arch_install.md

Arch Linux recipe

Keyboard

If the keyboard is not American layout, load the target keyboard layout by running the following command:

loadkeys br-abnt2

Internet Connection

Make sure you are connected to internet and your PC has a configured IP.

ip addr show

# or

wifi-menu

Check connection using ping google.com.

SSH Connection

It's also possible to connect to the Arch intall using SSH running:

systemctl start sshd
passwd

Then, open a new SSH connection.

Mirror list

Run following to get fastest mirrors:

pacman -Sy reflector
reflector --verbose --latest 15 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
# or
reflector -c Brazil --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
pacman -Syyy

Partitioning without Cryptography

fdisk -l
cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1

If your hardware supports UEFI, select gpt. Otherwise select dos.

Create the following partitions:

Partition	Location	Size	Type
Boot	/dev/nvme0n1p1	512M	EFI System
/	/dev/nvme0n1p2	25G	Linux Filesystem
/home	/dev/nvme0n1p3	*	Linux Filesystem

Check if the partitions were created:

fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1

They can also be sda instead of nvme0n1 depending on your hardware.

Formatting and making the filesystems

Run the following commands to format the partitions:

mkfs.vfat -F32 -n EFI /dev/nvme0n1p1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p2
mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p3

And then mount them:

mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot/EFI
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt/home
ls /mnt

Check if they are correctly mounted using:

findmnt

Partitioning with Cryptography

Before setup the partitions, load the following modules:

modprobe -a dm-mod dm-crypt

Then format the your storage.

fdisk -l
cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1

If your hardware supports UEFI, select gpt. Otherwise select dos.

Create the following partitions:

Partition	Location	Size	Type
EFI	/dev/nvme0n1p1	300M	EFI System
/boot	/dev/nvme0n1p2	400M	Linux Filesystem
/	/dev/nvme0n1p3	*	Linux LVM

Check if the partitions were created:

fdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1

They can also be sda instead of nvme0n1 depending on your hardware.

Formatting and making the filesystems

Run the following commands to format the partitions:

mkfs.vfat -F32 -n EFI /dev/nvme0n1p1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p2

# crypto
cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p3
cryptsetup open --type luks /dev/nvme0n1p3 lvm

# set up lvm:
pvcreate --dataalignment 1m /dev/mapper/lvm
vgcreate storage /dev/mapper/lvm
lvcreate -L 25GB storage -n lv_root
lvcreate -l 100%FREE storage -n lv_home
modprobe dm_mod
vgscan
vgchange -ay

# format
mkfs.ext4 /dev/storage/lv_root
mkfs.ext4 /dev/storage/lv_home

mount /dev/storage/lv_root /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt/boot
mount /dev/storage/lv_home /mnt/home
mkdir /mnt/boot/EFI
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot/EFI

Run vls command to make sure is everything good.

Base install

Run the following commands to install the base:

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

Create fstab

Run the following command to generate the fstab file.

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

Make sure your fstab file has all previously created partitions.

Go to the new system

arch-chroot /mnt

Configure Linux Cryptography

Run:

pacman -S grub efibootmgr dosfstools openssh mtools linux-headers 

Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and add encrypt lvm2 in between block and filesystems in HOOKS. Then:

mkinitcpio -p linux

Edit /etc/default/grub, add cryptdevice=/dev/nvme0n1p3:storage to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.

Sync time

Run the following command:

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Sao_Paulo /etc/timezone
hwclock --systohc --utc

Locale

Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 in /etc/locale.gen, then run:

locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
echo KEYMAP=us-acentos > /etc/vconsole.conf

Creating the user

Define your root user password:

passwd

And run the following command to create your user:

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash lucasnlm
ls /home/

Use the following command to set the user password if needed:

passwd lucasnlm

Install some useful programs, including sudo and add that user to sudoers:

pacman -S dosfstools os-prober mtools network-manager-applet \
          networkmanager wpa_supplicant wireless_tools dialog sudo

nano /etc/sudoers

Add lucasnlm ALL=(ALL) ALL in the and of sudoers file.

Configure localhost

Run the following commands to define your hostname:

echo lucasnlm > /etc/hostname
cat /etc/hostname

Edit and add following to /etc/hosts:

nano /etc/hosts

# Add

127.0.0.1  localhost.localdomain  localhost
::1  localhost.localdomain  localhost
127.0.1.1  lucasnlm.localdomain  lucasnlm

Install linux-zen

Run the following commands:

pacman -S linux-zen linux-zen-headers
mkinitcpio -p linux-zen
uname -r

Install Grub

Run the following commands to setup Grub using UEFI:

pacman -S grub efibootmgr
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=Arch --recheck
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
mkdir /boot/grub/locale
cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo

Make sure EFI folder is inside /boot and not /boot/EFI/EFI. If that happen, move the inner EFI to /boot.

Create Swap File

To create a swap file, run the following codes:

fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
chmod 600 /swapfile
mkswap /swapfile
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | tee -a /etc/fstab