Steps to install Arch Linux on my Thinkpad T400

Here I keep all steps necessary for me to install the Arch Linux distribution on my old Thinkpad T400. The README has all the procedures needed or, I can just simply run the scripts that I have to install and configure my whole system.

1. Partitioning the disk, setting a file system and instaling its core

1.1 The correct keyboard layout

Unfortunately, the standard keyboard layouts, namely br-abnt2, it doesn't seem to detect properly the key "/" on my pt-br keyboard whenever I am working on the TTY. That is easy to fix, I just need to change a couple of values on the file responsible for the br-abnt2 layout. The layout can be found at

/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/br-abnt2.map.gz

which I change the keycode 89 = slash question degree for keycode 97 = slash question degree.

Then, I just need to do the following to get it working nicely

cp conf.d/br-abnt2-thinkpad.map.gz -t /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty
loadkeys br-abnt2-thinkpad

1.2 Connect with the internet

The comand

iwctl

is quite easy to use it.

1.3 Formatting the disk and choosing the file system

Again, nothing difficult to do.

fdisk -f

to list all disks or

lsblk -f

In my case

fdisk /dev/sda

and then just need to set the partitions. Since I am booting using the Legacy system, I need to create a partition of 1MB (if I recall it properly) with a boot flag. The other partitions, sda2 and sda3, just procedure as usual.

Important: set the GPT table, right at the beggining of this process.

Finally, it is necessary to set the file system. Piece of cake:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2                                                              
mkswap /dev/sda3

1.4 Mounting the partitions created and installing the core system

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
swapon /dev/sda3

and installing the core system

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

Now the table of the partitions must be declared at the file fstab

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

which I also insert instructions allowing me to mount a flash disk and the cdrom without being root

cat conf.d/my_fstab >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Now i is time to play with the system

arch-chroot /mnt

2. After arch-chroot

Update the system

pacman -Syu

2.1 Configuring the system

Region and Time

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Sao_Paulo /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

locale variables

cp conf.d/locale.gen    -t /etc                                                  
locale-gen                                                                       
cp conf.d/locale.conf   -t /etc                                                  
cp conf.d/vconsole.conf -t /etc

Internet - hostname and host

cp conf.d/hostname      -t /etc
cp conf.d/hosts         -t /etc

password for root

passwd

Creating user rafael

useradd -m -U rafael
passwd rafael

Mounting places for usb sticks and cdrom

mkdir -p /media/pendrive
mkdir -p /media/cdrom
chown -R rafael: /media/pendrive
chown -R rafael: /media/cdrom

2.2 Installing all packages

pacman -S  grub intel-ucode os-prober
pacman -S  iwd dhcpcd systemd firewalld firejail
pacman -S  vim
pacman -S  i3 xorg xdm-archlinux i3blocks ttf-dejavu
pacman -S  rxvt-unicode bash-completion
pacman -S  firefox polkit
pacman -S  pulseaudio pavucontrol xbindkeys
pacman -S  xorg-xrandr arandr
pacman -S  tlp tlp-rdw ethtool smartmontools
pacman -S  git openssh xclip
pacman -S  sqlite3 perl-dbi
pacman -S  texlive-core texlive-latexextra
pacman -S  gnuplot octave graphviz
pacman -S  ghc #haskell
pacman -S  mutt
pacman -S  mupdf feh imagemagick                           
pacman -S  screenfetch                                                
pacman -S  mplayer mencoder                                           
pacman -S  gsl cmake                                                  
pacman -S  --needed base-devel gi

2.3 Enabling Services

systemctl enable iwd
systemctl enable systemd-resolved
systemctl enable firewalld
systemctl enable xdm-archlinux
systemctl enable tlp

mkdir -p /etc/iwd                                                                
cp conf.d/iwd_main.conf -t /etc/iwd/                                             
mv /etc/iwd/iwd_main.conf  /etc/iwd/main.conf

2.4 Grub for bios legacy

grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

The line below is a file which tells grub that I also have a freebsd on my HD

cat conf.d/40_custom >> /etc/grub.d/40_custom

3. Configurations at the user level

ln -s /media/pendrive ~/pendrive                                                    
ln -s /media/cdrom    ~/cdrom

mkdir -p ~/.config/i3                                                               
rm ~/.bashrc

git clone https://github.com/rafaelpcarneiro/dotfiles.git
ln ~/dotfiles/bashrc        ~/.bashrc                            
ln ~/dotfiles/vimrc         ~/.vimrc                             
ln ~/dotfiles/xsession      ~/.xsession                       
ln ~/dotfiles/Xresources    ~/.Xresources                     
ln ~/dotfiles/i3config      ~/.config/i3/config 
ln ~/dotfiles/i3blocks.conf ~/.i3blocks.conf

rafaelpcarneiro/archLinuxInstallation