This is an Arch Linux install guide, and probably not a good one at that. As always with these guides the descriptions herein are completely biased so take it with a grain of salt.
The goal of this guide isn't to give the full rundown on Arch Linux installation, the official Arch Linux documentation already covers this aspect in much greater detail. Rather, the goal is to get you setup as fast as possible with a Arch system while clearly explaining what each command does.
The guide has a critical path which the user can follow to immediately get their system running. However, we do recommend taking the time and reading through the text. It's very easy to mess up along the way, and often it's harder to find the root of the problem.
In several commands the keywords USERNAME and HOSTNAME are used to
represent, the username and hostname of the machine, respectively. Don't
forget to replace them.
Set keyboard layout: loadkeys i386/qwerty/uk
Reorder mirror list. Put your country's mirrors first: vim /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
If you use WiFi, set it up. Setup WiFi: wifi-menu
If you are in a HiDPI display increase the font size: setfont latarcyrheb-sun32
| Number | Start | End | Size | File System | Name | Flags |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1049KB | 538MB | 537MB | fat32 | boot | boot, esp |
| 2 | 538MB | 8730MB | 8192MB | linux-swap | swap | |
| 3 | 8730MB | 10778MB | 2GB | ext4 | sos | |
| 4 | 10778MB | 100% | ext4 | root |
# parted
mktable gpt
mkpart ESP fat32 1049kB 538MB
set 1 boot on
name 1 boot
mkpart primary linux-swap 538MB 8730MB
name 2 swap
mkpart primary ext4 8730MB 10778MB
name 3 sos
mkpart primary ext4 10778MB 100%
name 4 root
# mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
# mkswap /dev/sda2
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4
The usage of an SOS system is recommended and allows you to access different partitions in your system when something really bad happens. If you are certain you won't be needing an SOS partition or are in need of the disk space it requires, feel free to skip this section.
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/sda2
# pacstrap /mnt base linux networkmanager broadcom-wl wpa_supplicant dialog vim dhcpcd
# genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
# vim /mnt/etc/fstab
Make sure that the line of the ext4 partition ends with a “2”, the swap partition’s line ends with a “0”, and the boot partition’s line ends with a “1”. This configures the partition checking on boot.
If you have an SSD (which the mac does), you can edit the ext4 partition options to look
like this: rw,relatime,data=ordered,discard
# arch-chroot /mnt
chroot# vim /etc/locale.gen # (uncomment en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8)
chroot# locale-gen
chroot# echo LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
chroot# export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
chroot# vim /etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=uk
FONT=latarcyrheb-sun32
chroot# rm /etc/localtime
chroot# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Lisbon /etc/localtime
chroot# hwclock --systohc --utc
chroot# /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl.conf # (Delete line: brcmfmac)
chroot# vim /etc/modules-load.d/broadcom-wl.conf
wl
brcmfmac
chroot# vim /etc/modules-load.d/applemac.conf
coretemp
applesmc
chroot# echo HOSTNAME > /etc/hostname
chroot# vim /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost HOSTNAME-SOS
::1 localhost.localdomain localhost HOSTNAME-SOS
chroot# passwd # (Set root password)
chroot# pacman -S dosfstools
chroot# bootctl --path=/boot install
chroot# vim /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset
Delete the lines:
default_image=”/boot/initramfs-linux.img”
fallback_image=”/boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img”
Replace with:
default_image=”/boot/initramfs-sos.img”
fallback_image=”/boot/initramfs-sos-fallback.img”
chroot# mkinitcpio -p linux
chroot# vim /boot/loader/entries/sos.conf
title Arch Linux SOS
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-sos.img
options root=/dev/sda3 rw elevator=deadline quiet splash resume=/dev/sda2 nmi_watchdog=0
chroot# exit
# umount /mnt/boot
# umount /mnt
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/sda2
# pacstrap /mnt base base-devel broadcom-wl wpa_supplicant dialog vim dhcpcd linux linux-firmware awesome lightdm-gtk-greeter lightdm
# genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
# vim /mnt/etc/fstab
Make sure that the line of the ext4 partition ends with a “2”, the swap partition’s line ends with a “0”, and the boot partition’s line ends with a “1”. This configures the partition checking on boot.
If you have an SSD (which the mac does), you can edit the ext4 partition options to look like this: rw,relatime,data=ordered,discard
# arch-chroot /mnt
chroot# vim /etc/locale.gen # (uncomment en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8)
chroot# locale-gen
chroot# echo LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
chroot# export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
chroot# vim /etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=uk
FONT=latarcyrheb-sun32
chroot# rm /etc/localtime
chroot# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Lisbon /etc/localtime
chroot# hwclock --systohc --utc
chroot# /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl.conf # (Delete line: brcmfmac)
chroot# vim /etc/modules-load.d/broadcom-wl.conf
wl
brcmfmac
chroot# vim /etc/modules-load.d/applemac.conf
coretemp
applesmc
chroot# echo HOSTNAME > /etc/hostname
chroot# vim /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost HOSTNAME
::1 localhost.localdomain localhost HOSTNAME
chroot# passwd
Set root password
chroot# vim /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options root=/dev/sda4 rw elevator=deadline quiet splash resume=/dev/sda2 nmi_watchdog=0
chroot# echo “default arch” > /boot/loader/loader.conf
# exit
# umount /mnt/boot
# umount /mnt
# reboot
# useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash USERNAME
# pacman -S sudo
# visudo
Uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
# passwd USERNAME
# passwd -l root
# reboot
$ sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-randr xf86-video-intel
$ sudo vim /etc/lightdm.conf
Replace
#greeter-session=example-gtk-lightdm
with
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter
$ sudo systemctl enable lightdm.service
$ sudo pacman -S awesome
$ sudo pacman -S network-manager-applet cbatticon rxvt-unicode
$ vim .Xresources
Xft.dpi: 144
Xft.autohint: 0
Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault
Xft.hintstyle: hintfull
Xft.hinting: 1
Xft.antialias: 1
Xft.rgba: rgb
URxvt*.depth: 32
URxvt*font: xft:DejaVu Sans Mono:size=12
URxvt*scrollBar: false
! special
! --- ~/.Xresources
------------------------------------------------------------
!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
! --- generated with 4bit Terminal Color Scheme Designer
-----------------------
!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
! --- http://ciembor.github.com/4bit
-------------------------------------------
!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------! --- special colors ---
URxvt*background: #0b1d2e
URxvt*foreground: #d9e6f2
! --- standard colors ---
! black
URxvt*color0: #0b1d2e
! bright_black
URxvt*color8: #2e4051
! red
URxvt*color1: #da49ab
! bright_red
URxvt*color9: #da9ed5
! green
URxvt*color2: #88ec5a
! bright_green
URxvt*color10: #b3ecaf
! yellow
URxvt*color3: #da9a5a
! bright_yellow
URxvt*color11: #dac5af
! blue
URxvt*color4: #379afc
! bright_blue
URxvt*color12: #8cc5fc
! magenta
URxvt*color5: #8849fc
! bright_magenta
URxvt*color13: #b39efc! cyan
URxvt*color6: #37ecab
! bright_cyan
URxvt*color14: #8cecd5
! white
URxvt*color7: #baccdd
! bright_white
URxvt*color15: #daecfc
!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
! --- end of terminal colors section
-------------------------------------------
!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ vim ~/.profile
xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
nm-applet &
cbatticon &
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/awesome
$ cp /etc/xdg/awesome/rc.lua ~/.config/awesome/
$ vim ~/.config/awesome/rc.lua
Swap
terminal = “xterm”
for
terminal = “urxvt”