Arch Linux Setup

install.md

Install Process

Boot from USB Arch Linux drive

Resources

• How To Install Arch Linux FOSS
• How To Install Arch Linux With Disk Encryption
• Encrypting LVM On LUKS
• Device Encryption Key Files

Setup Partitions

This will setup the partitions for boot and root drives.

fdisk -l
fdisk /dev/sda

Run these commands in fdisk to setup a new boot partition and format to FAT12

n / p / enter / enter / +512M / t / 1

Run these commands to setup the root drive which will take up the rest of the disk

n / p / enter / enter / enter

Finally use w to write the partitions

Setup LVM

pvcreate /dev/sda2
vgcreate vg /dev/sda2
lvcreate -L 8G vg -n swap
lvcreate -L 32G vg -n root
lvcreate -l 100%FREE vg -n home
mkswap /dev/mapper/vg-swap
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg-home
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg-root
mount /dev/mapper/vg-root /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi /mnt/home
mount /dev/mapper/vg-home /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi

Setup Mirrors

This will update the mirrors and limit the mirrorlist to mirrors close to you

pacman -Syy
pacman -S reflector
reflector -c "US" -f 12 -l 10 -n 12 --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Install Arch Linux

This will install the base packages as well as generate the fstab file. Notice that lvm2 is included in this which is important.

pacstrap /mnt base linux-zen linux-firmware vim sudo lvm2
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Configuration

Chroot into the /mnt directory

arch-chroot /mnt

Setup Timezone

timedatectl set-timezone America/Chicago

Setup Locale

Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 in /etc/locale.gen then run

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

Setup Hostname / Network

echo computer-name > /etc/hostname
touch /etc/hosts

Then add this to /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1	localhost
::1		localhost
127.0.1.1	myarch

Setup Users

passwd

Add user

useradd -m -g users -G wheel,games,power,optical,storage,scanner,lp,audio,video -s /bin/bash username
passwd username

Then uncomment the %wheel group using visudo

Configure Mkinitcpio

Configure mkinitcpio (vim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf) and ensure the configuration has these lines added to it or matching lines

HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block lvm2 filesystems keyboard fsck)

Generate mkinitcpio

mkinitcpio -p linux-zen

Setup GRUB

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

Setup Xorg

pacman -S xorg xorg-server