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Arch Linux

01/03/2023
linuxarchinstallation

Arch Linux is a minimalist rolling-release distribution: a basic skeleton is installed, everything else is up to taste. Installing manually (without an installer) is part of the philosophy: afterwards you understand the system down to the last file.

Preparation#

  1. Image — the latest ISO from archlinux.org
  2. Writing to USB — dd or Rufus/Ventoy
  3. Booting from USB — in UEFI mode (the motherboard's boot menu)
# Write the image to the stick (careful with of= — everything on the partition is wiped)
dd if=archlinux-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

Disk partitioning#

A typical UEFI scheme: ESP on /boot + root on the rest:

# Disks and mount points
lsblk

# GPT table
parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt

# ESP on /boot and the root partition
parted /dev/sda mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 513MiB
parted /dev/sda set 1 esp on
parted /dev/sda mkpart primary 513MiB 100%

# File systems
mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

Mounting — before installing anything:

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

Networking on the ISO comes up by itself (Ethernet). Wi-Fi: iwctl → station wlan0 scan / station wlan0 connect <SSID>.

Base system#

# Time sync check (UTC on the ISO)
timedatectl

# Keys and repository lists are fresh: update the keyring right away
pacman -Sy archlinux-keyring

# Install the skeleton into /mnt
pacstrap -K /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware amd-ucode

# fstab by UUID
genfstab -U /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab

# Move into the new system
arch-chroot /mnt

amd-ucode — microcode for AMD CPUs; for Intel install intel-ucode. Proprietary Wi-Fi/audio firmware — the separate linux-firmware package already includes the main set.

System configuration#

# Time zone and hardware clock
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Minsk /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

# Locales
echo "ru_RU.UTF-8 UTF-8" >> /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
echo "LANG=ru_RU.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

# Host name
echo "archlinux" > /etc/hostname

/etc/hosts — a hostname entry so services don't complain about resolving:

cat > /etc/hosts <<'EOF'
127.0.0.1   localhost
127.0.1.1   archlinux
::1         localhost
EOF

Root password:

passwd

Boot loader#

A UEFI layout — GRUB is installed into the ESP:

pacman -S grub efibootmgr

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

BIOS mode (legacy): the same grub-install /dev/sda, but then the ESP is not needed. If another OS sits nearby: the os-prober package and the line GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false in /etc/default/grub before grub-mkconfig.

A user#

Working as root is a bad habit; create a regular user with sudo:

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash admin
passwd admin

pacman -S sudo

sudo reads the /etc/sudoers.d/ directory — no need to edit the vendor sudoers:

echo "%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL" > /etc/sudoers.d/10-wheel
chmod 440 /etc/sudoers.d/10-wheel

Desktop environment#

# Xorg
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-apps

# The i3 tiling manager + a display manager
pacman -S i3-wm i3lock i3status
pacman -S lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
systemctl enable lightdm

Not an i3 fan: the full-blown option is pacman -S plasma sddm (KDE Plasma) or pacman -S gnome gdm. The tiling stack (i3 + status) is an order of magnitude lighter.

Reboot and first steps#

exit                 # leave the chroot
reboot               # with the stick pulled out

# Now inside your own system: update everything and install the usual packages
pacman -Syu
pacman -S git curl neovim

pacman and AUR tricks#

# Search and info
pacman -Ss nginx                 # search the repositories
pacman -Qi nginx                 # info about an installed package
pacman -Ql nginx                 # the package's file list
pacman -Qo /usr/bin/nginx        # who owns a file

# Explicitly installed packages — a backup of the system's composition
pacman -Qe | awk '{print $1}' > pkglist.txt
pacman -S --needed - < pkglist.txt   # restore on a new machine

# The package cache eats a lot: keep 2 versions of each package
pacman -S pacman-contrib
paccache -rk2

# Orphans — packages no explicitly installed one depends on
pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qdtq)

# Fresh fast mirrors into the mirrorlist
pacman -S reflector
reflector --country BY,PL --sort rate --latest 10 --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Rolling release = update regularly, not once every six months: pacman -Syu once a week or two. A problematic frequently-updating package (e.g. the kernel) can be frozen with IgnorePkg = linux in /etc/pacman.conf — at your own risk.

AUR is the community repository with "everything imaginable"; packages are installed via a helper (paru or yay): paru -S <package-name>. The helper pulls the PKGBUILD, builds the package and registers it in the pacman database. Security rule: read the PKGBUILD before building and never run the helper as root.

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