Arch Setup

I’ve always loved the concept of Arch Linux, with it’s nothing-by-default setup and intentional lack of user-friendly tools, but I’ve run into issues with the installation that’ve prevented me from really using it enough to get familiar with it.

This time around I got it working perfectly, so I decided I’d write a little guide on what I did. This is mostly just a reference for me, but it should prove useful to anyone trying out Arch for the first time. This guide assumes familiarity with linux basics, like sudo, fstab, gparted, and you should probably read Arch’s Beginner’s Guide.

Getting Started

Start by booting the live CD.

Partition setup

Note: this guide only covers the setup for a MBR partition table as [booting GPT]({% post_url 2016-07-19-arch-uefi %}) requires more system-specific setup.

If you prefer a more graphical tool you can use the Gparted live CD to configure your partitions, then skip to the “Install base system” step. Note that the current version of the Gparted live CD won’t boot properly on VirtualBox without EFI enabled.

Locate the disk you want to install your system to with lsblk, then start cfdisk with that device.

cfdisk /dev/sda

In cfdisk, create a new partition table, then the partitions you would like, writing the changes when you’re finished.

Next, create a filesystem, substituting your new system partition and repeating for each partition you need to format.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

If a swap partition was created, activate it:

mkswap /dev/sda2
swapon /dev/sda2

Install base system

Mount partition

Start the installation by mounting your system partition, and any other non-swap partitions you created in /mnt.

mkdir -p /mnt
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Set up base packages and fstab

Move your preferred mirror to the top of the list:

vim /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Install base packages and generate new fstab:

pacstrap -i /mnt base
genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot into the new installation:

arch-chroot /mnt

Configure language

sed -i "s/#en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/g" /etc/locale.gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
. /etc/locale.conf
locale-gen

Configure timezone

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

Configure network

Run ip link to list all network interfaces and enable DHCP on the one you want to use:

ip link
systemctl enable dhcpcd@eth0

Configure wireless (optional)

pacman -S wireless_tools wpa_supplicant wpa_actiond dialog
wifi-menu
systemctl enable net-auto-wireless

Configure package manager

Open /etc/pacman.conf and check that the [core], [extra], and [community] lines are uncommented. If you’re on a 64-bit system (you should be), optionally uncomment the [multilib] lines for 32-bit compatibility.

After updating your pacman config, refresh the repository list:

pacman -Sy

Create a user

passwd # Set root password
useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/bash alan # Create 'alan'
passwd alan # Set password for alan

Configure sudo

pacman -S sudo # Install sudo

Uncomment the %wheel line to allow your new user to use sudo:

EDITOR=nano visudo

Install bootloader

pacman -S grub-bios
grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda
cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Finish installation

exit
umount /mnt
reboot

Desktop setup

X.org

# Xorg
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-server-utils \
  xorg-twm xorg-xclock xterm

# Mesa (3D acceleration)
pacman -S mesa

# Drivers (only one needed)
pacman -S xf86-video-vesa # Vesa (general, works almost always)
pacman -S nvidia lib32-nvidia-utils # Nvidia

Desktop environment

Xfce4 + lightdm

pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
systemctl enable lightdm # Enable lightdm

Gnome

pacman -S gnome # Install desktops
systemctl enable gdm # Enable gdm

KDE Plasma 5

pacman -S plasma kde-applications
systemctl enable sddm

After installing your preferred DE, reboot, and your system should be ready to go! If you decide to switch DEs, make sure you disable the display manager before uninstalling, otherwise you’ll have to manually remove the symlink from /etc/systemd.

If you’re running Arch in VirtualBox, you’ll want to install the guest additions with pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils.

For a basic overview of the pacman and the Arch User Repositories, see the Arch wiki and this gist.