[DEPRECATED] Installing Arch with BTRFS/LUKS on my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme (Gen 3)

steps.md

Arch installation (pacstrap)

This document has been succeeded by the one here.

Pre-installation setup

Connecting to a wireless network

1. Start iwctl
2. List devices with device list
3. Scan for networks with station <device-name> scan
4. List the available networks with station <device-name> get-networks
5. Connect to a network with station <device-name> connect <network-name> and enter a password.

Verify internet connectivity with ip a.

Setting up time

timedatectl set-ntp true
timedatectl status

Partitions - Part 1

Creating partitions

Perform partitioning with cfdisk and verify with lsblk before proceeding.

Preparing partitions

Format the first partition as EFI (boot)

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

Create a swap

mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p2

Prepare the main encrypted partition

cryptsetup -y -v luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p3

Respond with a "YES" and enter a passphrase twice.

Open the main partition with a name "enc"

cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1p3 enc
<passphrase>

Format the main partition as btrfs

mkfs.btrfs /dev/mapper/enc

Partitions - Part 2

Creating BTRFS subvolumes

Mount main partition temporarily

mount /dev/mapper/enc /mnt

Create subvolumes for root, home, var and snapshots

btrfs su cr /mnt/@
btrfs su cr /mnt/@home
btrfs su cr /mnt/@var
btrfs su cr /mnt/@snapshots

Unmount the partition

umount /mnt

Re-mounting subvolumes as partitions

mount -o noatime,nodiratime,compress=lzo,space_cache,subvol=@ /dev/mapper/enc /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/{boot,home,var,.snapshots}
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,compress=lzo,space_cache,subvol=@home /dev/mapper/enc /mnt/home
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,compress=lzo,space_cache,subvol=@var /dev/mapper/enc /mnt/var
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,compress=lzo,space_cache,subvol=@snapshots /dev/mapper/enc /mnt/.snapshots
swapon /dev/nvme0n1p2

Base installation

Bootstrapping a base-system

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware linux-headers vim git wget intel-ucode archlinux-keyring polkit

Generating file-system table

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

Logging into the new system

arch-chroot /mnt

Configuration

Setting up pacman

Enable multilib repository for pacman by uncommenting [multilib] section in /etc/pacman.conf and then update pacman database with pacman -Syu.

Setting timezone

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

Setting locale

Uncommenting en_US.UTF-8 from /etc/locale.gen and then generate the selected locale(s)

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

Setting HOSTNAME

echo "excelsior" > /etc/hostname

Configuring hosts files

Place below content in the file /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1    localhost
::1          localhost
127.0.1.1    excelsior.localdomain excelsior

Installing network-related packages

pacman -S dhcpcd networkmanager network-manager-applet wireless_tools wpa_supplicant dialog --noconfirm

Creating users and groups

Setting root password

passwd

Creating a non-root user

Create user

useradd ismail -m -c "Mohammed Ismail Ansari"

Set password for user

passwd ismail

Add user to wheel (and other) group(s)

usermod -aG wheel,audio,video,optical,storage ismail

Configure sudo for 'wheel' group

visudo

Installing a few packages

Install grub and company

pacman -S grub efibootmgr btrfs-progs os-prober ntfs-3g mtools dosfstools

Setting up bootloader

Setting up encryption parameters

Add hook for encryption

vim /etc/mkinitcpi.conf

Add "encrypt" after "block" under HOOKS.

Init mkinitcpio

mkinitcpio -p linux

Use blkid to get the UUID of the encrypted partition

Make GRUB aware of the encrypted partition

vim /etc/default/grub

Enter the following kernel parameters under GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX: "cryptdevice=UUID=[uuid-of-encrypted-partition]>:enc root=/dev/mapper/enc"

To enable os-prober (could be temporary), add the following

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=FALSE

Running a grub-install

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=ARCH

Generating GRUB config

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Ending with a clean up

Exit chroot

exit

Unmount all mounted partitions

umount -a

Reboot

reboot now

Post installation

Enabling network-related services

systemctl enable dhcpcd
systemctl enable NetworkManager