Arch Linux Installation

index

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.

Danger (Important)

This installation guide is very outdated. Always follow the official guide from the ArchWiki for porper up-to-date instructions.

Now let’s get started:

Warning (Caution)

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

Setting up

Setting up network

ip link
wifi-menu

Disks partition

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

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

2. Activate swap

mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p2
swapon /dev/nvme0n1p2

3. System partition

mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p3

Mount and setting up

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

Installation

Select mirror

$ nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Place your host of choice on top:

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

Install base system

$ 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,…

$ 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

localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Setting up Bootloader

$ 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

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

Install yay

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

Enable `ntp`

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

Install DEs or WM.

Gnome

$ 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

$ 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

$ yay polybar ranger-git

Tip (Tip)

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

XFCE

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.

2019-08_scrot 2019-12_scrot 2020-05_scrot 2021-03_scrot

Troubleshooting

Wifi icon ¹

Initial Requirements

Hosts

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

#<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:
Terminal window
```
lspci | grep -i net
```
If your device is not listed, it is maybe an usb-device, so try this command:
Terminal window
```
lsusb
```
With the following command you can check the current state of all your network-devices:
Terminal window
```
ip link
```

Installation of Required tools

Install the wpa_supplicant tools
Terminal window
```
sudo pacman -S wpa_supplicant
```
the wireless tools
Terminal window
```
sudo pacman -S wireless_tools
```
Install the networkmanager
Terminal window
```
sudo pacman -S networkmanager
```
Install the network-manager-applet aka nm-applet
Terminal window
```
sudo pacman -S network-manager-applet
```
Install gnome-keyring
Terminal window
```
sudo pacman -S gnome-keyring
```
Configuration

Make the networkmanager start on boot:
Terminal window
```
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:

$ 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:
Terminal window
```
sudo systemctl enable wpa_supplicant.service
```
Add your user to the network group:
Terminal window
```
gpasswd -a <USERNAME> network
```
Turn off your network interface controllers, in my case eth0 and wlan0:
Terminal window
```
$ ip link set down eth0
$ ip link set down wlan0
```

Now start wpa_supplicant:

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

Now Start the networkmanager:

sudo systemctl start NetworkManager.service

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

Sudoers ²

Logging as root

visudo

Add another line after this one

root ALL=(ALL) ALL

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

username ALL=(ALL) ALL