Arch Linux installation instructions

How to install Arch Linux

These instructions were written by me, following the Arch Wiki, to install Arch in a VM &/or real machine. These instructions include both the installation process and the post-install process, as well as some additions

NOTE: the editor used in this guide is vim.

I suggest also checking out the arch wiki. If you haven’t already, download the Arch ISO.

If you want to see the RAW Markdown instructions (this file) in a terminal, run curl -L https://git.io/Archlinux.

Alternatively, you can also format the file so that it won’t have a lot of the Markdown specific syntax:

  • If you want to save them into a file called “Archlinux”: curl -L https://git.io/Archlinux | sed 's/^#* //;/^!/d;s/^+ //;s/IPv*/# IPv/;s/Misc/# Misc/' > Archlinux
  • If you want to display them onto the screen without saving: curl -L https://git.io/Archlinux | sed 's/^#* //;/^!/d;s/^+ //;s/IPv/# IPv/;s/Misc/# Misc/' | less

Table of contents

See also How to manage packages on Arch Linux

If you use a VM:

  • Open VirtualBox

  • Click “New”

  • Click “Expert Mode”
    • Name: Arch (or whatever you want to put)
    • RAM: At least 512 MB (though >1024MB is recommended if you want to use a DE like GNOME or KDE)
    • Hard disk: Create a virtual hard disk now
  • Click “Create”
    • File Size: At least 5 GB (though >10GB is recommended)
    • Hard disk file type: VDI
    • Storage on physical HDD: Dynamically allocated
  • Click “Create”
  • Select the new VM

  • Click “Settings”

  • Go into the “Storage” tab
    • Click on the CD/DVD icon
    • On the right, select the location of the Arch iso
    • Select “Live CD/DVD”
  • Go into the “Network “ tab
    • Click on “NAT”
    • Select “Bridged adapter”
    • Choose the network interface you want to use for the Virtual Machine (for example wlp4s0 and enp3s0 are two network interfaces)
  • Click “Ok”
  • Start the VM

NOTE: this will use MBR, meaning you’ll use BIOS, not UEFI! If you want to use UEFI, follow these instructions: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#efi

If you use a real machine

  • Get a hold of a DVD/USB with at least 1GB of storage
    • USB: Using a tool like Etcher, flash the ISO onto the USB
    • DVD: using a tool like Brasero on Linux or ImgBurn on Windows, flash the ISO onto the DVD.
  • Put the DVD/USB in your machine
  • Open the BIOS/UEFI and modify the boot order, choosing the DVD/USB as the first boot device.

If you already have a machine running Linux, you can use dd to flash the ISO to your usb/dvd. For example, if you usb drive is /dev/sdc (check with lsblk), run the following command:

dd if=archiso.iso of=/dev/sdc status=progress bs=512M

Likewise, if you DVD slot is /dev/sd0, run the following command:

dd if=archiso.iso of=/dev/sd0 status=progress bs=512M

After starting the VM/Computer, choose “Arch Linux” from the bootloader (GRUB), then hit [ENTER]

Set the keyboard layout

To find out available keyboard layouts, run: ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz

Once you find your keyboard layout, run: loadkeys <keyboard-layout>: For example, I ran loadkeys it because my keyboard has an italian keyboard layout.

Verify the boot mode

Run this command: ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars.

If the command shows the directory without error, then the system is booted in UEFI mode. If the directory does not exist, the system may be booted in BIOS (or CSM) mode.

If the system did not boot in the mode you desired, refer to your motherboard’s manual, or check your BIOS/UEFI settings; look for an option under “Boot” called “Prefer boot mode”, it should be set to UEFI.

1) Connect to the internet

Let’s connect using iwctl:

  1. Run iwctl
  2. In the iwctl prompt, type device list
  3. Then, scan for available networks: station [DEVICE] scan ([DEVICE] is the Wi-Fi card, like wlp3s0)
  4. Get a list of the Wi-Fi networks: station [DEVICE] get-networks
  5. Connect to a network: station [DEVICE] connect [SSID] ([SSID] is the name of the Wi-Fi network)

If a passphrase is required, you will be prompted to enter it.

Alternatively, you can supply it as a command line argument: iwctl --passphrase "[WIFI PASSWORD]" station [DEVICE] connect [SSID]

If, for some reason, iwctl fails, run these two commands:

(If the wireless network interface isn’t wlan0, use the one you have)

wpa_passphrase "My Network" "My passphrase" > wpa.conf
wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c wpa.conf
  • 1.1) Check the network interfaces: ip link
  • 1.2) If the above looks good, check if internet works: ping archlinux.org
  • 1.3) If you can’t connect to archlinux.org, make sure you run: dhcpcd <interface>
    • 1.3.1) if you connect wirelessly, use wlp4s0, wlan0 or any other wireless interface
    • 1.3.2) if you connect via ethernet, use enp2s0, eth0, or any other wired interface
  • 1.4) If the above looks good, sync the clock: timedatectl set-ntp true

2) Partition the disk

Disk partitioning will be different if you use MBR or GPT:

  • On MBR systems, you’ll use the BIOS, meaning you won’t need the EFI System Partition.
  • On GPT systems, you’ll use UEFI, meaning you will need the EFI System Partition.

NOTE: If you already have partitions (from Window$ or another Operating System), we need to delete them and convert the partition table to MBR/GPT.

First of all, remove all pre-existing file systems from SATA HDD/SSD: wipefs -a /dev/sda (If you use an NVMe drive, it is going to be called something like /dev/nvme0n1, check available disks with fdisk -l)

To make sure your changes to the partitions are synced with the Kernel, run partprobe.

Swap

Say you have a 250GB HDD and 4GB RAM. If you are going to be using your system as a Desktop, not compiling anything huge (for example, Firefox), I recommended that you reserve at least 4GB for swap space. If you have a lot of RAM (say, 32GB), 4GB will do just fine. However, if you have ~8GB RAM and you look forward to compiling big stuff (even infrequently), I recommend having a swap partition of at least 2 + (2 * RAM). In this case, we’ll set a swap partition size of 8GB.

If you want to use other filesystems instead of Ext4, please see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/File_systems#Types_of_file_systems

  • MBR: Run fdisk /dev/sda, then type o, then w. Run cfdisk /dev/sda, then select dos. Now we need to create two partitions: the first partition will be the biggest partition, used for storage, the second partition will be the smallest partition, used for the swap.
    • First partition (Ext4): DISK SPACE - SWAP = 250GB - 8GB = 242GB
    • Second partition (SWAP): SWAP = 8GB.
  • How to partition the disk:
    • Press New, Partition size 242G, Choose primary;
    • Select Bootable;
    • Press the down-arrow key, press New;
    • Partition size 8G, Choose primary;
    • Go to Type, Select Linux swap / Solaris.
    • Press Write, then y to save changes to disk.
  • GPT: Run fdisk /dev/sda, then type g, then w. Run cfdisk /dev/sda, then select gpt. Now we need to create three partitions: the first partition will be the smallest partition, used for EFI, the second partition will be the biggest partition, used for storage, the third partition will be used for the swap.
    • First partition (EFI System partition): EFI = 512M
    • Second partition (Ext4): DISK SPACE - SWAP - EFI = 250G - 8G - 512M = 242G - 512M = 242 - 0.5G = 241.5G = 241G (remove any decimal places by rounding down)
    • Third partition (SWAP): SWAP = 8G
  • How to partition the disk:
    • Press New, Partition size 512M, Choose primary;
    • Go to type, Select EFI System;
    • Press the down-arrow key, press New;
    • Partition size 241G, Choose primary;
    • Go to type, Select Linux root (x86-64);
    • Press the down-arrow key, press New;
    • Partition size 8G, Choose primary;
    • Go to type, Select Linux swap;
    • Press Write, then y to save changes to disk.

Your partition table should look like this (sizes may vary):

MBR:

Device Partition Type Partition Size
/dev/sda1 Ext4 242G
/dev/sda2 Linux Swap 8G

GPT:

Device Partition Type Partition Size
/dev/sda1 EFI System 512M
/dev/sda2 Ext4 241G
/dev/sda3 Linux Swap 8G

3) Create the file system

  • MBR:
    • Ext4: mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
    • SWAP: mkswap /dev/sda2
  • GPT:
    • EFI: mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
    • Ext4: mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
    • SWAP: mkswap /dev/sda3

4) Mount the partitions

  • MBR:
    • Mount the Ext4 partition: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
    • Mount the SWAP partition: swapon /dev/sda2
  • GPT:
    • Mount the EFI System partition: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
    • Mount the Ext4 partition: mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
    • Mount the SWAP partition: swapon /dev/sda3

The partitions should be mounted like this (check with lsblk):

MBR:

Partition to mount Mountpoint
/dev/sda1 /mnt
/dev/sda2 [SWAP]

GPT:

Partition to mount Mountpoint
/dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
/dev/sda2 /mnt
/dev/sda3 [SWAP]

5) Installation: modifying the mirror list

  • Update /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist:
    • 5.1) vim /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
    • 5.2) Select a server closest to you, for example Italy, and delete all of the lines, keeping only the server you chose. Alternatively, use the Pacman Mirrorlist Generator
    • 5.3) Save and quit

6) Install essential packages

  • 6.1) pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware linux-headers man-db man-pages bash-completion

7) Configuring the system: Fstab

  • 7.1) Create fstab: genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

8) Configuring the system: Chroot

  • 8.1) Change root into the new system: arch-chroot /mnt
  • 8.2) Install vim to modify files: pacman -S vim

9) Localization

I will be using the Italian time; to see available timezones, run ls /usr/share/zoneinfo and select accordingly.

  • 9.1) Timezone: ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Rome /etc/localtime

  • 9.2) Sync the clock: hwclock --systohc

  • 9.3) Set the language(s):
    • 9.3.1) Edit /etc/locale.gen: vim /etc/locale.gen
    • 9.3.2) Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8, then save and quit
    • 9.3.3) Edit /etc/locale.conf: vim /etc/locale.conf
    • 9.3.4) Add LANG=en_US.UTF-8, then save and quit
    • 9.3.5) Generate the locale: locale-gen
  • 9.4) Set the keyboard layout:
    • 9.4.1) Edit /etc/vconsole.conf: vim /etc/vconsole.conf
    • 9.4.2) Write KEYMAP=YOUR-KEYMAP:

Here after KEYMAP you need to type your keyboard’s layout, you chose this before when you ran loadkeys <code>. I chose it because I use a keyboard with an Italian keyboard layout, meaning I wrote KEYMAP=it. See more here: https://jlk.fjfi.cvut.cz/arch/manpages/man/vconsole.conf.5

After you’re done, save and quit.

10) Network Configuration: hostname

  • 10.1) Modify /etc/hostname: vim /etc/hostname
  • 10.2) Write an hostname of your choice, like arch

11) Network Configuration: hosts

  • 11.1) Modify /etc/hosts: vim /etc/hosts
  • 11.2) Add the following lines:
# IPv4
127.0.0.1	localhost
127.0.1.1	<your hostname>.localdomain <your hostname>

# IPv6
::1		localhost

Where <your hostname> is the hostname you chose in /etc/hostname.

11.3) Save the file and exit

12) Set the root password

  • 12.1) passwd

13) Add a new user:

For example I chose matteo so I will replace <user> with matteo.

  • 13.1) useradd -m <user>
  • 13.2) Add a password to the user: passwd <user>
  • 13.3) Add the user to necessary groups: usermod -aG wheel,audio,video,optical,storage <user>
  • 13.4) Check user is part of the groups we added above: groups <user>
  • 13.5) Add user to sudoers: visudo
    • 13.6) Search # %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL, remove the # at the beginning

14) Install the bootloader

  • MBR:
    • GRUB: pacman -S grub os-prober freetype2 dosfstools
      • Install GRUB to disk: grub-install /dev/sda
      • Configure GRUB: grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  • GPT:
    • GRUB: pacman -S grub efibootmgr os-prober freetype2 dosfstools
      • Install GRUB to disk: grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB
      • Configure GRUB: grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
    • rEFInd: pacman -S refind efibootmgr os-prober freetype2 dosfstools

For other bootloaders, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_boot_process#Boot_loader

15) Install the network tools

  • 15.1) pacman -S dhcpcd net-tools netctl dialog wpa_supplicant networkmanager nm-connection-editor inetutils ifplugd
  • 15.2) Exit out of chroot: exit
  • 15.3) After the above is done, enable dhcpcd, NetworkManager and ifplugd: systemctl enable {dhcpcd,NetworkManager,ifplugd}

16) Reboot

  • 16.1) Poweroff the machine: poweroff
  • 16.2) Remove the Arch Live CD/DVD/US/ISO from the VM/Computer
  • 16.3) Start the VM/Computer

17) Post-installation

  • 17.1) To login, type the <user>’s name
  • 17.2) Type the password you chose for <user> (it will be invisible)

If you don’t want to use Arch graphically, go to section number 20 (install necessary drivers)

18) Install X.Org

  • 18.1) Install X.Org: sudo pacman -S xorg xorg-xinit
  • 18.2) Select all packages by pressing [ENTER]

19) Install a Desktop Environment

NOTE: Instead of using a Desktop Environment, you can directly install a Window Manager. I use i3. If you would like to use i3, follow this guide I wrote here.

Please choose one of the following Desktop Environments:

  • Budgie: sudo pacman -S gdm budgie-desktop
  • Cinnamon (please read): sudo pacman -S cinnamon lightdm
  • Deepin (please read): sudo pacman -S deepin deepin-extra networkmanager lightdm
  • GNOME: sudo pacman -S gnome gnome-extra networkmanager
  • KDE Plasma: sudo pacman -S plasma kde-applications sddm
  • LXDE: sudo pacman -S lxde lxdm
  • LXQt: sudo pacman -S lxqt breeze-icons sddm
  • MATE: sudo pacman -S mate mate-extra lightdm
  • XFCE: sudo pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies lightdm

After installing Xorg, a Desktop Environment and its dependencies, enable the Display Manager (DM)

NOTE: If a Display Manager does not load, please refer to this page

  • GDM (Budgie, GNOME): sudo systemctl enable gdm
  • LightDM (Cinnamon, Deepin, MATE, XFCE): sudo systemctl enable lightdm
  • LXDM (LXDE): sudo systemctl enable lxdm
  • SDDM (KDE Plasma, LXQt): sudo systemctl enable sddm

20) Install necessary drivers

  • AMD: sudo pacman -S mesa xf86-input-libinput xf86-video-ati xf86-video-amdgpu vulkan-radeon amd-ucode
  • Intel: sudo pacman -S mesa xf86-input-libinput xf86-video-intel vulkan-intel intel-ucode
  • NVIDIA: sudo pacman -S mesa xf86-input-libinput nvidia xf86-video-nouveau nvidia-utils

(NOTE: other video drivers can be found in the xorg-drivers group)

21) Install audio sound system

sudo pacman -S pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa alsa-utils

You might also want to install some codecs (audio, image & video):

sudo pacman -S flac faac wavpack libmad opus libvorbis openjpeg libwebp x265 libde265 x264 libmpeg2 libvpx

Additions

The sections below contain various optional additions:

  • Touchpad tap to click;
  • Pacman easter egg;
  • Command not found;
  • Automatically enter a directory (without writing cd).

22) Enable touchpad tap to click

Since we installed xf86-input-libinput in section 20, we need to tweak the configuration.

  • 22.1) Copy the default configuration: sudo cp /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
  • 22.2) Enable touchpad tap to click: sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
    • 22.2.1) Find Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
    • 22.2.2) Under Driver "libinput" add this line: Option "Tapping" "on"
    • 22.2.3) Save and quit The touchpad config should look like this: 
        Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
  MatchIsTouchpad "on"
  MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
  Driver "libinput"
  Option "Tapping" "on"
  EndSection

23) Pacman easter egg

  • 23.1) Modify /etc/pacman.conf: sudo vim /etc/pacman.conf
  • 23.2) Find the line that says # Misc options
  • 23.3) Remove the # before Color
  • 23.4) Below #VerbosePkgLists add this line: ILoveCandy

Each time you will install a new package you will see a little pacman in the progress bar. The relevant /etc/pacman.conf should look like this:

# Misc options
#UseSysLog
Color
#TotalDownload
CheckSpace
#VerbosePkgLists
ILoveCandy

24) Command-not-found

On Ubuntu there’s a package called command-not-found: its job is to tell the user the name of package to install in order to run a specific command. On Arch Linux, we can use pkgfile.

  • 24.1) Install pkgfile: sudo pacman -S pkgfile
  • 24.2) Update the pkgfile database (if necessary, run with sudo): pkgfile -u
  • 24.3) If you use bash, append the line below to .bashrc: vim ~/.bashrc

source /usr/share/doc/pkgfile/command-not-found.bash

  • 24.4) Save and quit. Done!

25) Automatically enter a directory

If you enter only the name of a directory (for example, /etc), cd into it.

  • 25.1) Append the line below to .bashrc: vim ~/.bashrc (Append the line below)

shopt -s autocd

  • 25.2) Save and quit. Done!

How to manage packages

How to manage packages on Arch Linux:

  • To upgrade Arch Linux, run: sudo pacman -Syu
  • To install a package, run: sudo pacman -S <package>
  • To remove a package, run: sudo pacman -Rns <package>
  • To search a package in the official repositories, run: pacman -Ss package-name
  • To search a package you installed, run: pacman -Qs package-name
  • To clear the package cache, run: sudo pacman -Sc
  • To list installed packages that are not needed, run: pacman -Qdt
  • To list packages installed via the AUR/PKGBUILDS, run: pacman -Qm
  • To list packages installed via pacman repos, run: pacman -Qn

For other commands, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Rosetta

Now you installed Arch Linux, enjoy!

You can improve these instructions by creating a new pull request, or by creating a new issue.