Arch Installation Guide

0. Prep

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1. Get Rufus.
2. Download the Arch installation image.
3. Plug in USB (USB will be wiped).
4. Select the Arch iso on Rufus, leave all settings default, click start. Skip to Section 1 if NOT dual booting with Windows
5. <win> + <r>, type diskmgmt.msc, enter.
6. Right click the main volume and select shrink. Just make some empty free space for Arch. Also account for the swap partition which should be the same size as RAM.
7. Disable Fast Startup.
8. Disable UEFI secure boot if machine has it in BIOS.

1. Init archiso env

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1. Boot into archiso using BIOS boot (i.e. pressing f12). If possible, boot using EFI boot. Skip to Section 2 if ethernet is connected and ping google.com works. TODO Ethernet connection instructions
2. ip link to list wifi interfaces. Find out your wifi device name.
3. wifi-menu [device name], then ping google.com to verify connection.

1.5 High DPI tiny text solution

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1. pacman -Sy terminus-font then setfont ter-v32n. Also if you want bigger text in general. If no internet just do setfont latarcyrheb-sun32 as it’s the only default 8x32 font.

2. Partition

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1. lsblk to check disk name of the place where you want to install Arch. It looks something like /dev/sda.
2. cfdisk to make an EFI partition for booting ONLY IF your device does not have one, swap partition with size same as RAM, and then a filesystem partition. Write after each command.

3. Init swap

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1. mkswap -L "Linux Swap" [swap partition name]. Use fdisk -l to find the name that looks something like /dev/sda2. Also refer back to this command to find partition name for filesystem and EFI.
2. swapon [swap partition name].
3. free -m to verify. It should have a size for swap in the last line.

4. Init filesystem

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1. mkfs.ext4 -L "Arch Linux" [filesystem partition name] formats filesystem partition to ext4.
2. mount [filesystem partition name] /mnt mounts the partition to a port.

5. Init EFT

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1. mkdir -p /mnt/boot.
2. If NOT dual booting with Windows, mkfs.vfat [EFI partition name]. Keep your Windows EFI partition intact if dual booting.
3. mount [EFI partition name] /mnt/boot mounts the EFI partition within the filesystem.
4. pacstrap /mnt base to install the base Arch Linux package on the filesystem and boot partition. Use base-devel instead of base for more development tools.
5. genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab to create boot information containing partition information. Check with cat /mnt/etc/fstab.

6. Basic config

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1. arch-chroot /mnt to access the installed Arch Linux from archiso. Also pacman -Sy dialog wpa_supplicant iw to use wifi-menu when booting directly to Arch. pacman -Sy intel-ucode for intel processor info. Throw in vim and terminus-font as you see fit. Locale
2. vim /etc/locale.gen and uncomment the line with your layout and timezone (e.g. en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8). Use another editor like nano instead of vim as you see fit.
3. locale-gen.
4. echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf.
5. export LANG=en_US.UTF-8.
6. rm /etc/localtime.
7. ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/[continent]/[location] /etc/localtime. Use <tab> to list options in brackets.
8. hwclock --systohc --utc. timedatectl to check time & date. Hostname
9. echo [hostname] > /etc/hostname names how your device shows up on networks.
10. vim /etc/hosts then add hostname after both localhosts. Pacman swag

11. vim /etc/pacman.conf under Architecture = Auto add ILoveCandy and Color on their own lines so it looks like:

    ...
    Architecture = Auto
    ILoveCandy
    Color
    ...

    Then add these to the end of the document:

    [archlinuxfr]
    SigLevel = Never
    Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch
    update: "pacman -Syu"

12. If running 32-bit, uncomment the include line under [multilib] Root and users
13. passwd to set root password.
14. useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/bash [username] to create user.
15. passwd [username] to assign password to said user.

7. Bootloader setup

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1. bootctl install and pray.

2. vim /boot/loader/loader.conf, delete everything in it and add:

   timeout 4
   default arch

3. vim /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf and add:

   title Archlinux
   linux /vmlinuz-linux
   initrd /initramfs-linux.img
   initrd /intel-ucode.img
   options root=PARTUUID=[type ':r !blkid' and copy from Arch partition] rw

4. Alternatively, blkid >> /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf and then use your editor of choice to fill in the rest. `
5. Skip the intel-ucode.img if you don’t have it in /boot
6. Reboot and pray to the gods
7. Log back in as root

7.5 Nvidia + Intel GPU causes shutdown/reboot hang fix

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1. vim /etc/modprobe.d/modprob.conf and add these 3 lines: blacklist nvidia, blacklist nouveau, and options bbswitch load_state=0 unload_state=1.
2. If you wish to turn ON/OFF the GPU, enter: sudo rmmod bbswitch/sudo modprobe bbswitch.

8. Install things as you see fit

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1. xf86-input-synaptics for touchpad
2. mesa an open-source implementation of the OpenGL specification
3. bash-completion
4. xorg-server xorg-apps xorg-xinit that’s for window managers
5. gvim git openssh gvim for the +clipboard over vim
6. Run pacaur_helper.sh in the Scripts folder. pacaur searches, installs, and manages packages from the AUR and behaves just like pacman which is the best package manager tbh
7. i3-gaps or wm of choice
8. urxvt or terminal emulator of choice
9. neofetch prints system info and ASCII art of the distro’s logo
10. compton is a composite manager that lets you do transparancy. As a result, you can add two more degit to the hex code (eg #000000 -> #88000000), where 88 is the hex code for the alpha channel
11. feh manages your desktop background
12. firefox or browser of choice
13. font-awesome for glyphs, terminus-font if you hadn’t already, and fonts of choice
14. sudo then look up how to set up sudoers

9. Interface setup

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1. Reboot again
2. Login as user
3. vim .bashrc and add in whatever you see fit you find in my .bashrc. Type bash to test those settings out
4. To set up i3 (or alternative) with startx, add these lines to ~/.xinitrc: xrdb .Xresources, xrandr --dpi 282 if HiDPI, exec i3

5. To run startx automatically on login, add these lines to ~/.bash_profile:

   if [ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ]; then
   startx && exit
   fi

6. Reboot and spend the next week debugging and ricing your Linux :^)

This guide is tested on the Dell XPS 15 2017.

Courtesy of Alan