performance gain is little to none and sometimes it may results in losses with other scenarios
In my opinion changing to a custom kernel should be considered only if you experience problems or for the sake of science


Things to add


Additional pacman configuration ( paccache, colors, download packages simultaneously )
Reflector configuration
Snapper: a more advanced snapshot program as a timeshift alternative.
Overhaul the subvolumes partitioning into a richer set including @log @cache @tmp @snapshots. This way they they won't be included when snapshotting the root subvolume ( ie: @ ).
Fstab overhaul by editing it
Number	Type	Size
1	EFI	512 Mb
2	Linux Filesystem	99.5Gb (all of the remaining space )