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Installing Arch Linux (UEFI) 2020

Installing Arch Linux (UEFI) 2020

A Note about installing Arch Linux

There's a good chance by the time you are reading this that it is out of date, to stay up to date on Arch Linux Installs checkout the Arch Wiki

A Note about UEFI

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is replacing BIOS (Basic-Input-Output system), if you are using modern hardware you are assuredly using UEFI. If you are interested in reading more about why checkout this excellent article explaining some key differences

Set keyboard layout

If you are using a US layout then you're good no need to worry out this section if not read on:

  • First list your options:
ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz
  • Now set the one you want, here's an example:
loadkeys de-latin1

Verify boot mode

This command will verify that we will boot in UEFI mode

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

IF the above directory doesn't exist you are either on old hardware or you have UEFI disabled

Internet connection

TODO add that junk for ethernet being doa

I recommend installing over ethernet if your not then you can connect using wifi-menu

To confirm you're internet works:

ping -5 archlinux.org

If your ethernet is not working then try the following:

ip link # this will show you a number that looks something like  enp39s0

Use the number you found earlier to bring up your interface:

 ip link set dev enp39s0 up

Then when it is up run Dhcp to pull an IP from the server:

 dhcpcd enp39s0

Now try to ping again

Update System clock

timedatectl set-ntp true

Partition disks

Here is where you will most likely find the most trouble if you are not familiar with partitioning tools such as fdisk I would recommend you watch a video for this part since this really won't change much.

First list your disks

fdisk -l

You should see your disk in here mine is called /dev/sda (WARNING do not write to any of these disks unless you know it's the one you want to install Arch on)

Now choose the disk you wish to partition

fdisk /dev/sda

You should now be in the fdisk utility you can press m for help

All of our partitions will be GPT partitions so you can press g when ready

We will be create 3 partitions for the following:

  • boot
  • root
  • home

Boot partition

  • Enter n (To create new partition)

  • Enter ENTER (For the next available partition)

  • Enter ENTER (To start the first available section)

  • Enter +512M (This is the recommended size for our our boot partition)

  • Enter t (To change the type of the partition to EFI)

  • Enter L (To get a list of all partition types EFI should be 1)

  • Press q (to escape the list)

  • Enter 1 (To set the type of the partition we just made to EFI)

Root partition

  • Enter n (To create new partition)

  • Enter ENTER (For the next available partition)

  • Enter ENTER (To start the first available section)

  • Enter +15G (You can increase this if you plan on installing a lot of programs 20G is usually more than enough)

  • Enter t (To change the type of the partition to Linux Root (x86-64))

  • Enter 2 (You will now need to specify which partition you are referring to since now there are two or more)

  • Enter L (To get a list of all partition types Linux Root (x86-64) should be 24)

  • Press q (to escape the list)

  • Enter 24 (To set the type of the partition we just made to Linux Root (x86-64))

Home partition

  • Enter n (To create new partition)

  • Enter ENTER (For the next available partition)

  • Enter ENTER (To start the first available section)

  • Enter ENTER (Just use the rest of the drive, I would even recommend putting this partition on a separate drive if you have a spare)

  • Enter t (To change the type of the partition to Linux home)

  • Enter 3 (You will now need to specify which partition you are referring to since now there are two or more)

  • Enter L (To get a list of all partition types Linux home should be 28)

  • Press q (to escape the list)

  • Enter 28 (To set the type of the partition we just made to Linux home)

Write changes to disk

  • Enter w

Now you can run fdisk -l to see your newly created partitions

Format the partitions

We have to create 3 file systems here, so let's get started

  • Format the EFI partition with:
mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1
  • Format the Root partition with:
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
  • Format the Home partition with:
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

Mount the filesystems

You will need to mount sda1, sda2 and sda3, but you will need to mount Root first

  • Mount sda2 (Root)
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
  • Mount sda1 (Boot)
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
  • Mount sda3 (Home)
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

Check mounts are correct

You can run df to make sure your mounts are in the right place

Install essential packages (and a few others)

Run the following:

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware vim

If you have an intel processor also include intel-ucode, for AMD amd-ucode

Configure the system

Fstab

Generate UUIDs for newly created filesystem

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

You can check that it worked by printing the file:

cat /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot

Now you can change root into the new system:

arch-chroot /mnt

Create a swap file

I'm going to use the varibale X to indicate what your swap size should be

where X is RAM+sqrt(RAM)

fallocate -l XGB /swapfile

chmod 600 /swapfile

mkswap /swapfile

swapon /swapfile

Add swapfile to fstab

Add the following to fstab

Open /etc/fstab

/swapfile none swap default 0 0

Time zone

Set the time zone:

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime

Just search through /usr/share/zoneinfo until you find your nearest City

Run hwclock:

hwclock --systohc

Localization

Uncommnent en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales in /etc/locale.gen, and generate them with:

locale-gen

Create the locale.conf file, and set LANG variable

touch /etc/locale.conf

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

Network configuration

Create hostname file:

touch /etc/hostname

echo mycoolhostname >> /etc/hostname

Add matching entries to hosts

vim /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1	  localhost
::1		      localhost
127.0.1.1	  mycoolhostname.localdomain  mycoolhostname

Root password

Change the root password:

passwd

Installing more packages

Here we can install a few more packages for networking and things like man pages

pacman -S man-db man-pages texinfo inetutils netctl dhcpcd networkmanager wpa_supplicant dialog linux-headers network-manager-applet

Boot loader

We'll be using grub because it has the biggest presence in the boot loader world

pacman -S grub efibootmgr os-prober mtools

Now let's install our boot loader

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB

Generate our config

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

You're done

Enter exit then reboot

Enable internet service

systemctl start dhcpcd.service

systemctl enable dhcpcd.service

Notes

  • arch boot mount to just /boot for windows
  • I'll make a windows dual boot if there is interest
  • If you dual boot with windows it is strongly recommended to disable Fast Startup

Tagged in archlinux