How To Install Arch Linux

This is my walkthrough for how I installed Arch Linux on LVM with encryption, utilizing KDE Plasma as the desktop environment.

This repository includes additional documents pertaining to:

General Maintenance
LVM
Windows 10

Documents within these areas of interest are listed in the Additional Information section of the Table of Contents.

SweatyHands is a work in progress and will be continually updated as I become more familiar with Arch.

Stage 1

All steps are done in the live boot environment.

Clear Existing Partitions

$ fdisk -l
Find disk path (probably /dev/sda/ on hard drives)
$ fdisk /dev/sda
Use option d to delete partition, select partition number
- Repeat until all existing partitions are deleted
- Use option p to list pending changes to system throughout process
Use option w to write changes

Create New Partitions

The order of my partitions, including partition path, purpose, type, and their corresponding sizes:
- Partition Path Partition Purpose Partition Type Size
  
  /dev/sda1 EFI EFI 512MB
  
  /dev/sda2 boot Linux Filesystem 512MB
  
  /dev/sda3 LVM ( /, /home, swapfile) LVM Remaining disk
$ fdisk /dev/sda
Use option n to create new partitions.
- fdisk knows how to number partitions, you can leave it at its default when selecting partition number
- First sector: enter through
- Last sector: ex. +512M to make a 512MB partition
  - Simply enter through first and last sector fields if you want to make a partition from the remaining disk space
- If prompted to remove existing filesystem signature, y
- Use option t to set partition type
  - EFI option number: 1
  - Linux filesystem option number: 20. It is also the default so entering through would set this as the partition type
  - Linux LVM option number: 30

Make Filesystems for EFI and boot Partitions

For /dev/sda1 (EFI)
- $ mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
For /dev/sda2 (boot)
- $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

Encrypt and Make Filesystem for the LVM

$ cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda3
"Are you sure?" Well, yeah. So type YES
Enter and re-enter passphrase for encrypted partition
Open encrypted partition
- $ cryptsetup open /dev/sda3 lvm to open partition as "lvm"
Create physical volume
- $ pvcreate --dataalignment 1m /dev/mapper/lvm
Create volume group
- $ vgcreate volgroup0 /dev/mapper/lvm to create volume group "volgroup0"
Create logical volumes
- Create / (root)
  - $ lvcreate -L 32GB volgroup0 -n lv_root to create logical volume of size 32GB with the name "lv_root"
- Create /home
  - $ lvcreate -l 100%FREE volgroup0 -n lv_home to use the rest of disk with the name "lv_home"
Make filesystem for LVM groups
- For / (root)
  - $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_root
- For /home
  - $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_home

Mount Volumes (ALL EXCEPT EFI)

$ mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_root /mnt to mount .../lv_root to /mnt
Create directory in /mnt to mount /home: $ mkdir /mnt/home
$ mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_home /mnt/home
Create directory for boot: $ mkdir /mnt/boot
$ mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
$ mkdir /mnt/etc for later use

Get a Network Connection (Wireless Connection)

$ ip a or $ ip link to get wireless interface name
$ wifi-menu INTERFACE_NAME to scan for networks with the interface. Edit the name for the new profile if you want.
$ ping A_WEBSITE to check connection

Edit Mirror List

$ nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist and move United States mirrors to the top of the list. Pacman prioritizes mirrors at the top of the list, so this would result in a faster download speed.

Install `base` Package

$ pacstrap -i /mnt base

Generate and Check `fstab` File

$ genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab to generate and store the fstab file in /mnt/etc/fstab
$ cat /mnt/etc/fstab and you should see three partitions listed in the file

Access In-Progress Installation

$ arch-chroot /mnt
You can now do the following steps in any order you'd like

Stage 2

All steps are done in the chroot environment.

Install Additional Essential Linux packages

$ pacman -S base-devel lvm2 linux-firmware man-db man-pages texinfo linux linux-lts linux-headers linux-lts-headers networkmanager wpa_supplicant wireless_tools netctl dialog mesa grub efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools xorg-server plasma-meta kde-applications intel-ucode nano
- lvm2 - CRITICAL PACKAGE. Required to boot LVM
- linux and linux-lts gives us kernel options
- linux-headers and linux-lts-headers are optional, but recommended
- netctl is optional. MAY CONFLICT WITH networkmanager
- mesa - graphics; provides the DRI driver for 3D acceleration
- grub efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools - necessary packages to install GRUB
- plasma-meta kde-applications - installing KDE Plasma as desktop environment
- intel-ucode - microcode for Intel cpu; or amd-ucode for AMD processors

IMPORTANT: Edit `mkinitcpio.conf` File

$ nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. The file controls modules and scripts added to the image as well as what happens at boot time.
Find HOOKS=(base udev autodetect ...) line
- Add "encrypt lvm2" between "block" and "filesystems". ORDER IS IMPORTANT
$ mkinitcpio -p linux and $ mkinitcpio -p linux-lts if both were installed. You only need to run it against whichever linux package was installed.

Set Timezone and Hardware Clock

$ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Detroit /etc/localtime
$ hwclock --systohc to set hardware clock to UTC

Set Locale

$ nano /etc/locale.gen
- Uncomment lines that start with "en_US" for United States
$ locale-gen

Edit `/etc/hosts` and `/etc/hostname`

Add these lines in hosts

127.0.0.1   localhost
::1         localhost
127.0.1.1   arch.localdomain  arch

Add this to hostname
- arch

Set Root Password

$ passwd

Create Users

$ useradd -m -g users -G wheel NAME to create user of NAME in groups users and wheel
Set password for user $ passwd NAME
Make user admin
- Check sudo $ which sudo. If DNE, $ pacman -S sudo
- Configure sudo. Create env variable and edit sudo settings $ EDITOR=nano visudo
  - Uncomment line that starts with "%wheel ALL" to give users of group wheel permission to execute any command
Repeat and assign privileges as needed.

Configure GRUB

$ nano /etc/default/grub
Uncomment "GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y"
Edit line "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT"
- Add "cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:volgroup0:allow-discards" between "loglevel=3" and "quiet"
  - CRITICAL. DO NOT **** UP.
$ mkdir /boot/EFI
Finally mount the EFI partition $ mount /dev/sda1 /boot/EFI
$ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --recheck
$ mkdir /boot/grub/locale
$ cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Create SWAPFILE

SWAPFILE vs Swap Partition: Can resize at any time whereas resizing a swap partition would be troublesome and risky for system integrity
$ fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
$ chmod 600 /swapfile
$ mkswap /swapfile
Add SWAPFILE to fstab so that swapfile is initialized during each boot
- Optional but recommended: make a backup of existing fstab file $ cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup
- Add SWAPFILE to fstab $ echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | tee -a /etc/fstab to append line to fstab file
$ cat /etc/fstab to check if SWAPFILE was added correctly

Configure KDE Plasma

This assumes you've already installed packages plasma-meta and kde-applications
$ systemctl enable sddm
$ systemctl enable NetworkManager

Stage 3

Reboot and Pray to God You Didn't **** Something Up

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 37 Commits
General Maintenance		General Maintenance
LVM		LVM
Windows 10		Windows 10
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

Repository files navigation

How To Install Arch Linux

Table of Contents

Stage 1

Clear Existing Partitions

Create New Partitions

Make Filesystems for EFI and boot Partitions

Encrypt and Make Filesystem for the LVM

Mount Volumes (ALL EXCEPT EFI)

Get a Network Connection (Wireless Connection)

Edit Mirror List

Install `base` Package

Generate and Check `fstab` File

Access In-Progress Installation

Stage 2

Install Additional Essential Linux packages

IMPORTANT: Edit `mkinitcpio.conf` File

Set Timezone and Hardware Clock

Set Locale

Edit `/etc/hosts` and `/etc/hostname`

Set Root Password

Create Users

Configure GRUB

Create SWAPFILE

Configure KDE Plasma

Stage 3

About

Partition Path	Partition Purpose	Partition Type	Size
/dev/sda1	EFI	EFI	512MB
/dev/sda2	boot	Linux Filesystem	512MB
/dev/sda3	LVM ( /, /home, swapfile)	LVM	Remaining disk

License

JosephLai241/SweatyHands

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

Repository files navigation

How To Install Arch Linux

Table of Contents

Stage 1

Clear Existing Partitions

Create New Partitions

Make Filesystems for EFI and boot Partitions

Encrypt and Make Filesystem for the LVM

Mount Volumes (ALL EXCEPT EFI)

Get a Network Connection (Wireless Connection)

Edit Mirror List

Install base Package

Generate and Check fstab File

Access In-Progress Installation

Stage 2

Install Additional Essential Linux packages

IMPORTANT: Edit mkinitcpio.conf File

Set Timezone and Hardware Clock

Set Locale

Edit /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname

Set Root Password

Create Users

Configure GRUB

Create SWAPFILE

Configure KDE Plasma

Stage 3

About

Topics

Resources

License

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Install `base` Package

Generate and Check `fstab` File

IMPORTANT: Edit `mkinitcpio.conf` File

Edit `/etc/hosts` and `/etc/hostname`