Installing Arch over Existing Linux

Or, How I switched an existing ubuntu install to arch linux without losing data, or rejoining my domain.

The official installation guide (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_Guide) contains a more verbose description.

This guide has been forked from https://gist.github.com/binaerbaum/535884a7f5b8a8697557

I've successfully switched existing ubuntu and fedora installations to arch linux without data loss.

Boot Arch Install

Download the archiso image from https://www.archlinux.org/. Copy to a usb-drive

dd if=archlinux.img of=/dev/sdX bs=16M && sync # on linux

Boot from the usb. If the usb fails to boot, make sure that secure boot is disabled in the BIOS configuration.

Get some internets

wifi-menu

Mount existing partitions

My ubuntu and fedora installs had /boot and /boot/efi as separate partitions. Systemd-boot doesnt like multiple partitions, so I just mounted the efi partion to /boot. The leaves the /boot partition unused. One could reallocate that a later time.

Be sure to make note of what the volume is mapped as, since we'll need it later. here is mapped as fedora-home, fedora-root, fedora-swap. your device may have different names.

cryptsetup open --type=luks /dev/nvme0n1p3 crypted
mount /dev/mapper/fedora-root /mnt

Move things around so we can get them later

since I migrated fedora, i moved everything to a fedora folder

cd /mnt
mkdir fedora
setopt extended_glob
test mv -- {^,}fedora

Finish mounting partitions

mount /dev/mapper/fedora-home /mnt/home
swapon /dev/mapper/fedora-swap

Install the system

This includes stuff needed for starting wifi when first booting into the newly installed system

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel zsh vim git sudo efibootmgr dialog wpa_supplicant
genfstab -pU /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Change relatime on all non-boot partitions to noatime (reduces wear if using an SSD)

Enter the new system

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Setup system clock

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Zurich /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc --utc

Copy stuff from old install

cp /fedora/etc/hostname > /etc/hostname
cp /fedora/etc/machine-id > /etc/machine-id

Generate locale

Uncomment wanted locales in /etc/locale.gen

vim /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

To avoid problems with gnome-terminal set locale system wide Do NOT set LC_ALL=C. It overrides all the locale vars and messes up special characters Pay attention to the UTF-8. Capital letters !

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

Set password for root

passwd

Add real user remove -s flag if you don't whish to use zsh

useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/zsh MYUSERNAME
passwd MYUSERNAME

Configure mkinitcpio with modules needed for the initrd image

vim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

Add 'ext4' to MODULES
Add 'encrypt' and 'lvm2' to HOOKS before filesystems
Add 'resume' after 'lvm2' (also has to be after 'udev')

Regenerate initrd image

mkinitcpio -p linux

Setup systembootd (grub will not work on nvme at this moment)

bootctl --path=/boot install

Create loader.conf

echo 'default arch' >> /boot/loader/loader.conf
echo 'timeout 5' >> /boot/loader/loader.conf

Create arch.conf (or XYZ.conf for default XYZ in loader.conf)

vim /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf

Add the following content to arch.conf is the the one of the raw encrypted device (/dev/nvme0n1p2). It can be found with the 'blkid' command Make sure you use the name of volumes for root/swap

title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=UUID=<UUID>:vg0 root=/dev/mapper/fedora-root resume=/dev/mapper/fedora-swap rw intel_pstate=no_hwp

Exit new system and go into the cd shell

exit

Unmount all partitions

umount -R /mnt
swapoff -a

Reboot into the new system, don't forget to remove the cd/usb

reboot

Moar configs

I had to add /usr/bin/core_perl to my PATH

Install yaourt

there are probably some packaages you need to install for this to work...

cd /tmp
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/package-query.git
cd package-query/
makepkg -si
cd ..
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yaourt.git
cd yaourt/
makepkg -si

getting graphical

pacman -Syu
pacman -S xorg xorg-xinit dmenu xautolock i3-gaps sxhkd rxvt-unicode-patched xf86-video-fbdev xf86-video-nouveau ttf-dejavu
echo exec i3 > .xinitrc
startx

getting active directory

pacman -S krb5 samba sssd gamin extra/libpwquality
cp -r /etc/pam.d/ /etc/pam.d.backup
cp /fedora/etc/pam.d/system-auth /etc/pam.d
cp /fedora/etc/pam.d/passwd /etc/pam.d
cp -r /fedora/etc/krb5.* /etc/
cp -r /fedora/var/lib/sss /var/lib/
cp /etc/nsswitch.conf /etc/nsswitch.conf.backup
cp /fedora/etc/nsswitch.conf /etc/

# remove oddjob mkdir
vim /etc/pam.d/system-auth

rm /etc/krb5.conf.d/crypto-policies
cp /fedora/usr/share/crypto-policies/DEFAULT/krb5.txt /etc/krb5.conf.d/crypto-policies

systemctl restart sssd
systemctl enable sssd

Remote Connections

yaourt -S openconnect openssh

Fix sudoer

vim /etc/sudoers

Moar graphics

yaourt -S bspwm lemonbar-xft-git feh xdo xtitle bc
yaourt -S ttf-font-icons

set zsh as `default_shell` in sssd.conf

sudo vim /etc/sssd/
sudo systemctl restart sssd

Productivity Apps, and Docker

yaourt -S google-chrome slack-desktop docker-compose

# i had some custom docker setting in `/fedora/etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d/`
sudo cp -r /fedora/etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d/ /etc/systemd/system
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

other misc crap i did


yaourt -S ruby
yaourt -S acpi
yaourt -S mpd mpc ncmpcpp
yaourt -S pulseaudio paprefs pavucontrol
yaourt -S sutils-git
yaourt -S lemonbar-xft-git
sudo vim /etc/mpd.conf
sudo vim /etc/pulse/default.pa
cat /fedora/etc/pulse/default.pa
sudo vim /etc/pulse/default.pa

defektive/arch-linux-install.md