Table of Contents

1. Preface
2. Pre-install
   1. Load Keymap
   2. Connect to Internet
3. Disk Management
   1. Create Partitions
   2. Format Partitions
   3. Mount Partitions
4. Installing Arch Linux
   1. Installing Packages
   2. Generating fstab
   3. Chroot to Arch
5. Important Configurations
   1. Configure Time
   2. Configure Locale
      1. Edit locale gen
      2. Edit locale conf
      3. Edit vconsole conf
   3. Edit hostname
6. User Management
   1. Adding a User
   2. Configuring Sudo
7. Postrequisites
   1. Enable Network Manager
   2. Configuring GRUB
8. Post-install

Preface

Arch Linux is a distribution designed to be installed and configured from the bottom up, and so has gained notoriety in the Linux circle as being the last or first thing to show to new Linux users depending on how you see it.

I will be installing Arch Linux to a Virtual Machine in Oracle Virtualbox. A pretty strong understanding of Linux and how it works helps out a ton, but isn’t necessarily required.

There are friendlier Arch-based distros out there but if you would want to install vanilla Arch without actually doing so, I would advise using Anarchy Installer or ArchFi.

This VM was created with 2048 MB of RAM, 2 Cores, and 20GB of storage. This VM will not be using an EFI BIOS for simplicity’s sake therefore it will be using MBR. Internet connectivity is required to install Arch Linux so make sure the host is already connected to internet via Wifi or Ethernet.

This was written by shamelessly plaigarizing from both the Arch Wiki Installation Guide and “Arch Linux: A ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕗𝕪 Install Guide” by Denshi.

Pre-install

Download whatever the latest .iso is available in archlinux.org/download, and boot off of that. Proceed into the install medium until you are greeted with a command prompt.

Load Keymap

Set the keyboard mapping to the desired keymap. The default is the US keyboard layout.

Search for the US keyboard layout.

localectl list-keymaps | grep -i US

Enter loadkeys command to the keymap determined.

`loadkeys us`

Connect to Internet

Make sure the Installation Medium is receiving internet connection via output from ping.

ping https://www.archlinux.org

Disk Management

Create Partitions

Partition the disk with the dos label via cfdisk.

cfdisk

For this particular setup, I will be creating 2 partitions: My root partition /dev/sda1 will take all but 1GB at the end of the disk, which is withheld for my 1GB swap partition as /dev/sda2. Refer on how to partition disks here.

Check disk partitions via lsblk.

lsblk -l

Format Partitions

Format the root partition to ext4.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

A swap partition will be formatted to swap.

mkswap /dev/sda2

Mount partitions

Mount the root partition to /mnt.

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Mount the swap partition via swapon.

swapon /dev/sda2

Installing Arch Linux

Installing Packages

pacstrap will install packages to Arch using the pacman package manager during installation. I will be installing the kernel, firmware, bootloader, internet, and a couple of system tools.

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware sof-firmware bash-completion grub nano networkmanager base-devel sudo

You may modify, remove, or add any packages at your discretion.

Generating fstab

Generate and save filesystem tab (fstab) for /mnt

genfstab /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab

Confirm task done with cat /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot to Arch

Enter the Arch Linux system by changing root.

arch-chroot /mnt

Important Configurations

Configure Time

List all available time zones with timedatectl list-timezones. I will be using the Manila timezone in Asia.

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Manila /etc/localtime

Run hwclock to synchronize clocks

hwclock --systohc

Configure Locale

Edit locale gen

Open /etc/locale.gen in a text editor, in my case, nano, and uncomment the needed locales. I will uncomment the Philippine locale so that it could be determined.

nano /etc/locale.gen

Find the locale # en_PH.UTF-8 UTF-8 # en_PH.UTF-8 UTF-8

Then uncomment by removing the hash en_PH.UTF-8 UTF-8

and run locale-gen to take effect.

locale-gen

Edit locale conf

Create a file /etc/locale.conf, edit it, and set the LANG variable to the locale.

touch /etc/locale.conf && echo "LANG=en_PH.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

Edit vconsole conf

Create a file /etc/vconsole.conf, edit it, and add the keymap set the KEYMAP variable to what was determined at the beginning.

touch /etc/vconsole.conf && echo "KEYMAP=us" > /etc/vconsole.conf

Edit hostname

Create a file /etc/hostname, edit it, and enter the hostname for the VM. I’ll set the hostname to archu

touch /etc/hostname && echo "archu" > /etc/hostname

User Management

Set the password of an account with passwd set password for root by simply typing passwd.

password

Adding a User

Add a user with useradd. A home directory is created, the user is designated to the wheel group, the defaut shell is BASH, and the username is named nimu.

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash nimu

Set the password for the newly created user, nimu.

passwd nimu

Configuring Sudo

The wheel group is used as a flag of sort to allow the use of sudo commands. Set the EDITOR variable to nano and run visudo, which edits the sudoers file.

EDITOR=nano visudo

Find # %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

and uncomment by removing the hash. %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Postrequisites

Enable Network Manager

Enable internet functionality by enabling networkmanager service. It is case-sensitive.

systemctl enable NetworkManager

Configuring GRUB

Install the GRUB bootloader to the disk via grub-install

grub-install /dev/sda

Create GRUB config file to /boot/grub/grub.cfg via grub-mkconfig

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Post-install

At this point, Arch Linux is installed. Exit chroot.

exit

reboot or poweroff your system, then detach the installation medium and log in to Arch Linux. The Arch Linux install is successful if you are greeted with the GRUB menu screen, and are able to log in.