wiki/Archguide.md

title	description	published	date	tags
Arch Linux Install guide		true	2019-11-05T23:07:39.276Z

btw I install arch

This turbo install guide makes a lot of assumptions on what you want and doesn't cover many real world setups. Always follow the official wiki if in doubt. {.is-info}

Alternatively, check out our installer when it's ready.

Partitioning

To partition disks, always use cgdisk unless you have a good reason not to. It's just the best, like a 🦈.

Find the names of your disks using lsblk {.is-info}

In this guide, the first SATA disk (sda) is used. On a modern computer, you may use nvme0n1 or even mmcblk0 on embedded systems.

cgdisk /dev/sda

Try to make it look something like:

	/dev/sda1 200M		(ef00) /boot   
	/dev/sda2 $REST_OF_HDD	(8300) /     

The first partition will store the bootloader and the kernel, and will be read by the UEFI to boot. The second one will contain Arch. Format the partitions and mount them.

On an SSD, f2fs is recommended instead of ext4 for unparalled speed. {.is-info}

mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

Internet access

If Ethernet was plugged in during boot, it will be ready. When plugging it after the fact, it's best to just reboot. Alternatively, run dhcpcd, killall dhpcd and run dhcpcd again to get an IP address. No, that didn't make sense, but it works way too well.

If a WiFi install is absolutely necessary, run the Arch installer-exclusive wifi-menu tool. {.is-warning}

Check your internet connectivity with ping before continuing.

Actual install

To install packages to a folder instead of normally, pacstrap is used. Here a good set of packages to get a running system is provided.

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware f2fs-tools xorg-server gnome gnome-extra firefox networkmanager htop zsh grml-zsh-config

Chrooting

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/zsh

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

locale-gen

Users

passwd
chsh root -s /bin/zsh

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/zsh user
passwd user

Enable services

systemctl enable NetworkManager gdm

Bootloader

refind-install

Kernel cmdline

Basically edit your boot options to be 'rw root=/dev/sda2', as sometimes rEFInd doesn't make this automatically

nano /boot/refind_linux.conf

Git out

exit reboot