A little while ago, after I passed my candidacy exam, I had a small burst of confidence. Because of this, I ended up trying to install Arch Linux for the first time since 2014 (when I was in my math undergrad program). Below is the steps I had to take to get there!

Installing ArchLinux – 01 May 2020

• For now with GNOME desktop environment
• Assuming eth connectio
• Wireless might be a little harder… look at install wiki
• Important, if you get stuck in loop at boot
  • CTRL+ALT+F2 == new window with terminal/console

First

• If in a virtual machine, make sure the virtual machine will load with UEFI
• Disable secure boot
• disable Launch CSM or Legacy Support
• Enable USB Boot
• Boot with USB Disk

Sanity Check

• After booting check if we’re in UEFI mode
  • ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
  • If the command returns a list, we are good

Partition Disks

• Check disk: fdisk -l
• Delete /dev/sda and start fresh
  • gdisk /dev/sda
  • x – expert mode
  • z – zap the drive
  • y – yes, wipe GPT
  • y – yes, wipe MBR
• Create partitions
  • cgdisk
  • name: /dev/sda
  • skip warning about damaged GPT
• Create boot
  • ENTER or N
  • Default first sector
  • Partition Size – Arch recommends 300-500 MiB
    • More if we need more OS’s installed, LVM, encryption, BIOS limitations
    • I choose 1GiB to include a live CD image in /boot
    • https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/ISOBoot
  • GUID: EF00
  • name: boot
• Create swap
  • Make sure to scroll down to the largest empty space
    • Sometimes doesn’t align the sections well
  • Enter or N
  • Default first sector
  • Partition Size – 1.5 x size of RAM
    • e.g., 16GB RAM => 24GiB
  • GUID: 8200
  • name: swap
• Create root
  • Repeat process
  • Defaults for everything
  • name: root
• Write: W
• Confirm: yes
• Quit: q

Formatting

• Look at new partitions list
  • lsblk
• You should be able to tell which is boot, swap, and root by the sizes
• For me, it was sda1, sda2, sda3 for boot, swap, root, respsectively
• Format the boot partition to be FAT32
  • mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
• Enable swap
  • mkswap /dev/sda2
  • swapon /dev/sda2
• Format root as ext4
  • mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

Internet Things

• Figure out what device we have (ethernet, wireless, etc)
  • ip link
• ….

Install

• mount root partition
  • mkdir /mnt; mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
• mount boot partition
  • mkdir /mnt/boot; mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
• install some things
  • pasctrap -i /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware dhcpcd vim
• generate fstab file
  • genfstab -U /mnt » /mnt/etc/fstab

Configure

• chroot
  • arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
• locale
  • edit /etc/locale.gen
  • uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
  • run locale-gen script
    • locale-gen
• timezone
  • list: ls /usr/share/zoneinfo
  • ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
• set time standard to UTC
  • hwclock –systohc –utc
• initramfs
  • mkinitcpio -p linux
• hostname
  • echo ‘$hostname’ > /etc/hostname
  • add $hostname to end of /etc/hosts

	127.0.0.1	localhost
	::1		localhost
	127.0.0.1	$hostname.localdomain	$hostname
	

• set password for root
  • passwd
• add user with username $user
  • useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power,video -s /bin/bash $user
  • passwd $user
• Add $user to sudoers
  • EDITOR=vim visudo
  • uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Install grub bootloader

pacman -S grub efibootmgr
mkdir /boot/efi
mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=GRUB --efi-directory=/boot/efi
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Reboot and GNOME

• Test internet with ping first
• If off && wired:
  • ip link – get network interface, e.g., ens33
  • sytemctl start [email protected]
    • OR systemctl -f enable [email protected]
  • OR use systemd-networkd
    • systemctl start/enable systemd-networkd.service
    • systemctl start/enable systemd-resolved.service
    • vim /etc/systemd/network/20-wired.network

      • [Match] Name=ens33

        [Network] DHCP=ipv4

    • systemctl restart systemd-networkd.service
  • more info @ https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd-networkd#Required_services_and_setup
• Install Gnome
  • sudo pacman -Syu
  • If any updates
    • sudo reboot
  • sudo pacman -S xorg xorg-server
  • sudo pacman -S gnome
• Enable/start
  • systemctl enable NetworkManager
  • sudo systemctl enable gdm.service
  • sudo systemctl start gdm.service
• If there is already a DE running
  • sudo systemctl disable gdm.service
  • sudo systemctl stop gdm.service (or just quit)

Turn on with Gnome

• Settings
  • Make sure to select region/language to be English
• Make shortcut for terminal
  • Settings
  • Keyboard shortcuts
  • Custom shorcuts “+”
    • terminal
    • gnome-terminal –geometry 80x40
• pulse audio (?)
  • sudo pacman -S pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa

IDK

• multilib and aur? settings in /etc/pacman.conf??
• wifi only setup??