Arch_install.md

Archlinux installation

• Reference

  • Arch's official guide

  • pf's note (too old)

---

Download the Archlinux ISO from a mirror site, dd into a USB stick.

After booting from a USB stick, you'll get a zsh root shell.

check for networking

• ping google

ping google.com

network settings

DHCP

• the DHCP client daemon should be started automatically

Public IP

• dhcpcd -k or systemctl stop dhcpcd.service first to disable DHCP networking

• use ip command and resolv.conf to configure network manually

ip link                       # interface, something like 'eth0' or 'enp2s0'
ip link set <if> up
ip addr add <ip address>/<subnetmask> dev <if>
ip route add default via <gateway's ip address>

vi /etc/resolv.conf
-------------------
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4
search foo.bar.com

wireless

• remember to install netctl after chroot, otherwise the network will be broken after rebooting

iw dev
wifi-menu

update the system clock

timedatectl set-ntp true
timedatectl status

partition table

• check for old partitions first

fdisk -l
lsblk
lsblk -f

• destroy the whole world
• see Partitioning on Arch wiki

cfdisk /dev/sda

=================================
An example for creating  partition tabel
/         25G      /dev/sda1
swap      1G       /dev/sda2
/home     else     /dev/sda3

• format partitions (ext4)

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

• swap

mkswap /dev/sda2 && swapon /dev/sda2

• verify all things are done well

lsblk /dev/sda

mount root and home

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/home && mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

select a mirror

• choose NCTU or tku in Taiwan

vi /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

pacstrap

• base system

pacstrap -i -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware vim intel-ucode

• if the keylist is out-of-date

pacman -S archlinux-keyring
pacman-key --init && pacman-key --populate archlinux

generate fstab

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
cat /mnt/etc/fstab

• edit /mnt/etc/fstab and add discard,noatime if you're using SSD

chroooooooooot!

arch-chroot /mnt
. /etc/profile
PS1="(chroot) $PS1"

---

timezone and hwclock

tzselect
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Taipei /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

timedatectl status

• note: /etc/timezone is no longer used now Arch wiki: System time

locale settings

• remove comments for your locale

vi /etc/locale.gen
------------------
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_US ISO-8859-1
zh_TW.UTF-8 UTF-8

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

hostname

• set hostname

echo hostname > /etc/hostname

• add your hostname in /etc/hosts

vi /etc/hosts

network configurations

• check Arch wiki: systemd-netowrkd for details.

• enable systemd-networkd services

systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service
systemctl enable systemd-resolved.service

• do the following later after first reboot
  • systemctl restart systemd-networkd

/etc/resolv.conf

• delete or rename the existing file and create the following symbolic link

ln -s /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

different network types

networkctl list -a
networkctl status -a

DHCP

vim /etc/systemd/network/wired.network
--------------------------------------
[Match]
Name=enp1s0

[Network]
DHCP=ipv4

Static IP

vim /etc/systemd/network/wired.network
--------------------------------------
[Match]
Name=enp1s0

[Network]
Address=10.1.10.9/24
Gateway=10.1.10.1

• Google Compute Engine uses 1460 for MTU

[Link]
MTUBytes=1460

Wireless

• try Wicd or basic wifi-menu

• note: dialog is required by wifi-menu

pacman -S iw wpa_supplicant dialog

• you also can use systemd-networkd for your wireless networking
• see Arch wiki: systemd-networkd

vim /etc/systemd/network/wireless.network
-----------------------------------------
[Match]
Name=wlp2s0

[Network]
DHCP=ipv4

generate initial ramdisk

mkinitcpio -P

• note: you might take a look of /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and add some HOOKS if necessary

  • for QEMU/VKM/Google Compute Engine, in order to boot from a virtio drive, add the following:

MODULES="virtio virtio_blk virtio_pci virtio_net"

• see Preparing an (Arch) Linux guest

root passwd and add user

passwd
useradd -m xatier
passwd xatier

grub bootloader

• see Arch boot process and GRUB

pacman -S grub os-prober
grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

AUR

Install yay.

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

pacman -Syyu

bye bye chroot

exit

unmount everything

umount /mnt/{home,}

reboot

reboot

---

well done for base system!

---

post installation

become God

su -

install some tools

pacman -S openssh sudo screen tmux htop rsync git acpi

add a sudoer

visudo

VirtualBox

• Vbox needs some special settings, see Archlinux wiki Virtualbox

X window

sudo pacman -S alsa-utils xorg-server xorg-xinit mesa [xf86-video-intel xf86-video-ati xf86-video-nouveau nvidia xf86-video-vmware] xf86-input-libinput ttf-dejavu ttf-inconsolata

awesome wm

sudo pacman -S awesome

vim ~/.xinitrc
--------------
exec awesome >> ~/.cache/awesome_stdout 2>> ~/.cache/awesome_stderr

ALL done!