Arch Linux Installation Guide (2019)

This is an alternate Arch Linux installation guide created while setting up my workstation. Some of the instructions here might not suitable for different hardware configurations than what I have.

My Hardware Configuration

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 08)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] (rev 07)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 21)
00:14.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Thermal subsystem (rev 21)
00:15.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 21)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP CSME HECI #1 (rev 21)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 21)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f1)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #6 (rev f1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 21)
00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PMC (rev 21)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio (rev 21)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SMBus (rev 21)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 30)
# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5129 Card Reader Controller
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04f2:b51f Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd HD WebCam
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04ca:3015 Lite-On Technology Corp.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 045e:0084 Microsoft Corp. Basic Optical Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Summary

For a generic installations instructions see the official Arch Linux Installation Guide.

Preparing Partitions

Assumption: Storage device that we install the OS is connected as sda.

When setting up a new workstation, I usually wipe out the all partitions in the storage device with the following command.

WARNING: DO NOT do this if you have any data on the storage device that you want to keep. (instead you can manually clear the space new partitions.)

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M count=1

Create the following GPT partitions using fdisk.

Note: if you get a warning as follows while creating partitions;

Partition #1 contains a vfat signature.

Do you want to reove the signature? [Y]es/[N]o:

Choose to remove the signature by pressing Y followed by the Enter key.

# fdisk /dev/sda

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.33.1).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

Device does not contain a recognized partition table.
Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x640f873c.

Command (m for help): g
Created a new GPT disklabel (GUID: 7724150B-F303-394A-B1FA-78F31BA5169A).

Command (m for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1):
First sector (2048-125045390, default 2048):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-125045390, default 125045390): +100M

Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 100 MiB.

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Partition type (type L to list all types): 1
Changed type of partition 'Linux filesystem' to 'EFI System'.

Command (m for help): n
Partition number (2-128, default 2):
First sector (1050624-125045390, default 1050624):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (1050624-125045390, default 125045390): +15G

Created a new partition 2 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 15 GiB.

Command (m for help): n
Partition number (3-128, default 3):
First sector (22022144-125045390, default 22022144):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (22022144-125045390, default 125045390):

Created a new partition 3 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 49.1 GiB.

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 59.6 GiB, 64023257088 bytes, 125045424 sectors
Disk model: TS64GSSD320
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 7724150B-F303-394A-B1FA-78F31BA5169A

Device        Start       End   Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1      2048   1050623   1048576  512M EFI System
/dev/sda2   1050624  22022143  20971520   15G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3  22022144 125045390 103023247 49.1G Linux filesystem

Format each partition as follows:

# mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
--- output not shown here ---
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
--- output not shown here ---
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
--- output not shown here ---

NOTE: I'm not creating a swap partition here, because I don't use swap on my workstations. However, I will be including the instruction to create swap file in a later stage.

Prepare for base system installation

File System

Mount the partition which eventually be the root of the system (/dev/sda2) to /mnt, and create sub-directories.

# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
# mkdir -m 0755 -pv \
> /mnt/{boot,dev,etc/systemd/network,home,run,var/{cache/pacman/pkg,lib/pacman,log}}
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/boot'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/dev'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/etc'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/etc/systemd'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/etc/systemd/network'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/home'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/run'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/var'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/var/cache'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/var/cache/pacman'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/var/lib'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/var/lib/pacman'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/var/log'
# mkdir -m 0750 -pv /mnt/var/lib/iwd
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/var/lib/iwd'
# mkdir -m 0555 -pv /mnt/{proc,sys}
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/proc'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/sys'
# mkdir -m 1777 -pv /mnt/tmp
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/tmp'

Mount remaining partitions.

# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

Swapfile (optional)

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/swap bs=512M count=1
--- output not shown here ---
# chmod 600 /mnt/swap
# mkswap /mnt/swap
--- output not shown here ---
# swapon /mnt/swap

Connect installation environment to LAN/Internet

Assumption: Your system connects to LAN/Internet using the interface wlp1s0.

Enable WIFI connection using iwd. When using a wired connection this steps in this section may be skipped partly or completely.

Connect to WIFI (optional)

# systemctl start iwd
# systemctl start rfkill-unblock@wifi
# iwctl device wlp1s0 set-property Powered on
# iwctl
[iwd]# station wlp1s0 connect ESSID
Type the network passphrase for ESSID psk.
Passphrase: secret
[iwd]# exit
# sed '/^Passphrase=/d' /var/lib/iwd/ESSID.psk > /mnt/var/lib/iwd/ESSID.psk
# chmod 0600 /mnt/var/lib/iwd/ESSID.psk

Then, create a network configuration file (in the target FS), and sym-link it to the installation system.

# cat > /mnt/etc/systemd/network/any-network-name.network << EOF
[Match]
Name=wlp1s0

[Network]
DHCP=yes
EOF
# ln -sv /mnt/etc/systemd/network/any-network-name.network /etc/systemd/network
'/etc/systemd/network/any-network-name.network' -> '/mnt/etc/systemd/network/any-network-name.network'

Start systemd-networkd and systemd-resolved services.

# systemctl start systemd-networkd
# systemctl start systemd-resolved

Note: You might have to symlink /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf to /etc/resolv.conf

Install base system

[NOTE TO SELF] Use local pacman cache

Mount cache server into /var/cache/pacman/pkg of the installation environment.

# mkdir -pv /var/lib/pacman/sync
mkdir: created directory '/var/lib/pacman/sync'
# mount -o nolock SERVER_IP:/path/to/sync /var/lib/pacman/sync
# mount -o nolock SERVER_IP:/path/to/cache /var/cache/pacman/pkg

[/NOTE TO SELF]

Mount pseudo file systems to the target

# mount -t devtmpfs udev /mnt/dev
# mount -t proc proc /mnt/proc
# mount -t sysfs sys /mnt/sys
# mount -t tmpfs tmp /mnt/tmp

For the installation you can use mirror closest to you and later do a full system upgrade using an up-to-date repository. Select the closest mirror and move it to the top of /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.

Note: install all the packages from base-devel group.

# pacman -Sy -r /mnt linux linux-firmware intel-ucode iwd dhcpcd nfs-utils base-devel
--- output not shown here ---

Make the new installation bootable

Bootloader configuration

Make UEFI boot directories for systemd-boot (without using bootctl), copy boot loader firmware and create loader configuration files manually.

# mkdir -pv /mnt/boot/{EFI/systemd,loader/entries}
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/boot/EFI'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/boot/EFI/systemd'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/boot/loader'
mkdir: created directory '/mnt/boot/loader/entries'
# cp /mnt/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi /mnt/boot/EFI/systemd
# cat > /mnt/boot/loader/loader.conf << EOF
> default loader-name
> timeout 0
> EOF
# cat > /mnt/boot/loader/entries/loader-name.conf << EOF
> title Arch Linux
> linux /vmlinuz-linux
> initrd /intel-ucode.img
> initrd /initramfs-linux.img
> options root=/dev/sda2 init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd rw quiet
> EOF

If there are any dump-* files in the /sys/firmware/efi/efivars directory, delete them all, and then run;

# efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/sda --part 1 --loader /EFI/systemd/systemd-bootx64.efi --label "Arch Linux"

Setup system via chroot

# chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Connect the system to network on boot

# systemctl enable iwd systemd-networkd systemd-resolved
--- output not shown here ---
# ln -sfv /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf
'/etc/resolv.conf' -> '/run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf'

Initialize pacman keys

# pacman-key --init
--- output not shown here ---
# pacman-key --populate archlinux
--- output not shown here ---
# sed -i 's/^#\(Server =.\+\)$/\1/' /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Although it might not be necessary for a new installation, do a system update.

# pacman -Syu
--- output not shown here ---

Create /etc/fstab

# cat >> /etc/fstab << EOF
> 
> /dev/sda2 / ext4 rw,relatime,noatime,nodiratime,discard,errors=remount-ro 0 1
> /dev/sda1 /boot vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro 0 2
> /dev/sda3 /home ext4 rw,relatime,noatime,nodiratime,discard,errors=remount-ro 0 2
> EOF

[NOTE TO SELF] Mount local pacman cache when required

# cat >> /etc/fstab << EOF
> 
> SERVER_IP:/path/to/sync /var/lib/pacman/sync nfs noauto,x-systemd.automount,noexec,nolock,noatime,nodiratime,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,timeo=14,nfsvers=3 0 0
> SERVER_IP:/path/to/cache /var/cache/pacman/pkg nfs noauto,x-systemd.automount,noexec,nolock,noatime,nodiratime,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,timeo=14,nfsvers=3 0 0
> EOF

[/NOTE TO SELF]

Set /etc/hostname

# echo 'machine-name' > /etc/hostname

Time zone and clock settings

Setting time zone to Asia/Colombo. Make sure you change the Asia/Colombo text & the zoneinfo directory to match your time zone.

# echo 'Asia/Colombo' > /etc/timezone
# rm /etc/localtime
# ln -sv /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Colombo /etc/localtime
'/etc/localtime' -> '/usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Colombo'
# hwclock --hctosys --utc
# date
Sun Mar  3 01:59:02 +0530 2019

[NOTE TO SELF] Enable synchronization with local NTP server

Set systemd-timesyncd to synchronize system time via NTP.

# sed -i 's/^#\(NTP=\)/\1NTP_SERTVER_IP/; s/^#\(FallbackNTP=.\+\)/\1/' /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf
# systemctl enable systemd-timesyncd

[/NOTE TO SELF]

Optionally, if the system time need to be changed:

# date MMDDhhmmYYYY
# hwclock --systohc --utc
# date
DDD MMM DD hh:mm:?? +0530 YYYY

Generate locale

# cat >> /etc/locale.gen << EOF
> en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
> si_LK.UTF-8 UTF-8
> EOF
# locale-gen
Generating locales...
  en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8... done
  si_LK.UTF-8 UTF-8... done
Generation complete.

Note: at this point systemd will not allow us to set locale using localectl. We will do that after booting into the new system.

systemd adjustments

Stop console clearing at login prompt

# mkdir -pv /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d
mkdir: created directory '/etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d'
# cat > /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/noclear.conf << EOF
> [Service]
> TTYVTDisallocate=no
> EOF

Limit number of TTYs

# sed -i 's/#\(NAutoVTs=\).*/\12/' /etc/systemd/logind.conf

Limit journal disk usage

# sed -i 's/#\(SystemMaxUse=\).*/\116M/' /etc/systemd/journald.conf

Mask unnecessary systemd units that cause delay in system startup

# systemctl mask lvm2-monitor systemd-backlight@

pacman configurations

[NOTE TO SELF] Block pacman from installing mono and/or java runtime.

# sed -i 's/#\(IgnorePkg\s*=.*\)/\1 mono mono-* *-openjdk-headless/' /etc/pacman.conf

[/NOTE TO SELF]

Enable color in pacman output

# sed -i 's/#\(Color\|VerbosePkgLists\)/\1/' /etc/pacman.conf

Disable webcam

# cat >> /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf << EOF
> blacklist uvcvideo
> EOF

Create user(s)

# useradd -m -s /bin/bash -G systemd-journal,wheel -U new_username
# passwd new_username
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

sudo capability

Add this user to /etc/sudoers as we will be blocking root from login in the system.

# cat >> /etc/sudoers << EOF
> new_username machine_name=(root) /usr/bin/pacman
> EOF

You may allow regular user to gain access to a root shell via sudo during the setup in order to prevent any lock-up situation;

# cat >> /etc/sudoers << EOF
> new_username machine_name=(root) /usr/bin/su -ls /usr/bin/bash
> EOF

WARNING: however above may leave your system insecure in some situations and you may remove this capability once it is no longer needed.

Lockout root from login into console or from SSH in. Optionally remove the password hash for root from /etc/shadow.

# rm /etc/securetty
# sed -i 's#\(root:x:0:0::/root:/bin/\).\+#\1false#' /etc/passwd
# sed -i 's/\(root:\)[^:]*\(:.\+\)/\1!!\2/' /etc/shadow

Disable shell history at system level

Note: users may enable/override this from their shell configuration.

# cat >> /etc/profile << EOF
> 
> # Disable shell history recording for all users
> unset HISTFILE
> export HISTFILESIZE=0
> EOF

At this point you should reboot into newly installed system, and login as a regular user.

Exit chroot, unmount and reboot

# exit
exit
# umount -Rv /mnt
unmount: /mnt/boot unmounted
unmount: /mnt/home unmounted
unmount: /mnt/dev unmounted
unmount: /mnt/proc unmounted
unmount: /mnt/sys unmounted
unmount: /mnt/tmp unmounted
unmount: /mnt unmounted
# systemctl reboot

First-boot configuration

Unblock RF-Kill

# systemctl start rfkill-unblock@wifi
# systemctl restart iwd
# systemctl restart systemd-networkd
# systemctl restart systemd-resolved

Set locale

# localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

pacman mirror list

Setup reflector to update pacman mirror list every time system boots.

# pacman -S reflector
--- output not shown here ---
# cat > /etc/systemd/system/reflector.service << EOF
> [Unit]
> Description=Pacman mirrorlist update
> Wants=network-online.target
> After=network-online.target
> 
> [Service]
> Type=oneshot
> ExecStart=/usr/bin/reflector --protocol https --latest 30 --number 20 --fastest 10 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
> EOF
# cat > /etc/systemd/system/reflector.timer << EOF
> [Unit]
> Description=Pacman mirrorlist update runner
> 
> [Timer]
> OnCalendar=daily
> RandomizedDelaySec=1day
> Persistent=true
> 
> [Install]
> RequiredBy=timers.target
> EOF
# systemctl enable reflector.timer

Install yay AUR helper

$ sudo pacman -S git
--- output not shown here ---
$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay /tmp/yay
--- output not shown here ---
$ cd /tmp/yay
$ makepkg -si
--- output not shown here ---
$ sudo pacman -Rcnsu go
--- output not shown here ---

Use yay to reinstall yay, so that all AUR packages in out system is properly installed using yay.

$ yay --removemake -S yay
--- output not shown here ---

Optionally, do a full system update using yay.

$ yay --removemake --combinedupgrade -Syu
--- output not shown here ---

GUI

Xorg

Install appropriate video driver.

$ sudo pacman -S xf86-video-vendor
--- output not shown here ---

$ sudo pacman -S xorg-{server,xinit}
--- output not shown here ---

Configure Xorg to start on user login.

$ cat >> ~/.bash_profile << EOF
> 
> if [[ ! $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]]; then
>   exec startx
> fi
> EOF

Fonts

$ sudo pacman -S ttf-{dejavu,droid}
--- output not shown here ---

i3 Window Manager

Install i3 window manager, and set Alt key as $mod.

$ sudo pacman -S i3-wm
--- output not shown here ---
$ cat > ~/.xinitrc << EOF
> exec i3 > /dev/null 2>&1
> EOF
$ mkdir -pv ~/.config/i3
mkdir: created directory '/home/suda/.config/i3'
$ cat > ~/.config/i3/config << EOF
> set $mod Mod1
> EOF

rofi launcher

$ sudo pacman -S rofi
--- output not shown here ---
$ cat >> ~/.config/i3/config << EOF
> 
> bindsym $mod+d exec --no-startup-id rofi -show run
> EOF

Terminal

Install tilda terminal emulator & launch it when i3 starts.

$ sudo pacman -S tilda
--- output not shown here ---
$ cat >> ~/.config/i3/config << EOF
> 
> exec --no-startup-id tilda
> EOF

Sound: ALSA Support

ALSA support is enabled in the kernel by default. Following installs a set of utilities for configuration and integration need that applies to all hardware.

$ sudo pacman -S alsa-{utils,oss,plugins} pulseaudio{,-alsa}
--- output not shown here ---

Do the necessary adjustments using alsamixer and test and save settings.

$ alsamixer
$ speaker-test -c 2
--- output not shown here ---
# alsactl store

Following instructions are for my personal setup choices.

Bash completion

$ sudo pacman -S bash-completion
--- output not shown here ---

Man pages & viewer

$ sudo pacman -S man-db
--- output not shown here ---

playerctl

Install playerctl to control volume via keyboard.

$ sudo pacman -S playerctl
--- output not shown here ---

iBus

$ sudo pacman -S ibus
--- output not shown here ---
$ cat >> ~/.bashrc << EOF
> 
> export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
> export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
> export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus
> export XIM_PROGRAM=/usr/bin/ibus-daemon
> EOF

Xorg extra

$ sudo pacman -S xorg-{xbacklight,xrandr,xset}
--- output not shown here ---

Extra Fonts

$ yay -S ttf-lklug otf-fira-{code,mono,sans} otf-font-awesome noto-fonts{,-emoji}
--- output not shown here ---

Programming languages and Development Tools

Node.js & pnpm

First install pnpm into temporary directory, and then use that installation as a bootstrap to install pnpm under $HOME. See pnpm documentation for details.

$ sudo pacman -S nodejs
--- output not shown here ---
$ curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pnpm/self-installer/master/install.js | \
> PNPM_DEST=/tmp PNPM_BIN_DEST=/tmp/bin node
--- output not shown here ---
$ /tmp/bin/pnpm -g install pnpm

Rust

Install rust via rustup.

$ sudo pacman -S rustup
--- output not shown here ---
$ rustup default stable
--- output not shown here ---
$ rustup update
--- output not shown here ---

PHP & Composer

$ sudo pacman -S composer
--- output not shown here ---

GUI Applications & Tools

$ yay -S claws-mail evince filezilla ghex gimp inkscape gnome-calculator gnucash \
> gvfs keepassxc libreoffice-fresh meld thunar transmission-gtk vlc rtv file-roller \
> unrar screen mycli dunst
--- output not shown here ---

Firefox nightly

$ mkdir -pv $HOME/opt
mkdir: created directory '/home/username/opt'
$ curl -sL "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-nightly-latest-ssl&os=linux64&lang=en-US" | \
> tar xj -C $HOME/opt
$ sudo pacman -S dbus-glib
--- output not shown here ---

Dropbox

$ yay -S dropbox
--- output not shown here ---

After first run of dropbox completes, and files are synchronized exit Dropbox and, do the following to avoid conflict with Dropbox's auto update.

$ rm -fr ~/.dropbox-dist
$ install -dm0 ~/.dropbox-dist

Syncthing

$ sudo pacman -S syncthing
--- output not shown here ---
$ mkdir -pv $HOME/Sync
mkdir: created directory '/home/username/Sync'

GTK & Icon themes

$ sudo pacman -S arc-gtk-theme papirus-icon-theme
--- output not shown here ---

Vim

$ sudo pacman -S gvim
--- output not shown here ---

And, also install spell checking tools.

$ sudo pacman -S aspell-en hunspell-en_US ispell
--- output not shown here ---
$ mkdir -pv $HOME/.vim/spell
mkdir: created directory '/home/username/.vim'
mkdir: created directory '/home/username/.vim/spell'
$ ln -sv $HOME/.aspell.en.pws $HOME/.vim/spell/en.utf-8.add
'/home/username/.vim/spell/en.utf-8.add' -> '/home/username/.aspell.en.pws'

conky

$ sudo pacman -S conky

Other Tools

$ sudo pacman -S iproute2 iputils openssh tree veracrypt

Telegram

$ curl -sL https://telegram.org/dl/desktop/linux | tar xJ -C $HOME/opt Telegram/Telegram