Arch Linux Installation

Arch gang rise up

2019-10-25 860 words 5 minutes

Why?

As you can notice, there are various tutorials in the net for the keyword “Arch installation”. As an Arch user, I will recommmend you to take a look at the Arch wiki for such an installation progess instead. So what is the purpose of this post? You may ask.

First of all, this post serves as a snippset for my arch installation. I don’t want to forget anything esstensial for my daily workflow incase I have to make a complete reinstall. Secondly, as personalized as this installation guide may seems, it may help new users in some ways.

Now let’s get started:

Caution

/dev/nvme0n1 should be replaced with /dev/sda depending on different hardware.

Setting up

Setting up network

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ip link
wifi-menu

Disks partition

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lsbk
cgdisk /dev/nvme0n1

Partitions	Space	Type	Lable
/dev/nvme0n1p1	512M	ef00	boot
/dev/nvme0n1p2	4G	8200	swap
/dev/nvme0n1p3	remaining	8300	system

Format partitions

1. EFI partition

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mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

2. Activate swap

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mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p2
swapon /dev/nvme0n1p2

3. System partition

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mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p3

Mount and setting up

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$ mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt
$ mkdir /mnt/boot
$ mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
$ df

Installation

Select mirror

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$ nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Place your host of choice on top:

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Server = http://abcdxyz.example.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

Install base system

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$ pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware neovim
$ genfstab -U /mnt
$ genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
$ cd /mnt/etc
$ cat fstab

Chroot into system: setting up timezone, passwd,…

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$ arch-chroot /mnt
$ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/ /  /etc/localtime
$ hwclock --systohc --utc
$ nvim  /etc/locale.gen` then uncomment `en_US.UFT-8`
$ locale-gen
$ echo "LANG=en_US.UFT-8" > /etc/locale.conf
$ nvim /etc/hostname
$ passwd
$ useradd -g users -G wheel,storage,power -m ashpex

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localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Setting up Bootloader

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$ pacman -S grub efibootmgr
$ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB
$ pacman -S os-prober
$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Setting up wifi

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$ pacman -S networkmanager wireless_tools wpa_supplicant network-manager-applet
$ exit
$ reboot

Install yay

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$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
$ cd yay
$ makepkg -si

Enable `ntp`

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$ pacman -S ntp
$ systemctl enable ntpd
$ systemctl start ntpd
$ timedatectl set-ntp 1

Install DEs or WM.

Gnome

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$ sudo pacman -Syu
$ sudo pacman -S xorg xorg-server
$ sudo pacman -S gnome
$ sudo systemctl start gdm.service
$ sudo systemctl enable gdm.service
$ sudo pacman -S pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa

i3

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$ sudo pacman -S i3-gaps dunst dmenu picom feh mpd mpv ranger rofi scrot neovim xorg xorg-server pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa alsa-utils nemo alacritty firefox git zathura

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$ yay polybar ranger-git

Tip

Install light package to control brightness. It works better than xbacklight and supports Wayland.

XFCE

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sudo pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies

Conclusion

That’s pretty much the whole installation of your Arch Linux system. You can customize your OS more later such as things like ricing,… The fun has just begun. Here are some screenshots of my machine over time.

/images/2019-08_scrot.png — Screenshot taken in August 2019

/images/2019-12_scrot.png — Screenshot taken in December 2019

/images/2020-05_scrot.png — Screenshot taken in May 2020

Troubleshooting

Wifi icon ¹

Initial Requirements

Hosts

Check the configuration of your /etc/hosts file, a valid configuration looks like this:

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#<ip-address> <hostname.domain.org> <hostname> 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain yourHostname ::1 localhost.localdomain yourHostname

Devices

You can identify your networking devices like this:

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lspci | grep -i net

If your device is not listed, it is maybe an usb-device, so try this command:

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lsusb

With the following command you can check the current state of all your network-devices:

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ip link

Installation of Required tools

Install the wpa_supplicant tools

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sudo pacman -S wpa_supplicant

the wireless tools

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sudo pacman -S wireless_tools

Install the networkmanager

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sudo pacman -S networkmanager

Install the network-manager-applet aka nm-applet

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sudo pacman -S network-manager-applet

Install gnome-keyring

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sudo pacman -S gnome-keyring

Configuration

Make the networkmanager start on boot:

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sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

Disable dhcpcd

Since networkmanager wants to be the one who handles the dhcpcd related stuff, you have to disable and stop dhcpcd:

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$ sudo systemctl disable dhcpcd.service 
$ sudo systemctl disable dhcpcd@.service 
$ sudo systemctl stop dhcpcd.service 
$ sudo systemctl stop dhcpcd@.service

Enable wpa_supplicant, if you want to use your wireless connection:

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sudo systemctl enable wpa_supplicant.service

Add your user to the network group:

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gpasswd -a <USERNAME> network

Turn off your network interface controllers, in my case eth0 and wlan0:

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$ ip link set down eth0
$ ip link set down wlan0

Now start wpa_supplicant:

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sudo systemctl start wpa_supplicant.service

Now Start the networkmanager:

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sudo systemctl start NetworkManager.service

Finally,you should see the tray-icon on the top bar.

Sudoers ²

Logging as root

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visudo

Add another line after this one

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root ALL=(ALL) ALL

With: (by pressing O, then :X to save)

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username ALL=(ALL) ALL

Contents

Arch Linux Installation

Arch gang rise up

Why?

Setting up

Setting up network

Disks partition

Format partitions

Mount and setting up

Installation

Select mirror

Install base system

Chroot into system: setting up timezone, passwd,…

Setting up Bootloader

Setting up wifi

Install yay

Enable ntp

Install DEs or WM.

Gnome

i3

XFCE

Conclusion

Troubleshooting

Wifi icon 1

Initial Requirements

Installation of Required tools

Sudoers 2

Enable `ntp`

Wifi icon ¹

Sudoers ²