Installing Arch: Setting up the system

I am a fan of GNU/Linux (or just “Linux” if you hate Richard Stallman). My first Linux distro was Ubuntu but, alas, it was not meant to be. Though Ubuntu is truly awesome for putting ease of use front and center, over time my idea of “ease of use” started to drift from Ubuntu’s idea of ease of use.

These days I have gravitated towards Arch. The Arch wiki is awesome and a half, and they have a full installation guide available. However, there is a specific setup I like most and this is meant to summarize that setup into an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide.

Commands between [encryption-lvm] tags need only be run if you want to set up encryption with LVM and they are run in lieu of commands in [standatd] tags (LVM is recommended; easiest guide I found is here).

Step 1: Partition and format the drive

Some basic sanity checks

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars # Should be populated
wifi-menu                    # Will connect automatically
timedatectl set-ntp true
timedatectl status

Now partition the disk (EFI)

# I use parted; alternatively use gdisk or cdisk
parted /dev/sda
mklabel gpt
mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 513MiB
set 1 boot on

# [encryption-lvm]
mkpart primary ext4 513MiB 100%
# [encryption-lvm]

# [standard]
mkpart primary linux-swap 513MiB 8.5GiB
mkpart primary ext4 8.5GiB 100%
# [standard]

quit
mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1

Format drive and mount

# [encryption-lvm]
cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda2
cryptsetup open --type luks /dev/sda2 lvm
pvcreate /dev/mapper/lvm
vgcreate vol0 /dev/mapper/lvm
lvcreate --name lvswap -L 6GB vol0
lvcreate --name lvroot -l 100%FREE vol0
mkswap /dev/mapper/vol0-lvswap
swapon /dev/mapper/vol0-lvswap
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vol0-lvroot
mount /dev/mapper/vol0-lvroot /mnt
# [encryption-lvm]

# [standard]
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
mkswap /dev/sda2
swapon /dev/sda2
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
# [standard]

mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel
# If you get a PGP key error, do
# dirmngr </dev/null
# pacman-key --populate archlinux
# pacman-key --refresh-keys
# Then retun pacstrap
genfstab -U /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab
cp /etc/netctl/yournetworkname /mnt/etc/netctl/yournetworkname

NOTE: If you want to mount extra partitions, make sure you mounted them here. For instance, mkdir /mnt/mnt/large && mount /dev/sdY1 /mnt/mnt/large or something, BEFORE genfstab.

Step 2: Chroot and install base system

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

locale-gen
localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8
vi /etc/locale.gen # Uncomment en_US.UTF-8
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
export `cat /etc/locale.conf`
locale-gen

tzselect
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc --utc

echo vm.swappiness=10 > /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf
vi /etc/pacman.conf # Uncomment multilib

echo hostname > /etc/hostname
vi /etc/hosts
# Copy the 127.0.0.1 and replace localhost with hostname

pacman -Sy
pacman -S iw wpa_supplicant dialog intel-ucode

Step 3: Configure the boot loader

Pro-tip: I have occasionally messed up my bootloader; when that happens I fire up a live arch USB, mount my partitions (using lvm if applicable), chroot into the system, and fix the bootloader here.

bootctl install
cp /usr/share/systemd/bootctl/arch.conf /boot/loader/entries/
echo `blkid /dev/sdb2` >> /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
# File should look like this
#   title   Arch Lnux
#   linux   /vmlinuz-linux
#   initrd  /initramfs-linux.img
# [encryption-lvm]
#   options cryptdevice=UUID=<INSERT-UUID-HERE>:lvm:allow-discards resume=/dev/mapper/vol0-lvswap root=/dev/mapper/vol0-lvroot rw quiet
# [encryption-lvm]
# [standard]
#   options root=PARTUUID=<INSERT-PARTUUID-HERE> rootfstype=ext4 rw
# [standard]

bootctl update
# [encryption-lvm]
# vi /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
#   Add "keymap encrypt lvm2 resume" to HOOKS="..."
#   HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block keymap encrypt lvm2 resume filesystems keyboard fsck"
# [encryption-lvm]

mkinitcpio -p linux
passwd
exit
umount -R /mnt/boot
umount -R /mnt
reboot

Step 4: Set up your own user account

useradd -m -s /bin/bash user
passwd user
visudo # Add to end of file: user ALL=(ALL) ALL
pacman -S sudo bash-completion git rfkill
exit

Log in and install install pacaur. You can use pacaur (though I think using yaourt is more standard) to query the Arch User Repositories (AUR).

mkdir ~/Documents
mkdir ~/Downloads
mkdir ~/Pictures
mkdir ~/Music
mkdir ~/Videos

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

# yaourt is supposedly standard but can be very annoying.
# I've been trying out pacaur
gpg --recv-keys 1EB2638FF56C0C53
yaourt -S pacaur

You can now follow my preferred setup or go to the recommendations page

Writing my first Stata plugin: A real world use case »

Mauricio M. Caceres Bravo

Installing Arch: Setting up the system

Step 1: Partition and format the drive

Step 2: Chroot and install base system

Step 3: Configure the boot loader

Step 4: Set up your own user account